Steel Burner

Chapters

Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 16

Prologue

Prologue

It was a dark and misty afternoon, and a strange creature was slowly walking step by step across a dusty and old mountain trail. The creature stood on two legs and was covered in what appeared to be traditional Samurai armor. Upon his left eye was a sharp and destructive looking jagged scar and his helmet disclosed most of his darkened black hair. He stopped in his tracks when he heard rustling in the thicket behind him. He carefully and stealthily let his left arm drop, his hand cautiously on the handle, ready for whatever was to come rushing up from behind him.

For a few moments the Samurai just stood there, ready to strike at whatever would attempt to sneak up on him. After a few minutes of waiting, he decided to continue moving. His hand was still ready to strike if need be. To the Samurai's surprise, the attack came from below, as a hole opened up dropping him down to wherever it led to. To anyone viewing it, it would appear like a child going down a water slide, only without water, a tube, and a happy person.

The Samurai attempted to free his blade from its sheath which proved fruitless as the walls were too compressed, and he could barely move as it was. The tunnel started to curve as the Samurai was sent forward towards some kind of black abyss like hole. As the Samurai met with the hole, everything went dark and the Samurai seemed to no longer fall. He just seemed to float there. After what seemed like hours, a loud booming sound was made. It was much louder and more sinister than simple thunder or the fire of a gunshot. Immediately after the sound was made, a bright flash engulfed the Samurai as he screamed out in agony at the sound vibrating within his head at a dangerous volume.

**********

It was a hot and overactive day in the outskirts of Ponyville, Vigil was relaxing in the sun thinking of his life and how it came up to where he is. Vigil stretched as the sunlight shined beating down upon his green fur and grey mane, ruffled and dirty from his time as a drifter. Vigil had just been kicked out of Canterlot for disturbing the peace one too many times, and after spending the last year going back and forth between Canterlot and Ponyville, he had no choice but to give up being a drifter.

Sighing, he arose and prepared to head into town on his usual quest to find odd jobs he could do for money to get himself enough to rent a room in the local tavern. As Vigil followed the road, he immediately stopped and dropped to the ground in surprise as a loud noise shot through the air. He remained there for a minute, slowly and gingerly he stood up, knees still buckling involuntarily from the shock. He looked around at his surroundings to see what had made the sound and to his surprise, he had found it.

A floating blue-ish yellow orb stood where he had just been relaxing previously. The unicorn's jaw dropped in realization at how close a call it would've been. The orb was smooth and glossy, but seemed to give off a violent static discharge as tiny bolts of lightning crawled across its surface. The green unicorn just stood there, too surprised to react when suddenly the ball started to grow and take a different shape.

Vigil managed to get enough of a grip to mutter something as he watched the orb continue to contort and twist into shape. "The fuck is that?"

After a while, the form began to change faster and more violently. The whole time, it still continued to glow violently. The form began to turn into something living, and armor and a few alien like objects started taking form upon the creatures body. Vigil quickly gained his sense back and ran behind a rock, peering over the edge precariously.

The creature that now laid before him, still blanketed in the light, stood on two legs, similar to a minotaur. After another moment, the light around the creature vanished and it fell to its knees, frantically gasping for air.

Vigil quickly ducked back behind his rock, hoping the creature had not seen him. After a few moments, the thing caught its breath and stood up, his hand grasping the hilt of what appeared to be some sort of bladed weapon.

Thoughts passed through Vigil's head faster than Pinkie Pie could speak. 'What is that thing?' 'Is it going to kill me?' 'Where did it come from?' 'I don't want to die!' 'Maybe I can make a run for it?'.

That last thought caused Vigil to pause, considering the option. He told himself that it was too much of a long shot, he was still far off in the outskirts of Ponyville and he wouldn't likely make it, considering his unathletic nature. The unicorn continued to think of a way of getting out of his predicament when the creature spoke up.

"You. Come out now or I'll make you come out." The voice sounded male and fairly youthful. This only brought more frantic thoughts and eventually he figured his only hope was to make a run for it.

To Vigil's dismay, the creature had already circled around and cut his escape off leaving him to the mercy of the creature.

"Who are you? And what are you?" the creature asked without a hint of emotion in his voice. He broke his stare from vigil and looked at his hands and his body. "... and who am I?"

Vigil's mind was back to working at a rapid pace at this new revelation. 'It can't even remember it's own name? How does that even happen?'

"U-um... I'm....Vigil, a unicorn." He responded nervously.

"What of my other questions? What did you do to me!?" The creature asked, frustration finally breaking through his once emotionless voice.

"I... I don't know! You just suddenly came here out of some kind of orb that shot lightning out! It was all like: 'BOOM!' and 'ZAP' and-" Vigil was stopped mid-sentence, his fore hooves still flailing about to emphasize the sound effects and motions.

"Where are we? What land are we in?"

"Equestria." The unicorn said. "A-are you going to *gulp* eat...me? Or something like that?" Vigil was sweating madly, still panicking about what was unfolding.

"Why on Earth would I do that?" The creature asked curiously.

"Whats Earth? And you look like some kind of monster. Isn't that what monsters are supposed to, like, do?" Vigil stopped panicking, he was now curious as to what on Equestria was he had just gotten himself into.

"Earth is the planet I reside on. Is this not Earth?"

"I've never heard of 'Earth' before in my life." Vigil returned."But you're still not going to eat me right?"

"No! Stop it! I'm a human! I don't eat sentient beings!"

"A what?"

"A human!"

"O-kayyyyy." Vigil said sighing before continuing. "Would you care to accompany me to the next town?" He coughed slightly. "I suppose I could use the company, since you aren't like.. going to eat me and all."

The human just shrugged and they both left for Ponyville. Vigil wondered how the townspony's would react to such a peculiar creature.

The human was having a completely different thought process going through his mind, still trying to wrap his head around his lost thoughts. 'What the hell is my name? Why can't I remember anything?'

Vigil tried to make conversation with a simple question. "So whats your name?"

"..."

"You're freaking weird, you know that, right?"

Chapter 1

Chapter 1; Where it all begins

Both of them walked in silence for what must have been hours. Vigil stopped in his tracks, quickly followed by the human.

"What?" asked the human in a questioning tone.

"Nothing. I just wondering what I should call you."

"I don't care, lets just get moving. The quicker we get to town, the quicker I can figure out exactly what the hell happened."

"How about Orby?" Vigil suggested.

"Orby?...." The human asked curiously.

"Yeah cause, you know, you appeared out of an orb." Vigil responded.

"How about no."

"Okay, how about.. hmm..." The unicorn pondered for a moment. "Oooh! How about, Steel?"

"How about shut up." The human responded bitterly.

They both fell silent as they continued nearing the town. Now that they were closer to town, they started passing by ponies whom seemed to drop their jaws and stare wide eyed at both Vigil and the human as they passed by.

The ponies tried to go unnoticed as best as possible. They scurried away quickly, trying to do whatever they were going to do without crossing the sight of the strange creature clad in metal.

Eventually they made it to town and everything seemed to freeze right then and there. Ponies stood there staring at the human, and the human stared back. The only indication that time had not frozen was a subtle breeze passing across carrying a tumbleweed in its wake. The tumbleweed passing across the street seemed to cause a chain reaction as suddenly everypony panicked and ran off in different directions screaming bloody murder.

Vigil just chuckled a little and responded "By Celestia, you would think Discord was free a second time."

"By who?"

"Never mind... I'll tell you later."

The human shrugged in answer as both began casually walking across the now deserted street. Within a short time, they made their way to the town center where the markets were set up.

Everything was busy and bustling, at least it was until a yellow earth pony with orange hair noticed them both and screamed at the top of her lungs.

Both Steel and Vigil sighed as they watched the citizens fleeing in different directions. It was quite a spectacle to behold, ponies running every which way. They ran into walls, stands, each other, as well as slipping on fallen fruits like banana's that fell during the panic.

Once the market was clear and devoid of life, a loud "stop!" Was heard from behind them. To both their shock, what stood behind them was a small group of local town militia, shaking in fear of what the human might do.

Each of the unicorn guards used their magic to hold steel spears towards both the human and Vigil. The Earth Ponies in the ranks looked ready to charge head first at them, and the pegasi guards were hovering just enough off the ground to hold spears in their hooves.

"Woah, whats the problem here?" Vigil said in a slightly anxious tone.

One of the guards, an Earth Pony, spoke up "Monsters aren't welcome in this town, Vigil. Get back from that thing!"

The unicorn took a look around and decided to humor the guard

"What monster, Charger?".

The Earth Pony was visibly annoyed by this and pointed a hoof towards the human at the still confused Steel.

"Him? He isn't a monster, dude. He's just different looking."

This didn't satisfy the guards and none of them looked to lower their guard. One of the more younger and cockier of the guards decided to charge at the samurai while screaming, weapon trained on him. The human quickly disposed of the weapon breaking it in two and tripping the guard backwards.

All the guards looked at him slack jawed and then made more hostile expressions towards him. Looking down at the half of the weapon that he had broken off, he saw it start melting in his hand.

This distracted him long enough for the guards to completely surround the two. The samurai decided against using his weapons and instead decided to try and disarm the guards as they charged.

Charger went in on their front while two pegasi attempted to flank the human from behind. The human decided to drop low, narrowly avoiding a spear from Charger by a hair. The human made a quick twisting motion and tripped Charger, grabbing his spear and breaking the tip he threw it towards the incoming pegasi landing a blow on one of their wings. The other charged at him, spear raised towards the samurai's chest.

The samurai sidestepped and avoided most of the blow, gaining a small slash on his right arm. Then in one swift motion, he grabbed the spear, broke it in half, and used the blunt side to knock out the pegasi.

The samurai couldn't help but notice each of the metal weapons he grabbed were melting as if they had been placed in a forge. The samurai didn't have enough time to react as he was, once again, under attack by two more guards, both of them earth ponies.

They both charged head on and the samurai jumped to avoid them, only to be hit faster then a blink of an eye by some strange blue blur. The samurai started to lose consciousness as black spots filled his vision. As everything got hazy, he heard lots of noise that started to faze out. "Wait.....don't know.......crazy!"

That was all the samurai heard before he fell into a dark sweet bliss.

Chapter 2

A/N: sorry guy's but this chapter is shorter then it should be because of the 502's earlier this week. i will make sure the next chapter is done asap and things will be back on schedule soon. I promise.

Chapter 2; Wake Up Call

Chapter 2; Wake Up Call

***************

"Omior!" a voice screamed over the sound of whizzing arrows and explosions.

"Omior! Get up or you're going to die!"

The human got up off the ground. He looked around and saw he was in the middle of a battle. Explosions were rapidly booming and deafening from the side adjacent to him.

"C'mon! Our caravan's pinned down by the cannons!" Ahingor said, pausing as an arrow whizzed by, cutting his nose at the base. "If we want to escape with our lives, we're going to have to take out those cannons Omior!"

"Alright. Let's go then, Ahingor." Omior said, grabbing hold of his bow and checking to make sure the strap to his quiver was still strapped to his side.

Omior glanced around quickly. He soon found where the Cannon shells were coming from. Once he caught sight of them he quickly jumped to his left, he looked back to where he was previously and saw a group of arrows whistling through cutting the air where he was only seconds ago.

Omior fired three arrows at the archers taking defensive positions at the Cannons and demolished woodland around them. As he put his hand to his quiver, he noticed he had ran out of arrows. But before he could drop his bow and pull his sword from its sheathe, three warriors came charging towards him and Ahingor, one holding two hammers, two holding longswords.

The one with the hammers charged Omior while the two swordsmen went after Ahingor, who danced around their swipes much like a ballerina on a dance floor.

Omior felt something smack hard at his chest. He flew back around ten feet straight into a tree with a loud 'thump!' He quickly got out of his daze and held his bow up to defend against a hammer coming down, intent on smashing his skull in.

He managed to parry the hammer and grabbed a small knife from his shoulder sheath and swiftly stabbed the warrior in the left eye socket before he could bring another blow down. The warrior reared back and screamed in pain.

Before the enemy could get back up, a peculiar look crossed his face and he looked down do see a rather lengthy sword protruding from his chest. In seconds, the warrior was upon the ground bleeding out, and Omior was up again seeing Ahingor ready to move again, three dead warriors at his feet.

"Just like old times, heh." Omior and Ahingor decided to zigzag their way towards the cannons, avoiding direct damage from the arrows rapidly firing at them.

*****************

The world phased itself back as he was suddenly awoken by ice cold water upon his face. Omior was in a dark, small room, a single candle at the center of the table he was at. He was tied down to a chair next to Vigil whom was still unconscious.

"What the hell happened?" he asked, hoping someone was listening.

"You were apprehended for causing a panic." A deep voice called out from a shadowed corner of the room.

"Really, Einstein? I didn't notice with regular ponies running away at the sight of me." Omior returned with thick sarcasm.

"Enough! What is your name?"

"Omior...."

".... Wait.. What?" Vigil stirred in his slumber and realized what his companion had just said. He stared at the human for a while, giving him the most annoyed and angry look he could give.

The pony out of sight spoke again. "What are your intentions to this town?"

"I simply wish to purchase some supplies and then leave."

"Wait.... but.." The pony now sounded confused "By Celestia, STRINGS you screwed up again!" Immediately the lights flickered on completely, and the room was illuminated completely dispelling any darkness.

The door opened to the right of where the stallion interrogating him was. Omior chuckled under his breath at how the Stallion flinched at his boss opening the door yelling the stallion's name.

"But sir I-"

"No buts about it! Unless its your 'butt' getting fired." The stallion said in an almost threatening manner. "We got things sorted through, some friend of the creatures sorted this out."

"Lets just get out of here already.." Vigil managed to groan out in annoyance. Upon leaving the establishment of terrible interrogations, both were met immediately by stares of different kinds.

"At least they aren't running from you this time." said Vigil with a smirk.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Omior made a dismissive wave at Vigil whom just kept smirking as they moved along.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Adventure Begins

Omior and Vigil had deemed it best that Omior would stay out of site for the majority of the time. While Omior occupied his time making sure not to cause a second panic, Vigil had gone to collect supplies they would need. Though he had a whopping 1,500 bits, it would not last forever and Vigil estimated that it would get used up quickly.

Going from stall to stall, the unicorn already had a hefty amount of supplies, but that would not last a group of two to the next town. He just finished purchasing a few bundles of carrots from a stall when a light purple pony with a purple mane greeted him.

"Hey Vigil, haven't seen you around lately, how have you been?" asked the mare in a cheery tone.

"Been better. Leaving town soon, though. Nice to see you regardless.

"Hold on. You're leaving town again? Where are you heading to?" Berry asked in a curious tone.

"I dunno. Stalliongrad, Manehatten, just somewhere. I'm Leaving today too, I thought I should say goodbye to whoever I passed that I knew" Vigil replied, his mind wondering why he was leaving.

"Will you be back? I mean you always come back no matter the circumstance."

"Different circumstances. Probably not coming back. Getting some more supplies later." He left before she could continue talking.

**********

Omior was sharpening his sword, his mind mulling over his current situation. 'Alright. So I’m in a new land, a land of talking colorful equines who panic at the sight of something different.' He sighed 'Very little memory? Check. No knowledge of how I got here? Check. Slightly bothersome companion to help me figure this out? Check.'

Omior sighed again, this time more of disappointment 'I wonder if this world has mead?'

His train of thought was interrupted by a splitting migraine that seemed unrelenting. The human stumbled around and tripped on a rock, lulling his head, the migraine slowly let up its unrelenting attack on his ability to focus. Minutes passed and it died down to a bearable level. Omior finally stood up and stopped cradling his head.

"What in the hell was that?" He asked out loud to none in particular.

**********

"Thank you. Come again" said a cheery yellow mare with an orange colored main and tail.

Vigil had just finished gathering the supplies they had needed and started for the outskirts of town, where the human said he would be. Vigil tried to keep his mind occupied as he passed through the town, but he kept coming back to the same questions no matter how hard it was to avoid the thought. 'Why am I going with him? What reasons do I have to follow him anyway?'

Vigil kept asking himself these questions involuntarily. After ten minutes of walking he had come to where he was supposed to meet up with Omior.

Vigil sighed inwardly when he didn't see his human companion anywhere to be found.

"Bastard left without even a goodbye, great."

"And which bastard would you be talking about?" Omior said with a sneer, surprising the unicorn from behind.

"Where the hell did you come from?!"

"A little bit of here, and a little bit of there." Omior paused before continuing "So we good to go?"

"Meh. As ready as ever, I guess."

Both of them started on their journey towards the next town.

After a short time of silence, Omior asked: "So where are we headed to?"

"Hoofington."

"Really?" the human sighed "Why must equines make the worst puns for everything? Even unintentionally."

"Is that suppose to be an insult?"

"No. Lets just get this over with."

**********

A lone figure sat in a room inside of a dimly lit cave, a strange helmet laid nearby on a desk with papers strewn about. A diamond dog entered the room with a smirk.

"Boss griffon, scouts say ponies are coming along the road."

"Excellent. Send the dogs and remember to take them prisoner. Take any valuables they have that might be worth something."

"Yes, lord Moon." The diamond dog scurried away to set everything in motion.

**********

Roughly two miles outside of Ponyville, Vigil and Omior were walking carefully down the path. Silently, a small group of shadow covered figures started to surround the small stone pass a mile ahead.

"So that's our plan when we arrive there?" asked Omior sounding as his usual toneless self.

"Well do you have any better ideas?"

"..."

"Thought not. Now lets just keep going"

They soon arrived at the stone pass. A sign was pointing to two paths. The sign pointing left said 'Hoofington' and the sign to the right said 'Trottingham'.

"Okay, so now we g-" that was as far as Vigil got as the human grabbed his head and fell over.

"Whats happening?! Are you okay man?" the unicorn ran to Omior as he collapsed on the ground, cradling his head between his hands. Omior's helmet had fallen off when the rush of pain hit. And as suddenly as it arrived, the pain subsided abruptly leaving both wondering what had happened.

"Dude, are you oka-" two loud smacks were heard as wooden clubs hit both the unicorn and the human across the head, effectively knocking them out cold.

"C'mon, search their bodies and bring them back alive! Take anything of value!" Snarled one of the dogs, and his companions did as they were ordered. The dogs took the bag of bits, the human's weapons, and just about anything shiny or expensive looking from the two.

As the diamond dogs dragged the unconscious bodies away, they failed to notice the large beady red eyes staring intently at them from a nearby bush.

A/N: Hey guys! just here to say that the story is going on a temporary hiatus. it won't be long but it is long enough for me to have to let you guys know.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4; of diamond dogs and griffons

Omior awoke in a cell of some kind; he decided to observe his surroundings to get a sense of where he actually was. It was very old and most likely inside a cave. Few torches were there, just enough for people to see the rooms.

While observing his surroundings, Omior saw the silhouette of Vigil lying in the corner of the cell, covered in a few cuts, but otherwise, relatively fine.

"Hey, Vigil. Wake up." he started, Vigil just groaned, "Come on, wake up."

"Wuh? Ow..my head. Where-where are we?"

"In a cell, most likely in a cave. What we need to worry about is who did this and why."

“Oh, so getting out isn't on our priority list?” Vigil asked.

“Of course we need to get out of here, I just didn't state that cause I was pretty sure you already knew that.”

“Yeah, okay.”

The sound of a person dying was heard on the other side of a wooden door at the end of the hall, just barely in sight of the two.

**********hours earlier**********

A strange green creature of sorts hopped out of the bushes it was hiding in. Carefully, the small creature followed the group of diamond dogs to a cave in the nearby swamps. He jumped behind a nearby tree as the last two diamond dogs stopped and turned around to guard the entrance to the cave.

The creature was a sickly green with giant ears and sharp teeth, He had a small burlap like bag on his back, sticking out of it was multiple tiny spears with razor sharp edges. Carefully, it grabbed two out, one in each hand, then stealthily he sneaked to the far left of both guards.

Cocking his tiny arms back, he aimed to fire his spears off at the dogs' heads. He fired off the one in his left arm and it made for a direct hit to the dog closest to him, cleanly going through the bone and tissue of the skull, and out into the wall above.

The second dog turned to face the attacker just as the second spear came flying towards him. The dog let out a cry of pain just as the spear made contact with the center of the dogs face, lodging itself in the center of his skull.

The creature wasted no time as it ran past the two dead foes, running at a speedy pace through the corridor's. After a bit of running, he jumped into one of the darker corners of the hallways, narrowly avoiding detection from a group of six dogs who were most likely finding out what the commotion was outside.

The creature decided to hurry faster as he made for the end of the corridor and made a hard left. Upon the turn, he entered a fairly moderate sized room in the cave. Inside the room was a door to the right guarded by a dog who immediately took notice of the intruder.

"Gremlin in the caves!" The dog screamed right before a tiny spear pierced through his neck effectively silencing the dog. With a loud 'thud', the dog fell to the ground dead.

Opening the door with haste, the creature slipped into the room full of cells. Calling out in a raspy voice he scoured the cells for the prisoners.

"Hello, creature and pony... where is you?" he said searching yet another empty cell. "Grell has come to rescue of creature and pony thing.. Where is you two?"

Upon hearing this, Omior cautiously peered out of his cell towards the voice. Vigil tried to sneak a glance as well but the creature quickly caught sight of the two and ran to their cell.

"Good! Pony and creature still okay. Stand back pony and creature. Grell shall take care of the locks." After finishing his sentence, Grell pulled a small knife from his sack and jumped up and latched onto the lock. He quickly started to fumble with the locks inner mechanism with his knife. Mere seconds later, a satisfying 'clunk' was heard and the cell door was unlocked.

The sound of dogs were heard at a distance, rapidly increasing in sound by the minute. Omior decided to look through the room to find his items wherever they lay. Vigil stood there nervously looking at the door and every few seconds, Grell.

Then, Vigil decided to speak up: "What the hell are you? And why are you helping us?"

"Grell is Gremlin, Gremlin enemy is the gryphon leading dogs." Grell explained. "Gryphon enslave Gremlins, so Gremlins fight back."

"Who is this gryphon?" Omior asked as he picked up his items which he found by a nearby desk.

Grell never got the chance to answer as at least twelve diamond dogs flooded the entrance and went straight for the three.

Unsheathing his sword, Omior got ready to fight, standing just in front of Vigil. Grell grabbed two spears from his pack, leaving four left he tossed them at the same time. The first spear went through the head of the packs face. It made a clear entrance and exit as it impaled itself upon the next dog's left eye. The second spear hit a third dog in the right leg, causing him to stumble and whine in pain falling to the ground.

Grell pulled a slightly longer spear out that was bladed on both sides as he got ready for the rest of the dogs. Omior ran at the dogs, sword arced far to his right side, ready for a side swipe.

Slashing, Omior took out three dogs, leaving a total of six left. The nearest dog to Omior swung his giant club. From the range the dog was at, Omior had no choice but to parry the dogs strike. Another dog joined him as the others passed the samurai to go after the other two.

While the dog swung his mighty club with all his strength towards the samurai, the other dog made quick weaker jabs with a small knife towards him. This effectively stopped the warrior from making any progress in their battle.

Grell had more luck on his side though, as the four dogs went straight for him to try to kill him. Grell pulled his knife out and threw it at the dog closest to him 'in the place where the sun don't shine'. The dog fell over, bleeding onto the ground, tripping a dog that was behind him.

The other dogs kept going at him in full force, to which Grell ran towards them, double bladed spear held firm in his grip. He jumped through the air, spear colliding with the two in the neck, effectively cutting their throats. He ran at the dog that had gotten to his feet and they both went for a strike with their sharp weapons towards one another.

The dog fell to the ground dead, Grell ended up with a rather size able slice to his right arm which started to bleed.

**********

Omior had finally gotten a strike in at the dog that used speed to his advantage; he took a risky move by lunging his sword at the dog, cutting off the dogs right ear. As Omior pulled his sword back, the other dog made for his arms and managed to make a small cut on his right arm. The samurai wasted no time and used his sword and swung in a wide arc from below the dog to up above the dogs head, slicing him in half.

"Let's get out of here." Omior said as he picked his satchel off the ground and looked to the other two.

Grell decided to speak up "Yes, it wise if we get to safety before Grell gives creature and pony long explanation."

"Human, he's human." Vigil decided to say.

**********

A diamond dog went colliding through the door which was the gryphons quarters. Startled, the gryphon faced the dog and barked: "REPORT ROVER!"

"Intruders! In the cells, they're escaping!"

The gryphon ground his teeth as he gave his order "Release it and cut off their escape."

A/N: And we are back! so good to be writing this story again and just like i promised the chapters will start getting longer. sorry if its inconvienent that the story goes down with the dark tag and all. too much violence jam packed for it to not be set in mature instead of teen.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5;What is it?

Somewhere in the cave, a dark, depressing room held a strange creature of unknown biology. The only light seeping through the bars of the door hinting that the creature was in there. It calmly took in breaths of air at a steady pace.

A closer view of the creature suggested it was chained to the walls with multiple chains around its arms and legs. Many lacerations were visible across the creatures back, chest, and arms, suggesting it was tortured into submission.

The creature roared as it fruitlessly attempted to break its many shackles holding it against the wall. The creature fell to its knees and stayed there in defeat for several moments there before the sound of paws came nearby.

The creature looked up to see a diamond dog staring into the cell. The creature attempted to break the shackles in a feat of rage, finding the will to fight once more. It rapidly jerked its arms forward, intent on ending the diamond dog's life.

"Ah ah ah... That's a bad ogre, and you know what we do with bad ogres.." The dog smiled wickedly.

The ogre immediately stopped and ceased its flailing, staring at the dog with a gaze that could kill the lord of the underworld.

The dog spoke up again. "You will do exactly what I say and we will let you go."

**********

A bloody speared flew into a diamond dogs throat as Grell, Omior, and Vigil rushed through the corridors. Sounds of diamond dogs were heard coming from everywhere as they tried to keep away from them.

They neared the exit when suddenly, all the sounds of dogs stopped. No barking, no howling, nothing. The three stopped quickly, curious as to why the sounds had ended so abruptly. Suddenly, a loud roar came from right behind them, Omior and Vigil turned around just in time to see Grell get thrown into the wall.

Bloody, and covered in bruises and cuts, Grell fell to the floor unconscious. Behind the gremlin was a large, hulking ogre. The ogre had a huge club laying on one of his shoulders as he stared at the two intently, attempting to predict their next move.

Omior carefully let his hand fall right onto his blades' hilt as he got into a fighting stance. Vigil made a poor attempt at looking as threatening as possible, his horn starting to glow in the process.

Omior started to slowly move his foot to the left, as soon as he did, the monster swung his club towards the samurai, screaming in a frenzy.

Omior managed to dodge the ogre's swing, only to be hit by the creatures hand, tossing him back a few feet. Vigil blasted a few bolts of magic at the creatures as it charged him. Vigil was seconds from getting a club to the face when he shot a bolt at the ogre's feet, effectively tripping the beast.

Instead of getting smashed by a club, Vigil ended up being knocked back to the end of the room by the ogre's skull; Knocking him unconscious.

Omior jumped to his feet, blade in hand; he was prepared to take the opportunity to try to harm the mighty ogre while he was down. Charging towards the monster, Omior lunged his sword into the creatures left arm as it was getting up. This resulted in a cry of pain by the mighty beast as he swung his club at the samurai. With a sickening 'crack!' Omior had been smacked away from the beast into the nearby wall of the corridor.

The ogre took a firm grasp of the samurai's sword as he pulled it out, screaming in pain all the while. The monster was just about to smash Omior's skull with his mighty club when Grell jumped onto its back.

Bloody and weak, Grell took his weapon and lunged it into the monster's skull. The beast seemed unaffected at first, not moving at all. When all of a sudden the beast fell to his knee's and then to his side, leaving a pool of blood to quickly form around it.

Grell fell to the ground and limped towards Omior. "Come creature......Pick up pony and let us escape...while...we can."
Without another word, Omior slowly got to his feet. Slowly, he limped over to Vigil, who seemed the least hurt after the conflict.

"Lucky bastard not getting as hurt as me." the samurai grumbled to himself as he picked the pony up and slung him onto his back.

**********Hours Later**********

After escaping the dreaded caves, Grell offered the two a safe place to stay for the time being. After reluctantly accepting the offer, the three headed off deeper into the dense forest.

Thirty minutes passed by in silence as Grell limped ahead of him, Vigil started to nuzzle Omior; This was the last straw, so Omior promptly shook the unsuspecting unicorn awake.

"Wuagh!"

"That's for thinking i'm a pillow."

"U Ah! God! That hurts. Shit! Ow..." Vigil kept yelling as he was placed on the ground.

"So where are we heading?" the samurai asked. Grell immediately stopped in his tracks before slowly turning to Omior.

Slowly, the gremlin responded "We here creature, no need to be anxious."

Both the human and unicorn looked around as Grell just stood there, staring at the two.

"Uh, not to sound rude, but.... what is it that we are supposed to be looking at?" Vigil decided to ask.

"No need be worried pony and creature. This is the gremlin city of Subterra!" Grell proudly announced, pointing to the tree
stump behind him.

"....It's a tree stump." Vigil bluntly announced.

Grell said nothing, he just pulled a root out and kicked the stump, causing it to flick open; A long staircase lead down into a series of poorly lit walkways.

**********

It must have been twenty minutes of walking down the huge staircase before they reached a really old and musty corridor. Grell wasted no time and continued on, expecting the two to follow. The poorly lit and musty hallways started to change; Each turn led to cleaner walls and floors, coupled with better lighting.

After ten minutes of this gradual and subtle change, they reached a large arc in the ceiling that was magnificently sculpted into oversized gremlins wielding spears.

Both of the adventurers were about to continue to follow the small gremlin when he suddenly 'walked out of existence'.
A small wave like effect followed his disappearance and the two started to hesitate.

"Think we should continue to follow and hope for the best?" Vigil said as he turned to the samurai.

Omior put his hand down by his blade and took a minute to think before speaking up. "We'll see. We'll most definitely see."

Chapter 6

Subterra? Never heard of it!

The two companions were amazed at the sight held before them. Past the barrier, Omior and Vigil saw an amazing, well lit, and beautifully carved out city.

They followed Grell through the hand made city. The craftsmanship was amazing and not once did they find a crack or a chip in the structures. The buildings were all unique to each other one; one was never exactly the same as the other, the only common similarity was that everything was pretty much painted the same color; Brown.

After a while of walking, the three started to pass other gremlins that were going about their day, after a few minutes it went from a few gremlins the trio passed, to larger groups of them. Nearly every gremlin either stared on in respect or confusion at the trio and Omior couldn't think of the reason why.

"We almost to castle pony and human. Do not fret at gremlin stares, I have lots to tell."

Accepting this as a worthy answer, Omior, Vigil, and Grell continued to the gremlin castle.

Entering, they went from corridor to corridor; It was extremely confusing, especially when each of the rooms were very dark shades of colors and each corridor was indifferent to the other. But, somehow, Grell lead them through like he knew where he was going, so Omior didn’t question it.

After a while, roughly five to ten minutes, the group stopped at a corridor which was different than the rest. The corridor had two big doors facing opposite of each other rather than a group of smaller doors lined across the hallway. Both doors were guarded by a small group of gremlins, three or four at most. Without hesitation, Grell walked up to the left door and whispered something into the guards’ ears. Both guards looked uneasy as they glanced over to the two odd travellers but the guards reluctantly abided to Grell.

Stepping aside, they allowed Grell and the two travellers entrance into the room. Going in, Omior noted that it was more brightly colored than the rest of the city and was even more carefully sculpted, shaped, and detailed than the rest of the city; And that was saying something.

At the end of the room was a royal throne adorned with odd medals and trinkets. Grell promptly went past the throne after having Omior and Vigil stay where they were. He pulled out a pot of some kind and a stir stick. He placed them both in front of the two travellers and went back and pulled out an assortment of materials of some strange kind.

Carefully, Grell started to mix the materials into the cauldron as he spoke. “Let Grell explain of gremlin past. You two may be able to help gremlins in stopping blackwing, gryphon that did this.”
Nodding carefully, Omior and Vigil sat in front of the cauldron; waiting patiently for the gremlin to speak.

“It all began three hundred and fifty two years ago, in a land that is now a burning wasteland...”

********** 352 years ago **********

It was midmorning day, the birds were chirping happily as they made their nests. Gremlins were working happily in the village and all seemed right.

A group of gremlins were finishing up the construction of another home in their village when a loud roar was heard. A strange gremlin covered in blood came running out of the forest near the village screaming over and over “Timberwolves! The Timberwolves are coming!”

Shortly behind the gremlin, in the forest right behind him, a pack of five timberwolves came dashing out at breakneck speed. Another, bigger, red timberwolf came out into the open shortly after the others. A mighty, blood piercing howl emanated from its mouth as it dashed ahead of the others.

The gremlins in the town were dashing around, either in aimless panic, or in a hurry to gather weapons from the town barracks. There was only a handful that had already been prepared and stared on in fear as the red Timberwolf ripped the running gremlin into pieces. After it was sure the short green creature was dead, it dashed for the poorly made barricades and spiked walls.

It stopped and dashed off to the left as spears went flying towards it, the other timberwolves did the same, but one timberwolf was not as fast as the others and it died with a spear in its head.

Some of the wolves attempted to jump the barricade to get to the tiny green morsels, this resulted in either them being impaled by the barricades spikes, or spears tearing into them and rupturing vital organs.

After a while, there appeared to be only four timberwolves left. The alpha took notice at the lack of numbers and strafed right, narrowly avoiding a few arrows sent flying in its direction. The leader saw an opening in the side of the barricade that was just big enough to break through with little resistance. The head of the pack howled a blood curdling howl as it charged for the weak spot in a zigzag motion. The rest of the alpha’s pack followed in a similar fashion, howling along with it.

The gremlins had gotten ready for battle completely by now and started throwing spear after spear towards the advancing enemies.

They kept this up, but it was to no avail; The alpha made it to the barricade and broke through as easy as it was to cut butter with a knife. With a few high pitched screams from villagers still out in the open, the wolves started breaking through the town, smashing houses and ripping villagers apart. The battle ready town guards chased after the wolves and tried to protect as many villagers as they could. Those of the villagers that were smart and lucky made it to the town hall safely, others were not so luck and died horribly. Some of the unfortunate guards had even been torn apart by the alpha.

The gremlin warriors attempted to get a foothold and hold the enemy wolves back. This method was successful in pinning a timberwolf to a corner where they skewered it alive.

They repeated this for the other two wolves, but ended up failing when trying to do this to the smarter alpha wolf. Most of the village was in ruins and the alpha was ripping apart another house that contained an elderly old gremlin woman.

The guards that weren’t protecting the town hall that housed the survivors of the village were already taking action against the beast. They threw spears towards it while the great monster was busy trying to reach the elderly woman. The alpha screamed out in agony as the spears made contact in multiple places, causing it to bleed sap.

It turned its focus to the guards who stood their ground. Each holding a spear towards the beast. With a sickening roar, the behemoth charged towards puny guards. What happened next, the beast did not expect. Another of the guards, a smaller, younger one, jumped onto the alpha’s back and in a quick motion, jammed its spear into the back of the monsters head.

The alpha stopped in its tracks, it violently shook off the young guard before another three guards came up and jammed their spears into the behemoth. With a sickening ‘Crack’ the creature fell to the ground, dead.

Hours afterward, the survivors started to repair the village. They buried the dead and held their respects, but it had to be brief due to the extent of the damage. The body count was 24 out of their village of 160. It was a huge loss for them and the caravan’s were to come for trading in a few weeks. This dampened their moods as they now had little to trade with the caravans for the much needed supplies.

The villagers knew they were going to have to work harder now more than ever after all that had just occurred.

Chapter 7

History in the making

A/N: the part at the beginning before the story continues is the caravans point of view before they make it to the gremlin village.

The rocks on the pathway started to rumble as wooden wheels crossed the dirt trail. A town was coming into the distance; the wooden wheels were part of a fairly large sized group of caravans, one of which had a very menacing looking gryphon smirking as he watched the town come closer into his view. “Just a few more hours” He muttered to himself.

**********

The caravan’s made their way into the gremlin village, there was a group of six of them in total making their way to the center of town like always. They each stopped simultaneously in a circular like setup. The traders from inside the caravans started to set out what they had for sale, one trader in specific, a gryphon, had a very entrancing orb of some kind that no one could help but stare.

The orb had a certain ‘glow’ to it as he set it out on a small pedestal. The guards of the town set up along their posts kept watch of the caravan groups each time they came through town, just for security reasons. One thing they noticed was that the gryphon was new, and he seemed to be a bit more protective of his items then the more casual others.

The younger guard was ordered to keep watch over the gryphon incase he tried anything. Agreeing, he scurried off to one of the posts that had a clear vantage point.

The townsfolk were starting to enter into the center of town, flocking from stall to stall where something caught their eyes. The guards started to ease up as time passed on and the security detail started to slacken and become a bit more casual.

Time seemed to go on and the younger guard refused to leave his post, he was a bit more paranoid compared to the rest of the guards and he seems to be right in the worst situation. (Though he even started to get tired of it.) Just before he left his post to eat, he took another glance at the gryphon.

He managed to sight the gryphons tail pull money off of a passerby who had no idea it happened. The younger one decided to go over to the gryphon and stop him from what he was doing.

“Halt! No one steals from citizens!” The young guard announced as he walked towards the gryphon.

He looked to his left, then his right before speaking up, “Who? Me?” He sneered, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The gryphon carefully moved his tail into his caravan’s open door.

“I said halt! Claws and tails where I can see them!” The young guard pointed his flimsy weapon towards the gryphon who stopped his motions.

Giving a triumphant smile he said: “Yes, of course, anything you say, officer.” Suddenly, the sound of a latch coming undone was heard. A loud alarm started going off and many of the civilians had to cover their ears to avoid the full force of the sound. The young guard attempted to jab the gryphon straight through the eye, but only nicked his eye as he ducked and dove under his table.

Suddenly, each and every caravan had troops of different species come out, they had immediately started to decapitate and outright slaughter the townsfolks. Many of the guards got cut down as they were either too close and got hit when the initial attack started, or were killed trying to push it back. The young guard looked frantically about when the table the gryphon dove under exploded into millions of wooden shards in all directions.

The gryphon suddenly made a lung for the young guard who reacted a second too late, he got a nasty gash on his right arm at the joint before getting out of the way. The townsfolks were running, trying to get away from the slaughter. In a panic, none of the guards had noticed the young guard’s fight with the gryphon, all except for one guard; An older looking gremlin, grey skinned instead of sickly green; he dashed for the two fighters yelling: “Grell! Get outta there now!”

The older gremlin guard threw his spear at the gryphon, which stopped right before him, leaving the gryphon unharmed. Turning to face the older guard, Blackwing turned and grinned at the sight of the sickly looking guard.

The older guard pulled out a rusty looking sword as he yelled again: “Grell! Go now! This is your superior talking, Grell! Get outta here!” The old guard slashed at Blackwing who dodged to the right, hitting the guard with his left claw. Grell couldn’t stop watching, entranced, all he could do was sit there and watch as his superior and father trying to fight blackwing. He looked around him and saw the rest of the battlefield in his entranced state as well.

Grell saw gremlin villagers being ripped and torn to shreds, tossed to the side or made lunch for whatever had killed them. The guards had taken the majority of the townsfolks into the town hall and he guessed into the secret escape shaft as well. He turned back to Blackwing and his father’s battle in time to see a dagger fly at him and nearly hit him as the old guard yelled again “I said: Get your ass in gear and get the hell outta here, Grell!”

This knocked the young guard out of his stupor; he bolted straight for the town hall, ducking and jumping over other foes as he made for his only hope to escape.

Grell whirled under an attacker holding his weapon straight up, slicing the warrior between the legs. The attacker fell to the ground clutching himself there as a pool of blood A sack made of skin started to float around in the bloody pool.

With a mighty leap over a small group of dead bodies, Grell made it to the town hall. Once inside, he saw the guards that were inside were helping the civilian’s down the shaft. He walked up, and with a salute, asked one of the guards, “So what do we do once everyones down there?”

One of the guards wasted no time in responding. “Some of us have agreed to stay behind to blow up the entrance to the shaft, once done, there will be no way for them to catch up to you and you can make your way to the pony kingdoms.”

“But the gremlins aren’t on good terms with the ponies, how can we be sure we are allowed refuge?” Grell asked as he watched a few civilians stumble before getting down the shaft.

“The ruler of the pony kingdoms has a kind heart, she will not send away any race that has no home left.” The guard responded.

Before Grell could speak again, they heard the sound of a large crack as a few guards screamed in pain outside. A deafening wale was heard as more cries of death became audible.

The guard spoke again: “Hurry, Grell. Go down the shaft; you’re the last one.”

“But what about my father? Why isn’t he coming?”

“He’s one of the few that volunteered to stay. He won’t be joining you and the others.”

“What!? But I can’t just leave him here! I refuse to let him stay and die!” Grell started to raise his voice as a feeling of dread welled up inside him. He attempted to go back out into the battlefield when another of the guards stopped him.

“Stop! You go back out there now and you’re dead! It’s too late for those that are out there and soon us inside here will be meeting their fates.” The guard pushed Grell back towards the other two guards who were guarding the shaft. They grabbed Grell by his arms as they turned to go into the shaft.

Grell kicked and screamed vehemently as the guards started to make their way down into the shaft. A loud cracking sound was heard as the entire wall to the entrance of the town hall collapsed. On the other side, there appeared to be a mutated giant colored blue. The giant was holding something in his left hand, it squirmed a bit before another cracking sound was heard, then it moved no more.

Grell screamed and went into a panic. “Father! Father, no! Stop let me go!” He continued to try to break free from the guards’ grasps as the shafts entrance closed. “We have to go back! We have to save them!”

A loud boom was heard and Grell saw the entrance collapse, leaving nothing but dust and rocks.

“We have to....” He muttered one last time before falling silent.

Chapter 8

What needs to be done

Once the guards had all grouped the surviving villagers into the larger cave at the end of the tunnel, they released Grell. He promptly fell to the floor onto his knees; His eyes were cold, the only emotions present in them was the fear of what was to happen next, and his fathers death.

The guards rounded up the survivors and did a head count to find out just how many losses they sustained. After finishing,a couple of the guards whispered to themselves.

“Bloody hell. They got almost all of our village.”

“Yeah but it could be worse for the neighboring villages, let’s hope they’re as lucky as us.”

“What’re we gonna do now?”

Everyone didn’t know what to do and started asking each other; the only gremlin excused from this was Grell who just sat there, unresponsive to the outside world.

He was lost inside his own thoughts, oblivious to the rising panic all around him. Finally, one single thought loomed through his head, ‘What should I do?’

Grell looked around and finally took in what was happening around him. He saw the people, his people, start to turn against each other. Some had even started to physically fight and the few guards that remained could not keep the quarrels from arising.

Finally, he took in a few breaths to calm his nerves and stood up. Grell knew what to do.

Grell went to the center of all the madness, and in a mighty voice to which the royal sisters would cringe at, he yelled. “HEY! Shut it! All of you!” Every single gremlin stopped whatever they were doing and turned to the young guard Grell.

“Gremlins, look at what we are doing? We are in very big trouble and we might die if we don’t do something while we can..” Grell paused, taking in a deep breath. But before he could continue, another voice popped up from the small crowd of villagers. “Then what should we do, smart ass? If you’re so smart then tell us what we should be doing!” The gremlin looked like he’d won when Grell spoke up again. “I was getting to that!”

Taking in a breath once again, he spoke his mind. “We need to follow the tunnels through to the other villages, we need to warn the ones that are not under attack, and we need to get out of here alive. Once we’ve rounded up and rescued all the gremlins, we can head off into the main tunnel towards Equestria’s borders.”

All of the villagers started to mutter towards one another about what Grell had just said; they all were scared and he seemed to be the only one with a plan. Reluctantly, they went silent and turned back to him.

“We need to split up into groups to make this as quick as possible. Now, there are two routes that are not the main hallways, so any willing volunteers please step forward.” Five out of the ten remaining guards stepped forward, as well as three female gremlins, and six male gremlins.

Once they did, Grell continued his speech. “Alright! Split up into two teams! The rest of you who are not volunteering, stay within the main hallway and we shall meet up with you all when we’ve done all that we can. There should be enough fresh supplies down here to last long enough for our mission and get us to the Equestrian borders. Is there any complaints?”

When no one piped up or raised their hands, Grell smiled and continued once more.“Good. Now how about we get this mission underway?” Grell took a breath and looked over at the volunteers.

With a sigh he picked out who went with who. “You two guards, you female and you three males are group A. The rest of you are with me as group B. If anything goes wrong, head straight for the main hallways and wait with the rest. If something goes wrong in the hallways leave without us, everyone understand?”

With a nod from the majority of the villagers and guards, everyone went to do what they needed to.

After grabbing the proper supplies, Grell took his group through the hallway to the left, group A took the right hallway, and everyone else took to the middle hallway.

The group started to walk, staying at a pace shortly behind Grell as he took the lead.

One of his group members, the young gremlin female, went ahead of the group next to Grell.

“So what do you think’s happening with the rest of the villages...?” she whispered to him.

“Probably already under attack and had the same idea as us.” Grell responded bluntly.

She looked a bit more nervous and looked behind at the group before whispering back to Grell again. “H-how are you holding up? It must be hard, to... you know...” She blushed and turned away muttering, “nevermind forget I said anything,” in a nervous tone.

“I’m fine, let’s just hope the other villages fare better than ours, Lulya.” Grell spared no second glance to her as he sped his pace up, back to the head of the group.

Lulya looked to the ground, a blush present on her face. She started to slow her pace and fell to the back of the group. She scolded herself in quiet mutters as she struggled to keep up with the group.

After a few minutes of the pace they were keeping, they made it to the first village. The entrance was undamaged and there were no gremlins in sight. At first, the group thought maybe they hadn’t attacked this village yet......

....Nope.

They had gone up through the entrance, carefully they looked around. The town hall was more or less undamaged. There was no signs of blood or major sign of damage to the building, so they hoped it would raised the group’s hopes.

Once they opened the door to the outside of the hall, their stomachs’ dropped. The majority of the village was destroyed and in ruin. Whatever buildings that were not completely demolished were on fire. Blood was splattered across every inch of dirt and grass there. Bodies of gremlins were strewn about everywhere like ragdolls a little girl got bored with. Other bodies of similar species of their assumed attackers were also there, but in far less number.

“I think we should split up and look for survivors.” Grell spoke up in his cold tone, eyeing the surroundings.

“What!? You must be mad to think that as a wise idea!” One of the men spoke up, they sounded scared and frantic.

“They obviously already came through here; that means that they are most likely long gone. We need to check for survivors otherwise we could make a big mistake.” Grell said in an almost unfeeling tone.

The group fell silent, nodding to Grell as he stopped and turned to the rest of the group.

“Alright, we’ll split it up like this. You, guard, you Lulya, and you, Gelmos, you’re with me. The rest of you go together, we make this a quick search and rescue before moving on, we don’t have time for dilly dallying, got it?”

With a handful of nods and one not so enthusiastic and more nervous nod, the group split itself and went to search their respective half of the town.

Grell’s group started to scour the town, looking through the rubble and burning buildings cautiously. After a while they were ready to give up.......

....Then they heard the sound of crying, not the crying from a grown gremlin, but a baby's cry.

Lulya was the first to act and rushed towards the sound, Grell called out to get her to wait up for the rest of the group but she was too far ahead. She turned the corner to a building of rubble and stopped. She stared on at what she saw and covered her mouth as tears began falling from her face. At first, the group had no idea of what she was looking at, until they got close enough to see.

They saw the scene before them with big eyes; there was a very weak and dying gremlin, impaled onto a broken wooden board. He was holding onto his child, trying his hardest to keep moving as blood continually pooled around him.

He looked up from his child to see the group of gremlins. In a weak tone, he spoke up. “P-please.......S-s-save my child...” Tears began to fall from his face and mixed into the blood that pooled around his feet, “P-please..”

He took a few steps towards the group and started falling forward. Acting fast, Grell and Lulya stopped his descent to the floor. The gremlin was turning grey from the large amount of blood loss. He turned towards Grell and carefully handed his baby to him. After that was done, he grasped Grell’s hand with some miracle of strength. “P-p-please, promise me, y-you will take c-care of him, please.”

Without faltering, Grell looked into the man’s eyes and responded. “Yes, I promise”

The man gave a slight chuckle of relief and spoke up again. “H-his name’s n-n-n..” The man coughed up an absurd amount of blood. With a few hacks and coughs, he continued. “Neebs.. Take good c-care of him for me.”

“I will.” Grell watched as the man’s eyes shut, his life finally drained from his body as it fell limp.

In a quiet tone Grell spoke up. “Let’s get the others and go.” He turned and walked away, a faint sign of a tear forming in the corner of his eye.

A/N: Big thanks to Nobrains for helping with this chapters completion. The story will be on hiatus as of now. You can check my blog on Tumblr “HERE” or on one of my older blog posts on my fimfiction page for a more in depth explanation.

Chapter 9

The Road Ahead is paved in blood

Back in the tunnels, Grell and his group searched the next few towns in a similar fashion. This time though, they found no survivors. Just empty burning houses and broken dead bodies.

Giving up, they trekked back to the main hallways, hoping they would meet up with the other group soon.

After a while of walking, they stopped and set up a sort of makeshift camp. They had not taken a whole lot of supplies, but they made due with what they had.

Grell held the child to himself as the others passed the food around, sharing equally with what they could eat. Grell was passed a loaf of bread and a quarter for him and Neebs.

For the most part, it was silent. The guards made a silent agreement on who stood watch first with an old game of ‘flip a bit’.

Laying on his back, Grell stared up at the ceiling, his mind filled to the brim with hundreds of thoughts. Lost to his own thoughts, Grell failed to notice the sound of someone sitting down next to him.

Suddenly, Grell’s vision was blocked by a pair of greyish green eyes. This erupted a startled yelp from him.

“Holy shit, you scared me! Don’t do that Lulya,” Grell took a nervous glance across the ceiling before turning his full attention to her.

Lulya blushed and responded in a quiet fashion. “Sorry Grell.”

She turned her head away. Silence reigned for a short time, until a tiny and cute yawn erupted from the child Neebs, who was sleeping right next to Grell.

“Neebs has been through so much in such a short amount of time,” Grell muttered to himself as he picked up the child.

“Mind taking him for a minute? I need to have a word with some of the others.” Lulya silently nodded to Grell and took the baby and cradled him in her arms. Grell stood up and walked to the two guards who are keeping watch.

“How’s everything Glaze, Fives?”

“Everything checks out so far; just an eventful day and hopefully a not so eventful night.” Glaze said. He sighed and muttered to himself a bit as he walked to the other side of the campsite.

“Don’t mind him much. He lost his family when they attacked, he’s just finding an outlet for his anger.” Fives said, placing a hand on Grell’s shoulder.

“We’ve all lost some, and he’s right. Let’s hope for an uneventful night.” sighing, Grell went back to Lulya and Neebs.

As soon as he was in arms distance of Lulya, a cry came from the end of the cave. “Intruders! South si-graaaaaaaah!” A bloody ‘Crunch’ sound was heard as the group got their weapons ready and trained in the direction it came from.

A group of monstrous foot soldiers came rushing through, each with the gryphon’s insignia. The group of monsters came to a halt when they saw the group, they smiled wickedly towards grell in specific. Behind the monsters was a familiar silhouette, it walked slowly into the light behind the monsters.

“You!” Grell hissed.

“Yes, well, it seems there are some survivors down here..” Blackwing grinned wickedly before continuing. “Get ‘em.”

With a mix of war cries, the creatures charged the group. Fives tossed one of his spears towards the attackers and pulled out his shortsword. The spear missed just barely and the monsters’ charge went unhindered. The rest of the group joined Fives in a counter charge, all except for Grell, Lulya, and Neebs.

The group didn’t notice as Blackwing made his way around the battle towards Grell and Lulya, grinning evilly on his slow speed towards them. Grell threw his spear straight on towards the deadly gryphon, only to have him split it in two mid flight.

Looking over to the others, they were having trouble dealing with the monsters Blackwing had taken with him. The battle was unclear of who the victor would be. Pulling his sword out, Grell got into a defensive stance in front of Lulya, blocking Blackwings path.

“I see we get a round two then, boy.” Blackwing opened his talon, sharp nails protruding from the ends of his claw.

With a screech, the gryphon swung his talons at Grell, attempting to rip open his stomach. Grell barely dodged the swipe by a hair’s length as it flew past him. Grell followed up his dodge with a slice towards the gryphon’s arm. The gryphon nearly completely dodged Grell’s attack as he jumped back, the arm of the Blackwing now had a small slice on it.

With an even more wicked smile, he charged Grell.

The sound of steel meeting steel and claws meeting rocks and metal were clearly ringing throughout the tunnel.

Grell faced a large gash to his left arm as he jumped backwards. He swung his blade and left a clean slash upon Blackwings left wing. Both were looking worse for wear, but neither looked to be surrendering anytime soon.

The battle that surrounded them was slowly drawing to an end with Grell’s group appearing to be winning. Blackwing’s soldiers were being forced back the way they came, being cornered as they fell one by one.

Grell managed to trip Blackwing, staggering the mighty gryphon until he fell to the ground. Grell stood over Blackwing with fury in his eyes, he raised his blade, planning to end the villain’s life.

One of Blackwing’s foot soldiers saw this as he was cornered, in a last bout of luck, he threw his dagger aiming for the rocks above. With a clean cut, a small group of rocks came tumbling down towards the two as the foot soldier died.

Grell looked up right in time to have a boulder collide with his forehead, staggering him and dazing him. Grell fell to the ground, coming in and out of consciousness. He saw as Blackwing got to his feet, he lunged forward and grabbed hold of Lulya, laughing maniacally he held a tight grip on her head.

“You have become a real pain in my tailfeathers, boy. Maybe I should show you a reason to give up.” He cackled madly, the others could take little notice as the battle was quickly turning south.

“N-no, don’t!” Grell coughed and wheezed, the blow to his head did more damage than he first thought and he felt his heart begin to sink.

Grell attempted to get to his feet, falling forward into another rock, damaging his head further.

Before falling under the grasp of unconsciousness, he watched as Blackwing started tearing Lulya’s limbs from her body. The gryphon was taking a great deal of pleasure in dragging out the suffering.

Grell watched helplessly as the gryphon ripped her head from her body where it fell limp near him.

The last words of Blackwing’s echoing in Grells ears, “Mmm... this looks like a tasty dinner.”

.....Then nothing.

A/N: this chapter was a lot darker then when first intended and thought up. Hope you guys still like it and sorry it's so short but it was hard to get this down, i'll be getting back into the swing of things soon.

Chapter 10

The Final Solution Part 1

“Shortly after, Grell find himself speak like this from the damage to Grells head. I woke alone with nothing but death around me. Only other that lived was Neebs. We left and found other group and went back to the main hall where Grell and others found they had left. We found them when Celestia had found them. I convince her to let us stay as long as in secret and she agree.”

Omior nodded slightly as he finished his story. Vigil just stared off into space, oblivious that Grell had finished his story.

The sounds of clattering silverware were heard by the entrance as a young looking gremlin stumbled in. “Sorry dad, I got your tea, but it’s kind of cold.” The gremlin said as he nearly dropped it, he managed to stumble his way towards Grell and laid it down next to where he was working.

“Thank you Neebs. Grell is mighty happy to have son like you.” Grell smiled warmly to Neebs as he finished his mixing in the cauldron.

Grell pulled three vials out and filled each of them. He handed one to each of the two and then drank his.

“What is it?” Vigil said as he looked at the vial, even sniffing at it a bit before pulling back and gagging.

“It minor healing potion, Vigil. Drink up and it help injuries heal.”

“Whatever,” and with that, Vigil downed the mysterious liquid, as did Omior.

Omior noted a distinct warm, fuzzy feeling in his chest as he felt his wounds start healing themselves. He noticed how each of his small injuries, even the bruises, were not hot and itchy as the potion did its work.

After the heat and itchiness faded, Vigil spoke up. “Well, we’d love to stay and chat, but we have somewhere to be. C’mon Omior.” Vigil started to drag Omior a bit using his teeth only gaining a few inches towards the door.

“Vigil......” Omior looked to Vigil’s bitter eyes with a calm and worried expression.

“No, they can handle themselves. You saw Grell out there, didn’t you?! They will be fine without us, trust me.” Vigil urged as he hopped up and down in anxiousness.

“You saw their leader fight, and not even alone. I doubt they can handle it if the situation is as serious as Grell is saying.”
“Dude, whoever this Blackwing is doesn’t matter! We can just leave and let this go by us. It isn’t our problem! We can get out of here and go on to the next town without a care!” Vigil started for the door.

“Vigil! We are not leaving a race to be doomed.” Omior was getting a bit annoyed and his facial features showed it.

“C’mon! They’re just gremlins! We don’t need to worry because they got the upperhand of secrecy!” Vigil was now a bit frustrated himself. “You know what? Fine. Either you come with me, or I leave you behind for the next town.”

When Omior did not reply, he spoke up again with a bit of sadness hinted in his voice. “Fine... have it your way...” and then he was out the door.

Grell walked up to Omior who stood watching as Vigil’s shadow disappeared around the corner. He placed a comforting hand on the end of the samurai’s clothing as he said: “Don’t worry human, Vigil will be back.”

**********

Vigil was storming out of the castle within minutes of the conversation he had with the samurai. He had no idea why he was angry but he felt he needed some fresh air. He had asked a guard if he could help him to the surface, to which the guard obliged a bit reluctantly.

They followed a slightly different path towards the surface as they ended up in a different exit, this one a hollowed out tree that was still living and healthy.

Vigil, glad to be back on the surface, smiled goofily as he inhaled godly amounts of air into his lungs. ‘No stuffy caves, no ungodly heat! I’m feeling better already!’ Vigil thought as he took a look at the sky above him.

The gremlin guard failed to notice the large quantities of eyes faintly glowing in the underbrush surrounding them.

Vigil spoke up a bit more excitedly than what he meant it to be. “So, where is the nearest town?” Upon hearing no reply, Vigil got a bit worried. ‘Had the guard left me all alone up here? Expecting me to leave, or not caring enough with the wildlife that could be here to kill me?’.

Vigil turned and saw as the guard’s neck was snapped by some kind of tail. It was reptilian in nature, but showed tufts of fur here and there. The tail dragged the body into the underbrush with it and the unicorn started to sweat.

He turned his eyes this way and that, trying to see who it was that was there. Vigil’s paranoia and self preservation kicked in as he slowly looked around at the underbrush, edging ever so slightly back the way he came. When Vigil hit up against something, he stopped where he stood, his blood running cold.

‘Feathers? Oh shit.’ Vigil looked behind him as the silhouette of a gryphon towered over him, smiling wickedly.

“Seems an opportunity has just arisen’ for us. Take this one alive; he’s more valuable alive than dead.”

A small amount of freakishly mutated creatures came out and grabbed hold of Vigil as he went full on hysterical and flailed about.

Once the unicorn was out of the way, the gryphon sneered as he said: “Do with the city as you will, but make sure to give the ‘human’ the message.”

The rest of the soldiers nodded as they swarmed into the hollowed tree, armor clattering and joyous battle cries sounding the entire time.

**********

Omior and Grell had moved their conversation to the palace gardens; Neebs was there as well but he did not participate in their conversation as much.

“How you expect to get home human? How you say it..? It seem... impossible.”

“I don’t know. I will have to hope to stumble upon it. Until then, I will be doing what I always do: Helping others.” Omior said as he kept his eyes fixed upon the cave ceiling high above them.

Both of them jumped to their feet as they heard the sudden screams and explosions start to come into earshot around the castle. Omior grabbed his sword and unsheathed it as Grell got his weapons. They got outside the castle gates to the sight of fire and death. A large amount of blood accumulated in small pools strewn about on the ground and bodies had already began to litter the streets and the guards were working tirelessly to put an end to the fires and to get the citizens to the castle.

Large amounts of citizens started to pool in from a large majority of the directions, obviously lost in their panics and fear.

On the other side of the city, a group of civilians were blocked off from escape as well as a small contingent of guards who were there at the time of the attack. The monstrous mercenary monsters skillfully used the tall buildings to their advantages, killing off the citizens in small amounts at a time. Explosions rang out as the buildings near them were alight with fire at the bottom floors, the ground showing large black marks where the merciless merc’s had tossed small bombs.

The guard had attempted to fight off the monsters, but were quickly dispatched of as they were not nearly as well trained in fighting agile opponents.

The citizens were now separated into two small groups as the merc’s tossed more explosives, hell bent on causing as much destruction, fear, and death as they were allowed.

“Hahaha! Stupid gremlins very weak. Die!” One screamed as it tossed a spear, slicing into a gremlin females forehead.

The monster laughed maniacally as he saw his shot hit its appropriate target. The citizens were cowering back right up onto a literal corner with little defense of wooden barrels and crates.

The few gremlins who thought it as a good idea to use the wooden transportation objects quickly regretted it as the mercenaries’ weapons cut neatly through them like butter. While explosions did much worse, completely charring the ground and anything living nearby.

The citizens were in a blind panic, screaming for help, mercy, or other futile concerns and hopes.

******

Grell and Omior had just encountered a small party of the mercenaries responsible for attacking the city. A group of four that just upon the sight of, made one either quiver in fear or puke in disgust. They were horribly disfigured and mutilated, battle scars adorning any place not covered by armor.

They yelled out in malicious entertainment once they saw the gremlin and human had no backup.

“This’ll be a fun kill guys. Let’s make ‘em last for our-” the monster paused for dramatic effect, licking the small dagger at its tip before speaking up,”...entertainment.”

The monsters began jumping in circles around the two from building to building. They did not tighten the circle they were encompassing the two in, but still made the two feel as though they were dragged into a corner.

The two stood back to back, weapons at the ready as the monstrous mercenaries laughed and tossed spears in their general direction.

The spears purposefully missed as the group of merc’s attempted to strike fear into the two. When neither of them so much as flinched at the spears, they got a tad upset.

“These two not as fun as the weaker ones. Time for more fun!” One yelled as it pointed its sword towards Omior.

The four immediately darted straight for Omior and Grell, bloodlust in their eyes as they aimed to slaughter.

In almost choreographed succession, Omior made a jump for a low hanging pole on the nearby building while Grell ducked and slid away from the ‘kill zone’.

The four merc’s noticed mid-flight that their targets had split up and once they made it to ground level they split up towards their chosen ‘prey’.

One of them, a four armed merc, and a skinnier and more agile of the group, had chosen to go after Omior; while the two others, a bulky and tough merc and a more serpent looking merc, went after Grell.

Omior faced a quick succession of steel shooting towards him one after the other, he started to accumulate small cuts around his body as he started falling behind on blocks and parry’s. The other of the two had jumped up to the building to his left and watched on a flagpole with glee.

Omior noticed as he managed to daze the four armed monstrosity that the agile merc was ready to pounce in and deal a final blow. After noting this, he managed to back away as the four armed individual fired off all four arms at him at once, slicing at his arm a bit, but otherwise leaving him unharmed.

This time Omior took the offensive and struck at the four armed merc’s left leg giving the monstrosity a gash on his leg. This also gave Omior a cut on his back. Lucky for him it was a rather thin cut.

The four armed merc fell onto his one good knee and the more agile of the two decidedly leaped out in annoyance all at the same time. He readied his sword aimed to kill Omior in one hit when the samurai dropped to the floor. The blade continued its path and missed by an entire foot. Once the blade passed the samurai, he quickly got to his feet and slashed out towards his very agile opponent.

The blade cut neatly through as the merc was split in half, organs falling to the floor and blood spraying around, pooling into the ground.

“Damn monkeys are too jumpy for me anyway,” Omior said as he turned towards the four armed warrior.

The warrior had already gotten up and looked on at the samurai with unending rage and frustration. Obviously slowed the the wound in his leg, the mercenary rushed Omior and attempted to throw everything he had towards the samurai.

The blows never came as a spear was cleanly lodged into the mercenaries’ head. Apparently, a guard that was nearby had decided to help and Omior was impressed as the malicious monster fell and skidded across the ground in front of him.

The guard continued on his way and Omior turned to Grell’s general direction...........

Grell had a small gash in his left arm as the serpent like merc lay dead at his feet. Grell had his weapon locked against the other strong merc that looked just as cocky as when their fight began. The warrior decided to fight dirty as he spit in Grell’s left eye before kicking him a few feet away.

Right before he slammed his sword into the gremlin’s face, a sword removed the muscle-y tough guy. The sword that was once aimed at Grell’s face now limply jabbed into the dirt next to him, barely nicking his ear.

Omior held out his hand to Grell as the body fell to the ground, Grell gratefully took it, laughing in relief at the untimely rescue.

Before he could say his thanks, a large amount of screams filled their ears. Grell and Omior silently nodded as they sprinted towards the sound of danger.

Chapter 11

The Final Solution Part 2

A guard was split in half by the time Omior and Grell reached the location of the scream. A female gremlin was cowering as three of the attackers had surrounded her and something she was carrying.

No, not something, a baby. Dammit all.

Omior bellowed out a war cry, gaining the three killers’ attentions. They turned, and with wide grins, two of them charged out while the other turned back to the woman.

Grell saw the third go back and get ready to kill his prey and spoke up as he grabbed one of his steel, poison tipped spears, “No! Get away from them!” He stopped and grabbed a second spear from his pack, he threw them both, one at the monster mercenary going after him, and one between his legs on a straight path for the one behind him.

The first spear hit the merc right where the sun don’t shine and he reared backwards in immense pain. He grabbed hold of the spear and yanked it out, it dragged a vein with it and he cried out in fear and even more pain as an artery started to bleed out onto the ground.

The other spear hit its intended target as well, jamming straight into the merc’s spine, the merc turned around and faced Grell with pissed off eyes. This only caused the woman to take a chance and kick the spear in further, snapping his spine at its base and crippling the monsters legs.

Omior sliced through the third one and it fell, half to the left, half to the right. Blood seeming to drop all at once.

Grell stabbed another spear into the first merc and he died quite quickly, almost begging for it. The third one both Grell and the samurai got to, it leaned itself against a wall and laughed at the two.

The gremlin leader continued on, unaffected by the bout’s of confident laughter coming from the wounded foe. But Omior stopped where he was and thought for a minute, he started to observe his surroundings, expecting a trap that may have been delicately laid.

Both of them froze, however, as the mercenary spoke up. “We’ve got your pony human.” the merc laughed dementedly, he coughed up blood seconds later.

“We’ve got him and you won’t be seeing him anymore. Boss took him, you’re never getting him back!” the merc was now wide eyed laughing openly in an impossibly more nutty manner.

Omior had already rushed up to the fiend and lifted him off the ground by his chest armor, he slammed the monstrous mercenary against the wall, causing the spear to go the rest of the way through him.

Omior spoke up with a cold calmness that spread fear through all who heard it, “and where would that be.” His eyes seemed to glow slightly the color of purest black as his hands followed as well.

The mercenary smiled a broken tooth smile before responding, “the river’s length, the soldiers club, the monsters mouth where you’ve been eatin’ and thrown up.”

The edges of the merc’s chestplate started to simmer and smoke began to arise on it.

“Where is it?! Speak up or i’ll rip you to pieces. No games, where is he!” Omior laid a few punches on the mercenary and blood started spilling out of his mouth. The samurai knee’d the merc in the chest and the monster immediately emptied the contents of his stomach.

The wound the mercenary had sustained previously had already dropped a fair amount of his blood and the merc was losing consciousness quickly.

“Dammit! Tell me. Tell me....” Omior silenced himself and let the merc drop to the ground, dead.

The fight’s in the city went on and on for a few hours, explosions and clashing steel drowned out the screams of death and cries of maliciousness. The fights died down as the guards managed to push the mercenaries to the hallways.

Once they were pushed to the thin hallways it was much easier to take them down and get them out. The mercenaries’ bodies flooded the hallways, the guard’s bodies in far less amounts. Once the merc’s reached ground level they took off in a faster hurry then the flash if he ever got high.

The gremlin guards cheered in pure joy as they had pushed back the enemy. All except for the human samurai and the leader of the gremlins.

“So, what do we do now? How do we find vigil?” Omior asked as he stared off into the darkness of the forest thicket.

“We find pony friend Vigil. Nothing else about it, Omior.”

“But how? The riddle we were given made no sense to me, and I don’t think it made sense to you either.”

“Silly human, it not supposed to make sense. The merc told us where pony is unintentionally in crappy rhymes.” Grell paused and took a step forward before continuing. “We go back to where they catch you.”

********** Somewhere ten miles off

A squirrel was scurrying around, foraging for food. It smelled a sweet scent like acorns and went giddy at the thought of a meal so delicious as it. The squirrel chased the trail up to a bush that seemed to be covered top to bottom with it. The small critter jumped for joy at the seemingly endless amounts of delicious food before indulging itself in the delicacies.

The surrounding bushes rustled a bit and the squirrel stopped and looked around. ‘Was this not free gain?’

The squirrel heightened his focused attention and waited for another sound to signify life. He looked around in frightened confusion until finally........*snap*

The sound was faint but just close enough for the squirrel to become uneasy. He slowly abstained from the onslaught of indulgences and backed away from the bush, taking out the acorn already in his mouth and placing it on the ground near the bush. It quickly turned to the direction away from the sound and went running off, scurrying for its life from whatever was there.

It accidentally ran straight into Blackwing’s leg. He was not amused by the petty thing running into him and grabbed it with his claw.

He started squeezing onto the poor helpless being as it squealed in pain and fear at almost inaudible levels. After a few seconds, a distinct crack was heard and the squirrel fell limp, most likely dead. The griffon then tossed the pile of meat into his mouth and, with a few brief bites, swallowed his meal whole.

He kept walking in the same direction, undeterred by the small snack he strayed off the path for. Within minutes he made it back to the cave he had been using, it had guards out who saluted Blackwing immediately upon sight. After which, they opened the door and allowed passage.

He smiled inwardly in a sinister manner at what he could do to Vigil while waiting for the samurai and the pesky gremlin.

Blackwing stopped two diamond dog guards and tossed Vigil at them, once they caught the unicorn they looked to him for an answer to their curiosity.

“Take this one to the torture room and make sure he’s secured, clear the area too.” He walked past them and in a near mumble he said: “I’m going to need room to kill.”

Chapter 12

The Final Solution Part 3

The two guard(dogs) at the front had been taken care of. Omior and Grell were standing there with seven other guards; they were ready to enter.

Grell spoke up the the other guards. “Remember, go in, get pony, get out. Keep quiet.” The gremlins nodded with agreement, weapons at the ready.

Omior took the lead, and with a loud groan from the door, it opened up to the same familiar corridor as when they escaped.

“Back into the frying pan I believe.” Omior muttered to himself as he snuck in, putting out the fire on the torch.

They kept moving and found it odd that there were no guards making rounds, they nonetheless kept their eyes peeled for traps. It was quiet.....too quiet.

They came up to a two way corridor where a guard had just turned his back at.

Omior snuck up behind the diamond dog and made a silent ‘shh’ with his fingers as he pulled out a knife, readying to take the dog down.

He quickly tripped the dog, and before he could yelp in pain, the samurai had grabbed his head and smashed it against the nearby wall. After that, he held a knife to the dog’s throat and said in a low and menacing voice, “A pony was taken a few hours ago. Where?”

“I-I don’t know, please let me go I don’t know anything!” The diamond dog barked out in fear.

Omior stood over the dog, silent. For a minute the dog seemed hopeful, it was shattered as the samurai lowered the knife and cut off the dog’s thumb.

The diamond dog screeched out in pain and the knife went back to its place at the mutt’s throat.

“Pl-please, I really don’t know anything.” The dog said in a quieter, more shaky manner.

Omior repeated the process and kept repeating it until the dog had only two fingers on his right hand. Finally, the dog broke down and yelled it out at the top of his lungs.

“Th-their h-holding him at t-t-the torture chambers. I swear that’s all I know! No more. Please!”

Omior got to his feet, dragging the dog up with him. The diamond dog just clutched his nearly destroyed hand close to his chest and cried a bit.

“Take us there,” was all the samurai said in his cold and menacing tone.

The dog just nodded and turned to lead them down the corridor he came from.

**********

They came to a stop at a single, lone door. It was a simple one that was inconspicuous just by the look. The perfect place to hide a torture chamber.

“So does this mean I can go?” The dog nervously whimpered out.

“Not quite.” Omior stabbed the dog in the neck and watched as he fell over and collapsed on the ground, attempting to bring air into his slowly starving lungs.

Omior kicked the door with a mighty amount of force, causing it to break off its hinges and land on the ground. He rushed in and saw the room was nearly pitch-black. The only light was an ominous and eerie one, coming out just above where Vigil was. He had some lacerations here and there but was otherwise unharmed.

The samurai wasted no time in getting to him and cut him free with ease. The unicorn fell to the floor, unconscious. Omior was just about to pick him up again when the sound of bellowing laughter filled the room. It came from the dark recesses of the room, somewhere inside the pitch-black area. The Gremlin guards went into formation, eyeing each of the dark areas, ready for what might come out of them.

A surgical knife came flying from one of the corners and hit a guard square between the eyes. The guard fell limp on the ground and his spot was filled, the circle closing tighter in itself.

“Where is you, monster gryphon!?” Grell yelled as he tried to perceive any kind of silhouette in the darkness.

A very evil chuckle came from the shadows, Grell couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

Blackwing’s voice came from seemingly everywhere as it sounded, “No. I think I’ll play with my new toys from here. Of course, maybe after I’ve had my fun.”

Two more surgical tools went flying from two different parts of the room, the first guardsman ducked under it and the guard behind him payed the price. The second tool was caught mid-flight and thrown back into the darkness where it came from. A clang indicated a missed hit and the guards broke formation to make them harder to target.

By now there were but four guards left alongside Omior, Grell, and the unconscious Vigil. Omior held onto Vigil and eyed the darkness, attempting to discern the fiend’s location within it. Grell was doing the same as the gryphon just kept picking them off, one by one. Maniacal laughter continued to ring in the big room and Omior had enough.

Another guard was hit in the direct center of his face by a fork and fell to the ground dead.

As this happened, the samurai grabbed the loose torch off of the wall and threw it at the darkness roughly at the area where the laughter could be heard from. This lightened up that side of the room for the most part, but put them in darkness. They managed to catch sight of the gryphon as he ran to get away from the light, his shadow following his movements. Grell chased after the villain, weapon ready to strike.

He swung it down in an arced motion and the unsatisfying sound of metal meeting stone rang out. A talon striked out from the shadows and hit Grell in the chest, causing him to fly back like a ragdoll being thrown away by an ungrateful three year old girl. Hit hit the ground and the three guards helped him to his feet. He had a bloody claw scratch now adorning his chest. During this time, another claw came out from the dark recesses of the room and sliced a guard directly in the eye, gouging it out and pulling bits of brain matter with it.

The gremlin couldn’t even scream when it happened. He fell to the ground dead before he could realize it. Grell got to his feet and unsteadily picked his weapon back up. Now the soldiers had moved back into the light and kept an eye upon the shadows. The only notable sounds now were the scurrying of talons on the ground or wing beats from Blackwing’s wings.

Vigil began to stir as the sound seemed to come closer to them and the sense of impending doom filled the stale and distressing atmosphere. Omior managed to catch a glimpse of a fast moving shadow in time to dodge a talon that attempted to decapitate him. This time he managed to get a swing back and the sound of the samurai’s fist connecting with bone was heard. Omior tried to grab for the mischievous villain but only managed to grasp the empty vastness of that which is air.

Blackwing laughed and another object much similar to a small dagger was shoved inside one of the guard’s skulls, the edge just barely jutted out of the other side. They needed to think fast if they wanted to survive.

Vigil finally awoke from his unconscious slumber to see this happen, he was struck with fear at the sight as small squirts of blood hit him in the face. He nearly screamed, but Omior covered his mouth, only a muffled yelp was able to erupt slightly. Blackwing took the opportunity and slashed at the samurai’s back, creating a sizeable cut from top to bottom.

A small cry of pain escaped Omior’s lips as soon as the gash was made. Small bits of blood came out at a slow drip. The samurai swung his arm backwards in an attempt to hit the dang winged bastard but missed, hitting only a cold lump of stone.

Vigil started to hyperventilate as he saw where he was.

“Shit! shit! shit! What the fuck’s going on?!” Vigil half screamed half yelled out as he saw all the bodies just barely shone by the light of the torch.

Grell had picked it up and started waving it in random directions, hoping to catch sight of the gryphon that lay in the shadows he alighted. Alas, it was all for not, Blackwing was just too fast for the light to catch him and it resulted in endless lighted up empty spaces.

Suddenly, a voice came from behind Grell, one that made him drop the torch and dive forward. Unfortunately, this resulted in a gash to his leg.

The voice rang out. “Looks like you lose.”

Chapter 13

The Final Solution Part 4

Neebs was pacing back and forth. He was exasperated and emotionally depressed, fearing the worst may befall his godfather and leader of his people. Grell’s advisor just sat where he was, in meditation.

‘Probably just trying to get his mind off of this.’ Neebs thought to himself.

Neebs was going in endless circles with thousands of paranoia filled thoughts playing with his emotions and mind. Dancing in the endless chaos that they thrived in. Neebs knew that he was next in line to lead his people should Grell meet his end, but Neebs hated that idea, he hated it because it meant his loving family would be gone, and Neebs thought of himself as unprepared to lead. “He has to come back. He has to survive this or we’re in big trouble.”

The advisor slowly edged his eyes open and turned to the worried gremlin. “Calm yourself, child. You are more than ready to lead your people should your father fail, but you worry too much; Grell shall return, and with it, a new age of freedom from the oppression of our enemy.”

“How can you say this, Grendel?! You sound as if father is already dead!” Neebs was letting his anger out towards the one being in the room that didn’t deserve it.

“No child, I merely say that you are more than capable of taking charge. You have the same characteristics Grell has. We have nothing to fear, he will return, I promise you this.” Grendel sounded so sure of himself, so confident, if only Neebs knew how unsure and unsettled the advisor really was.

“Maybe you’re right Grendel. Maybe I am just worrying over nothing.” Neebs smiled a thin smile to the advisor Grendel as he started for the royal kitchen. “How about some tea?”

**********

Grell cried out in pain, his left leg was staring back at him from near the torch. Omior was standing over Grell, locked in a deadlock with Blackwing. Vigil was panicking and running in circles.

Omior’s hold was beginning to weaken and his sword started to close in on his own chest at a slow pace. Grell was still trying to get up and his left leg was now useless, it barely held any strength to hold him balanced.

But Grell fought through it, leaning on his weapon as the blood pooled out of his leg. Vigil was regaining his senses and attempted to hit the gryphon with a spell, this only ended up as a few sparks before diffusing. He began to panic again, trying to fire another spell with the same results. Whatever was happening was affecting his magic and that filled Vigil with dread.

In the meantime, Grell had gained his balance and Omior’s hold was nearly to it’s breaking point. Acting fast, Grell wobbled into the deadlock head on, weapon at the ready.

Blackwing broke the deadlock and kicked Omior across the room, against the far wall, masked in darkness.

After that, he focused his attention onto the wounded little runt of a gremlin that was Grell. With the fire of three suns in his eyes, he lunged forth, attempting to behead Grell. The gremlin was filled with dread, he lifted his spear and held it there backing his face away from where the gryphon was coming from. Vigil kept attempting to end the battle with his magic, but his horn refused to aid him and only sputtered magical sparks, each spell diffusing itself.

The sound of bone meeting talons and steel meeting flesh echoed out faster than the blink of an eye. Vigil’s eyes went wide, his bones chilled at the touch and his faced turned a pale white at the sight before him. Omior managed to get up from his delirium caused by the knockback from the gryphon and had a similar reaction.

Grell peaked his eye open, not knowing what to expect. He looked to the gryphon and saw his spear had landed directly in the villains heart, straight through to the other side. On the sharp pointed end of the spear that jutted out of the back of the gryphon was a familiar and grotesque sight. It was something so amazingly scary to see, it unnerved those who saw it.

.......the gryphon’s heart. Still beating in its endeavor to try and survive. It had been spiked through and seeped blood at a steady rate. Veins were still connected and poked out of the wound, forced against it by the spear.

Grell was about to smile at his victory when he felt a sudden wave of fresh pain hit his chest. He looked down and his mouth was dry, his blood ran cold and he was ghostly white. His chest had five claw marks along it, even a talon was still jutting out of one at the end. His organs, muscles, veins, all of it along those five marks. All of it was visible through a thin layer of skin that bled heavily with red. Blackwing’s heart stopped as the last wall of weak tissue broke and Grell’s organs spilled out of him.

Blackwing fell straight to the ground, tongue lolled out as his crimson blood pooled about him, turning black against the cold stone floor. Grell attempted to stop his descent out of reflex and landed on his knees, eyes wide in fear.

It only took seconds, mere seconds and those eyes filled with hate and revenge turned nothing but clear blue, echoing a ghostly story never to be released in his perspective.

..........Grell was dead.

********** Hours later

Omior and Vigil were walking the same road they did only more than an hour or so ago. Grell’s body limp in Omior’s unnerved grasp.

Vigil looked downtrodden, truly worried of what the city would do now that Grell met his end.

What was left of Grell swayed back and forth in the samurai’s rather loose grasp. Grell’s eye’s had long since was wide displaying his original, pure, raw emotion that was there when he died. All of his fear, his pain, his sadness, and...

....his acceptance.

They entered into the walkway, avoiding the dead bodies, a few of the living dragging the bodies to either be buried or burned. They stopped and eyed the carcass Omior hold intensely and fearfully stopped to follow the samurai and his unicorn compatriot.

As they walked along, dragging their feet/hooves, more and more followed the two downtrodden companions, falling in line moral wise.

Every which way were gremlins trying their best to repair the damage done during the attack. Many of the fire’s were dying down or being put out, but the damage to the buildings and landscape was immense, far more than first thought.

Eventually, they made it to the castle. It was in far better shape than the rest of the city, but still had collapsed walls and small fires around it. When the guards saw the two walking up, they allowed them through. The group following Omior and Vigil had grown quite a bit now, they were rather quiet for the size of the group, not one speaking up; all of them looked too sad to even speak.

********** The gremlin throne room

Neebs had gotten himself riled up with paranoid thoughts again, pacing endlessly, creating a sizeable groove in the stone flooring. Onlookers would have thought that Neebs ordered a small walkway to be built where he was going around in circles at.

Grendel had not moved from his spot since Neebs had left for tea and came back, his cup was long since cold and skin formed atop it. He was breathing in and out to keep himself calm for whatever resulted with Grell. He was silently torrenting himself with endless bashing of thoughts that floated inside his skull.

His thoughts were broken by the creaking and sputtering of the throne room doors, the decrepit doors almost cracked at the force needed to move it. On the other side were many of the citizens and guards, but that’s not what sent chills down Grendel’s back. Nor was that the reason Neebs fell to his knees when the other side was visible.

On the other side was indeed his father, the samurai, and the unicorn. But it was a sad moment, Grell, his loving father, the one who took care of him through thick and thin, helping him grow into the young gremlin he was, was now just a cadaver, his stomach was ripped to shreds and devoid of organs, his soulless eyes seemed to stare straight into Neebs’ teary eyes.

He broke down crying, the condition his father was in was enough to tip Neebs over the edge and he let everything out, all those worries and fears and thoughts came with the waterworks that were already on the edge of appearing. The floodgates had been released and not one soul there was in any mood other than depressed and sad.

Omior carefully laid Grell’s motionless body at Neebs’ feet. His face was red and stained with the quickly dissipating tears that fell freely with his cries and moans of despair.

No one knew what to do, no one had a clue as to what the future would hold now.

Things were getting bad fast.......

Chapter 14

Brought into a new light

**********days later

Neebs had long since retreated to his room. Very little was accomplished in the field of getting him to leave and Grendel had no choice but to take temporary leadership. Omior and Vigil were in a room that was specifically set up for them.

Vigil stared out at the city that not long ago had been turned into much of rubble. The buildings had almost been completely repaired and the unrepairable was being demolished at random intervals. Very few animals left their homes because of the random destruction of the unrepairable and the sound of loud construction around the city. Vigil kept to himself the entire time they’ve stayed at the moderately sized kingdom that lay underneath his own.

A single lone bird flew across the sill that the unicorn laid at. He felt they would never get moving at the rate things were going. Omior had refused to leave until he knew the kingdom they were in had a future with a leader fit for the crown.

They tried everything short of force to get Neebs to leave the room, only leaving food at the door proved to gain any footing as he had to open his door to get it. Well, that and using the toiletry. Thanks to the luck of construction, the room Neebs chose to reside in lacked a proper bathroom.

But even still, it was hard to get him to respond to anything anyone said. Grendel was the best chance at this rate, for that’s who Neebs would converse with. Although they were short, fragmented sentences that were to the point, it was much progress.

The day’s melded together and Vigil felt almost as if this was one long day. He was taken out of his stewing over his own thoughts by Omior who came through the door with a bit of a kick in his step. It was very subtle, but the unicorn could discern it was more of a hop than a step so he assumed some good progress happened.

“So what’s the word on our little emo prince?” Vigil mumbled out as he turned back the the view the window gave him.

Omior gave Vigil a huge smile, knowing he wasn’t looking but still paying attention. He spoke up with a bit of a moral boost in his voice. “We finally got through to him.”

Vigil’s ears shot up and he turned his head towards the samurai. “Really? Is it finally time for us to go?”

“Almost, I have one final job to accomplish, so I would estimate at least an hour at most three.” Omior was talking as he gathered supplies around the room, a small canteen of water, a bit of food for lunch, even a compass and a dagger. Vigil didn’t know what the dagger was for and was nervous and antsy whenever Omior had a need for his weapon, even if it was so unnecessary to worry.

Once he collected all that he needed, the samurai muttered a response that was just audible. “See ya later,” and then he was gone.

**********

Omior went through the corridors in an almost automatic way. He turned left and right in a random yet knowing direction. He eventually came to two doors that were his size, it was one of the few that had no guards in it. He pushed the door opened and quietly crept in. He slowly shut the door to make the least noise possible.

Once that was done, there was no light other than the bit that shone through the crack at the foot of the door. It splayed out and showed a tiled floor with similar tiled walls. A mirror was standing above a non tiled square cabinet that seemed locked. The samurai discreetly moved across the room with ease, avoiding random objects lazily strewn across its floor. Once up to the mirror, he lit a sort of match like stick and placed them onto the torches on either side of the mirror. They sparked to life and the room lit up with an orange glow to it. Now visible, it was easy to determine that this room the samurai was in was not that of a job to which was a necessity, but of a luxury.

He laid his knife down at the edge of the sink and started pumping the lever connected to the faucet of the sink. Water poured out into a small bucket that was under it and he stopped once he had an ample supply of it. He smirked and finally said something to himself as if he was talking to another. “Finally, I can shave.”

********** A few hours later

Omior and Vigil had left Subterra some time ago and were now on that same crossroad that they once were when things had started. The samurai’s helmet was starting to rust where it had landed when the debacle began and vines were already growing all around it. Omior grabbed his helmet and did his best to get rid of the vegetation that made his helmet their home.

“Cursed helmet’s not made to last. I knew that blacksmith swindled me of my money.” Omior tossed his helmet away and refocused to their original problem.

Which direction to go........

********** Somewhere in a location indiscernible

An orb of some kind made from crystal shone back the picture of the two companions as they decided their direction. Two glowing green eyes watched in fascination and excitement as they spent their time carefully weighing their options. Vigil wanted to take the road to the left and avoid any big settlements as planned, but Omior debated the other settlement might have a good blacksmith that could make him a new helmet and repair his partially deteriorated weapons.

The creature shrouded in darkness licked its lips with delight and took pleasure in the thoughts of her new prey.

“........Excellent. Everything is coming along as planned despite Blackwing’s failure. Master may not be happy about that, but at least he will be once I take care of his little problem.”

She looked back into the orb again. They had decided on finally going left into the town of Hoofington over Trottingham. The bug-like watcher laughed maniacally at this and then said to herself. “All according to plan, heheheh... all according to plan.....”

End arc 1
Start arc 2

_____________________________

And so ends the arc of the Gremlin, and begins the arc of the bug. I’m sure many of you have already figured out who this villain is already. I hope you guys are satisfied with how i ended the arc and how i just started the next one.

So let’s see what chryssie has up her sleeve for them in Hoofington, mayhaps it be something that is not expected. What will I cook up next?! Find out eventually within the next five episodes of DRAGON BALL Z!!!!! lol but no, I think you all will be quite surprised by what I have planned

Chapter 15

Bitter entrails

********** The village of Hoofington

The village of Hoofington was bristling with ponies. News of a strange creature spotted at the nearby town of Ponyville dissuaded their happy moods partially, but for the majority it laid undeterred. To the average onlooker it appeared as if the little village was going to break out in song because they were so happy. All moving left and right practically prancing and hopping about in their stupors. They never expected what was going to happen today.

Vigil opted to scout ahead while Omior kept to the shadows, best not to raise an alarm for no good reason, right? After losing their currency in their last debacle against Blackwing’s oppressive soldiers and mercenaries, they were a bit underfunded at the moment. So what better thing to do than odd jobs around the town? In other words, ponies need to be out and about for there to be any kind of job available.

Vigil had entered the village and started his way for the center of town where the ‘odd jobs’ billboard was located. A few ponies gave him a glance or two, one even stared at a wound he had from the previous encounters.

None of them stopped him or took more than a few seconds before they continued on with their day. At least, that’s what Vigil had originally thought. A small random strewn of ponies kept an eye cautiously on him, whatever purposes they were for.

The unicorn finally reached the board to find only one job up there, the rest were useless ads that nopony read anyways.

The paper read:

‘Unicorn needed for special work at 23 west forehoof that is decent in repair work. Payment for the job finished is 36 bits.

Sincerely, Sinclair Moincepetite’

With practiced ease, Vigil delicately tore off a small chunk of the paper that was the labels, none were taken previously and the date on the flier was not more than a day or so ago.

********** roughly a block away

A pair of yellow eyes seemed to glow in the shadows they were home to. The ponies passed by it either unnoticed or with assumptions of a simple cat taking a rest, being none the wiser to what it could be, or was.

It shimmered slightly a faint green that seemed like a quick electrical current all throughout the silhouette. After the green line passed, the silhouette changed and reformed its body structure to conform to a more pony like one. The yellow and watchful eyes turned into a naive and yet malicious brown. The body shrank down and turned into the size of a foal.

After the brown eyes made sure no pony was watching, it scurried out of the shadows as a light blue colt with a light brown streak running across his side. His mane was a bright pink with white bubbly polka dots randomly across with a matching tail.

The young foal scurried through the busy streets and stayed just out of sight of the pony he was tailing.

**** Vigil Main street Hoofington

Vigil turned around with the sense of being watched but couldn’t find the source of it. Shrugging off his nerves as a sense of being in a new town after everything that happened, he continued on his way, for the most part undeterred.

**** Omior Hoofington outskirts

The samurai’s head started thumping against his skull, a migraine making itself known in its early stage. He was lain against a tree as he tried to put together the jumbled thoughts that threatened to break through his skull. He was trying and failing to organize his thoughts very quickly, stress taking hold over anything else.

Eventually, he gave up and hit his fist against the tree, causing a few leaves to falter from their respective branches and float ever so slowly to the ground below.

Sweat was pouring from him from the stress he was feeling, or so he thought. After about a minute, his vision started blurring and black and red spots started to fill his vision, a beautiful painting filling the spots shortly after as he fell into unconsciousness.

Omior opened his eyes, he was in a japanese style room. A sliding paper door was being opened as he got up from where he lay.

On the other side of the door was a familiar face he saw last time he regained his memories, but his mind couldn’t remember the name.

“Hey, I see you’re working on another of your haiku paintings, what’s this one based on?” The man said as he removed a quiver from his back, he had a mask hooked to it that smiled mischievously in Omior’s direction and it filled him with a sort of dread.

Omior felt his mouth move mechanically without to force of his mind to control it. “Hey, yeah just another boring one about landscapes, Ahingor. What brings you back so soon?” A sigh erupted as the samurai felt his body move on its own and lay down, arms crossed behind his head.
“The people in the southern district villages accepted the peace treaty. Supposedly it’s fair enough for now.” He sighed and let the rest of his objects drop in a pile around the quiver and armament of a mask.

The room started shaking just enough for Omior to take note of it but it seemed Ahingor had no knowledge of it. One of the lights holding a candle that was not lit fell to the ground after it’s old rope finally snapped.

Omior had gotten up and, now free from the mechanical movements, went over and inspected the lighting that had reached the ground.

Ahingor looked a bit sorry and spoke up. “Seems my presence always breaks your stuff. I’ll never understand how you always use things until you’re forced to replace them.”

“Well I-” Ahingor stopped as the room’s shaking finally reached him. It’s pace quickened and soon his ass met with the ground quickly. The room suddenly rose in temperature, and in a quick instance, a ball of fire hit the room, just missing Omior and completely smashing into where his painting once was. Fires burst all along the shattered remains. Omior-

The samurai’s eyes shot open at the sound of a tree cracking in half. He stood up and got into a ready stance, listening warily. The tree only about a meter away from the one he was under had been sliced nearly in two, the other half falling the opposite direction of him. Whoever had cut that tree up had intended to use it to end his life.

Suddenly, a large amount of yellow eyes came into sight, followed by pure black silhouettes that had bug like green wings that buzzed at their choice in prey.

Omior was surrounded, thirty to one at the very least but he didn’t care for numbers. He focused his senses and willed them to heighten for his sudden challengers.

“Come get some, demons.” He gruffly muttered as a few charged at him in three different directions.

Chapter 17

An inner chaos

A/N: one up here that i thought was important to say before you guys begin reading, this chapter is based around what goes through our samurai's head as he visits some old memories again "for the first time" and that's really it, a dream sequence.

**********

“Omior, hey Omior, wake up.”

Jolting awake, the samurai got into a fighting stance. “What?’

He was in a campsite; a fire was burning in the center to keep the ones nearby warm. Omior was able to recognize the one calling for him was Ahingor, the one his memories reminded him was a friend. Ahingor was nearest the fire and using it to warm himself up.

He saw Omior get into a battle ready stance and immediately raised his arms at his sides. “Woah, calm down. Just me waking you up to get dinner. Red and his men are not going to be finding us anytime soon, especially after that ‘gift’ you gave ‘em.” Ahingor chuckled a little bit and motioned for the samurai to sit next to him.

Obliging, Omior sat cross legged at Ahingor’s side by the crackling fire. Ahingor poked the fire to keep it ablaze and a bit of soot jumped into the air, landing harmlessly at his foot. He turned to his side and pulled a stick out of the ground that pointed over the live flame. On the end of it held a simple fish, cooked golden brown, a small strand of steam rising from its head.

Omior took the delicacy of the sea and ate at a fair pace, carefully watching for the bones that always annoyed him.

They both were relatively silent. Ahingor watched the fire and eating at a snails pace, while Omior let his mind wander, trying to remember the fog that filled his memory bank prior to him waking up there.

“So what’s got you bothered, Om’s?” Ahingor asked, not really focusing on the samurai directly.

“Nothing really, just some odd feeling nagging at the back of my head. Don’t worry about it.” Omior just shrugged it off, something was nagging at the back of his head, but for the life of him he couldn’t quite place it.

A small mist was now spilling in slowly around the campsite, avoiding the fire like a person would the plague. The mist was eery and distinct to the nighttime ambience, it swayed and danced about in the cold chill.

Ahingor saw it and just muttered half heartedly to himself. “Huh, weird. Didn’t think mist would be rolling in after the day we had.”

Something strange was going on, but Omior couldn’t put the pieces together, he was wondering why he wasn’t recalling anything from his memory, but nonetheless, had to abide to its strange ways. He watched his surroundings with a nervousness, trying to remember what comes next, or if one of the few regained memories had the answer in them, but none were helpful at all.

A sudden shriek caused Omior to turn rapidly towards Ahingor. He was in the grasp of some kind of dark claw the size of a tree; It didn’t try to kill him, but it kept a firm grip on the agile ranger. Ahingor’s clothes seemed to almost sizzle away, the claw was doing something to him, something that worried the samurai.

Within seconds, Omior was already rushing the giant appendage, weapon drawn and ready to swipe in a wide arc. The samurai jumped straight for the giant thing with intent to sever, only to get swiped back by a smaller black shadow like tentacle appendage.

The dark claw started retracting back into the forest, Ahingor trying to break free the entire time with an arrow of his.

Omior got to his feet as the agile ranger hit a rather soft spot on the creatures claw with the arrow. It pierced the shell and blood as dark as night started to pool in that small area, no doubt an artery was hit in that area. The claw released and Ahingor fell to the ground on his back.

Omior was at Ahingor’s side within a short lapse of a few seconds, ready for the worst.

Much to the samurai’s relief, the mist had started to dissipate and retreat back from whence it came, along with it was that strange creature that roared in defiance, trying with much effort to reach the two warriors. After a minute or so, the fog had fully retreated, leaving no signs but the damage around them that anything had been there at all.

**********

Omior shot open his eyes, it was dark out and he felt different. He looked to the rest of himself to find he was a small child. To his left was a female of sorts that seemed content in just laying there, peering into the endless void of a sky. To the samurai’s right was a familiar, yet so different, child he was just barely able to make out as Ahingor.

Omior stretched his limbs out and got a better look at his surroundings from where he was laying. There was a small pond with catfish swimming rapidly around in circles; some poking their heads out of the rather shallow water at random intervals. He saw that around them was rather tall wild grass growing freely and the samurai assumed some of it even grew past his current height.

The sound of beetles and dragonflies were all around them as the two beside Omior were relaxing. The samurai calmly laid his head back down and let himself relax too, it seemed this was going to be a good memory. He heard the girl to his left begin to speak, happily content with relaxing and keeping her eyes shut.

“You guys ever wonder if there is anything out there for us?” She asked in a happy and content tone.

Ahingor was the next to speak up. “Well, sure there is! There just has to be, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. Right?” The ranger sat up and looked to where Omior was laying, whom was now getting back into a sitting position.

“Uhm, yes, there is always something for everyone, always a destiny on the horizon and a future to have.”

“Since when did you get so philosophical, Omi?”

“Just answering a question is all, nothing more, nothing less. Nothing philosophical about it, I’m not an enlightened thinker.”

A rustle in the bushes caught Omior’s ears, it was faint but there was definitely a growl in it that seemed rather far off. Despite this, the samurai mentally prepared himself for what might happen. The other two hadn’t noticed it and kept up the conversation.

“So what do you think, Sherry? Do you agree with what ‘Omi’ says, or do you have your own opinion on this?” Ahingor asked.

“I think he just about sums it up for me. What about you, Ahi?” Ahingor chuckled a bit at the nickname Sherry gave him, it sounded silly and way too feminine for him.

The low growls were getting slightly louder and Omior tensed up in preparation for what might come to pass. The other two still failed to notice the incoming danger and kept their conversation going.

“I don’t really completely agree with him, but why are we talking about this? Let’s go do something fun.”

“Alright, you coming Omi?”

The growls had disappeared along with the rustles which had distracted the samurai so. But before he could respond, the creature that had been making the growls jumped out of the underbrush and in front of the three youngsters.

Before anything could happen Omior started blacking out, fading into whatever his conscious mind would be forced to go through. What memories he had to relive to recover all that he had lost before arriving in this new world.

**********

Chapter 18

Rise of the nightmare

****

Screams were resounding all around Omior. He was holding his arms onto his legs in the feeble position one would expect from a baby.

The cracking of fire bursting around him and the intensity of the flames slamming into his back. He felt uncontrollable fear, but he did not know why, just that whatever it was, he would be safe from it if he held his eyes shut and didn’t move.

The clinking of metal was heard just barely over the raging fire. Metal gauntlets and grunts of pain were heard very audibly to Omior, and whatever it was made him mentally cringe in melancholy. The samurai opened his eyes a small amount nervously and immediately regretted it. Shutting them tightly once again, Omior saw an insurmountable amount of blood in the snow of which he had balled up in, a body staring emotionless back at him. The body seemed so familiar with the glance the samurai gave it but at the same time so strange.

The fleeting memory refused to answer the question and he opened his eyes again to see the world turn fuzzy and break in a black sizzle. Behind him, an explosion rung out and a man’s scream was heard before the world turned a deadly black, closing itself off to him.

**********

Omior opened his eyes once again to see a wooden sword heading for a collision with his head. He moved his right arm in front of him instinctively to block it and saw that a second wooden sword blocked the one being swung at him. The samurai saw it was held tightly in his right hand and before he could determine more, the attacker swung again in a wide outward horizontal arc straight for Omior’s ribs. Omior just managed to parry the sword and swing a hit in at the attackers’ leg with, which he yelled out a distinct ‘ow’ that made Omior stop himself from going in for another swing.

“...Ow Omior careful, I still need that leg to walk.” Ahingor said as he hopped on one leg, holding the airborne leg with both hands.

“Sorry.” Omior muttered before Ahingor got back into a ready stance.

A third person stood between them; taller and older he turned his head to the two before saying: “It’s time for dinner. Your aunt wants you inside, Omior. Say goodbye to Ahingor.” After that, he turned and went to the inside of the small home.

Ahingor stretched out his arms and yawned. “Ugh yep. Guess its time I went back.” He laughed a bit nervously. “Guess we lost track of time, huh? Bye.” Ahingor turned to leave and Omior waved him off. After the ranger was gone, Omior turned to look at the small abode supposedly his current home.

He looked contemplatively at the abode and lost himself in thought. ‘Why am I at my aunt’s? What about my parents? Did something happen? No, nothing could have happened, but my memories have been coming back in a rather mixed way; in a specific order. Could it be that that last memory.....’ The sliding door opened again and the same man as before called out. “Hey Omior! Hurry up before your aunt May’s cooking gets cold!” After saying that, he went back in, closing the door as he went back to an inaudible conversation.

The teen samurai sighed as he walked to the front door. Before he could open the sliding door, the world around him seemed to melt. It gooped and dripped down to a black color. This surprised the samurai and he didn’t know what to do as the world around him turned from a colorful world, to a black, to a sickly green, and then slowly changed to a devilish red.

Screams and violent sounds bounced off of invisible walls as they hit Omior’s ears, berating him with death’s innumerable noises. He clasped his ears shut, hoping to alleviate himself of the sudden influxing nightmare, but he lost control of his arms as they fell limply to his sides.

Flashes of random, rather violent memories blinded him as they had no color to them, only black outlines and blood red color.

The violent nightmarish memories all stopped as a voice resounded inside his head that, to him, sounded much like his own.

“Memories,
The past brings them in a tiny trickle of a stream, forever encircling each other,
The circle grows as the present adds more to the past,
Turning the stream into a small river,
The innumerable possibilities the future holds allows us to change how our memories will be Created, and allow a safe refuge, a hope of innumerable expense.

The past is a thing which shall be filled forever with regret,
The stream has been blocked at its source for young Omior,
But the dam is breaking and they shower the young samurai,
Overwhelming him in the great vastness of time.
Time is running short.”

All went quiet as the world around Omior grew color and fine lines again. He was outside, the shade of a tree calmly keeping the sun off of his face. Ahingor was standing above Omior smiling down, by what Omior could guess it was more recent.

“Hey Omior, wake up. The caravan’s ready to go.”

Omior got to his feet slowly, his legs waking from their unhappy sleep. His legs shook slightly before they stood strong. He looked around to see a group of individuals. The few that weren’t packing supplies or fixing the reins on the horses were smiling at him as they relaxed themselves. A small fire in the center of the site still held a small stream of black smoke.

Omior yawned as he muttered out, “yeah, I’m ready.” He paused and turned his head back to Ahingor. “You sure we’re already ready to go?”

Ahingor just chuckled to himself. “No I was just using that as an excuse to have you help make things faster.”

Omior grumbled a bit but laughed to himself. “Hm.. hm.. hm.. so Ahingor likes a bit of lying in his daily routine now hmmm... For once you have outsmarted me it seems.” After a moment of silence, both burst out into a hearty laugh as Ahingor placed an arm on Omior’s back.

He managed words in as he wiped a tear away. “Yes, it seems today is the day pigs fly then, my friend. L-l heheh! Like the Perusian warriors, this is a rare occasion.”

A sudden whistle broke them of their tyrant joking. A large man, very muscled and a fairly dark skin toned warrior that seemed to be extremely happy, spoke up. “Alright you two lovebirds, it’s time to go. We got a long journey ahead of us to the capital and we need to make it before the raiders come through here.”

The two agreed with a nod of their heads and went about helping with the last preparations for leaving.

By the time the group had finished, a small smoke trail was seen in the distance. A scrawny pale man holding the reins to the horses yelled out, “alright, everyone on, or I’m leaving your arse! The raiders are closing in, and we need to get moving!” The man counted to ten in his mind before whipping the reins causing the caravan to move out, heading at a rather speedy pace away from the trail of smoke that fell into the distance behind them.

Later that night, they stopped to allow the horses to rest. The scrawny pale man was unlatching the reins as the rest were sitting around a campfire. Sticks holding various fish and meats were cooking over the fire as they laughed and relaxed.

The scrawny man went into the caravan to look through their supplies to make sure they had everything. The muscled man spoke up from the campfire to him. “Hey crackle, you’re going senile if you think we lost anything already.” The scrawny man Crackle responded with a grunt of annoyance, with which the muscled man just laughed. “Man, hahah, you’re really paranoid.”

None of them noticed as the smoke that had disappeared in the distance had once again reappeared and was drawing ever closer. They laughed and prodded each other with jokes and stories from before they got together. Omior was more enticed than the rest though, hoping for his memory to give him insight. It was only a memory he was reliving, though.

A loud cracking sound was finally heard as the ground where the caravan stood exploded into a fine dust and wooden shrapnel that shot off in random directions. The group of adventurers broke away from the campfire and into cover as the muscled man screamed. “Ambush!”

The whiz of arrows flying through the air was apparent as they landed around the campsite. A few raiders yelled out a war cry as they charged into the site looking for the caravaners. As the raiders searched through the wreck and the camp for bodies, the small group waited cautiously in their hiding spots, each in view of one another.

Crackle pulled out a small hook with a near invisible line of wire attached to it, he carefully swung it and tossed it out where it latched onto a tree across from him. He waited as two of the raiders started walking past him and yanked on the wire, causing them both to trip. He pulled out two throwing knives and tossed them at the tripped raiders landing direct hits on their heads as they were getting up.

The rest of the raiders advanced on where Crackle had popped his head out from and prepared to fight him. Before they got too close though, Crackle called out, “Big man! Time to make the monkeys dance!”

The dark skinned warrior jumped out from his hiding place behind the advancing raiders and tossed small explosives at them. They jumped out of the way, but one of the marauders ended up with a black leg getting away from the big man’s explosives.

An arrow whizzed through the air and landed at big man’s right foot as he was about to laugh. He turned in time to see another arrow that was about to connect to his head. Before it could reach him though, a second arrow shot by Ahingor connected horizontally and knocked the arrow to the ground harmlessly.

Big man made a beeline for cover as arrows followed him. The raiders that had been dazed by the small explosives were now splitting up to take down the group. Omior had yet to be sighted so he readied his sword slowly. Waiting for his chance.

Big man had grabbed a rather large hammer off of his back while crackle pulled out more throwing knives. Ahingor was taking shots at the bowmen from behind cover in order to give his friends a chance to take the raiders out. Big man ran out and swung his hammer at three raiders that had started circling his hiding spot. He hit one of them as it stopped after connecting with the second raider’s shield. The third swung in a wide arc vertically and managed to cut his left arm. Big man backed up before throwing his strength into another swing, again blocked by the raider.

Crackle was dancing around the two raiders that had gone after him and toyed with them using his throwing knives, keeping them from advancing on him very much. He decided enough was enough and attempted to end one of the two raiders’ lives. He missed his target’s vital points and ended up hitting one of them in the shoulder. Omior had decided to jump out then and got the two while their backs were turned, he swung horizontally with the intent of cutting both opponents in half. He managed to get the first one halfway before being forced back by an arrow that grazed his left hand.

Another explosion rang out and hit a tree near where Ahingor was. The tree in question creaked and fell to the left, in the opposite direction of the ranger. He decided now was a good time and went for cover that was less of a target for the raiders on the cannon. He fired off an arrow and it managed to connect with a ranger that wasn’t paying attention to him, but it in turn caused even more of the long ranged enemies to focus their attention on him now.

Big man managed to crush the last raider’s skull, but his arms were pretty torn up from the small battle. It didn’t seem to phase him as he turned his attention on the raiders on the cannon. They had just finished reloading as Big man started his advance. This caused the dark skinned warrior to duck into cover out of their sight. He started to go around them in an attempt to flank them. This backfired as a ranger took notice and started to fire arrows at him.

Crackle had finished dispatching the second raider as Omior got ready to charge the rest of their opponents, but something seemed off. The cannon wasn’t being fired off at them very often, for the most part it wasn’t moving at all despite the obviously armed raiders on it. It clicked in his head what was going on when a second cannon fired from the underbrush at Big man. His body went flying like a ragdoll out into the open. He was covered in black smoldering marks and wood chippings.

Crackle screamed out “no!” as Big man lay motionless on the ground. Blindly, he charged for the raiders in sight and started giving them everything he got. Omior followed suit to make sure Crackle didn’t get himself killed. Ahingor had as well decided to take the initiative and gave them cover with his quickly draining supply of arrows.

This time the cannon more readily aimed down at the charging opponents and fired off a shot. Crackle dodged the explosion to the left as Omior took to the right. The explosion left a crater, but that did little to hinder their charge. The second cannon came into sight attatched to a raider cart and the enemies arming it were sloppy in trying to get it to fire again.

Crackle tossed a few of his daggers that connected with the distracted raiders and the results were quick in killing them. Ahingor kept trying to distract the archers from their attempt at picking his friends off but it was little use. The ranger had but a mere three arrows left in his quiver. He took one out and started an advancement from cover to get a better shot, hoping he didn’t miss again.

The cannon fired again and this time it hit right in front of Crackle, tossing remnants of an arrow into the air that lodged itself within his left shoulder. He tripped and fell into the hole as soon as the fragmented arrowhead entered his arm and Omior stopped to make sure Crackle was alright.

Jumping into the hole the samurai carefully looked at the wound. It’s in too deep to get it out now. Damn.

“Stay strong.” Omior said as he ripped a piece of cloth off of his arm, he tied it tightly to Crackle’s shoulder and added, “I’ll be back as soon as I deal with the raiders to get that wound fixed up.”

An arrow went towards Omior as he got out of the hole and out of instinct, he attempted to catch it. He shut his eyes and waited for the arrow to hit him and no doubt kill him. After a moment he opened his eyes to see that the arrow was no longer on a collision course for his head and instead sat frozen in front of him, in the middle of the air. Omior’s eyes got wide as the arrow began to melt itself in front of Omior’s eyes, turning from a solid to a liquid in seconds.

He had no time to contemplate what had just occurred before more arrows started heading for him. He went on the move in a zig zagging motion as he closed the distance with the raiders.

Meanwhile, Ahingor had used up his arrows ending the two raiders on the cannon. He had pulled out a small knife and began to fight in close quarters combat with the rangers, doing his best to avoid their attacks. At that range though, they managed to get the ranger in his right arm which fell limp from the nerve damage caused by a stray arrow from the bowmen raiders. Ahingor was surrounded as the three rangers cornered him and started to toy with him, attacking one at a time randomly swapping out every few swings. One of them turned around to see Omior standing right in front of him. With a quick stab from the samurai’s sword the raider fell onto the ground, dead with a gash in the center of his chest.

The other two were caught off guard as they turned their attention to Omior. Ahingor took the chance to stab the one on the left in the neck as Omior removed the head of the last raider.

The battle was over now as the two looked at each other with worry. It was clear as day Big man wasn’t alive anymore and Crackle was bleeding out badly. They quickly went through the supplies of the raiders to find nothing in the area of medical supplies. They had to make due with a few rags, a sharp knife, and a sewing kit to serve as a temporary fix.

They got back to the hole where Omior had let Crackle rest to see a stray arrow from earlier on in the battle had made contact with the poor man’s head.

Ahingor looked downtrodden as Omior’s anger bubbled. The samurai kicked a rock as a tear streamed down his face. “Dammit. Why did this have to happen.” Omior punched a nearby tree in frustration. “It’s all my fault, I should have done something.”

“What could you have done Omior? No one could have predicted this.” Ahingor said as he sat down, looking between the two friends that met their fate at this battle.

“Yes I could have. I-I could have moved him farther from the battlefield. He could’ve lived and you know it’s my fault.” Tears started streaming more down his face. He laughed sadly as he spoke up again, “Big man wanted to say his goodbyes to us at the capital where he was going to start his new life, and I had to screw it up. I should have seen it sooner that they had that second group with them.....That second cannon.”

Ahingor was silent. Tears were flowing from both of the warriors as they just sat there, silently honoring their fallen comrades. After a while, it started to get dark. Ahingor decided to break the silence as he stood up. He wiped the tears from his eyes as he spoke up. “C’mon, we need to head to the capital while we have the chance.” Omior just silently walked behind Ahingor as they continued on the path, depression filling the air.

_____________

Omior’s eyes shot open as he screamed out in a blind panic. “Noooooooooooo!!” His head swiveled left and right as his sweat covered face reflected the amount of melancholy that rang through him. The samurai could barely see anything as the room was only lit by a single torch above a strange door at the exit of the room. He was in a cage made of some sort of sickly metallic bones of sorts.

The memories were fresh in his mind and questions swerved through his skull. He was so dejected and cut off from the waking world that he nearly didn’t see Vigil unconscious in the corner of the cell. Then he remembered what had happened before he was knocked out.

“Monsters!” He whispered to himself as he had no other name to call them by. He looked over to Vigil and sighed as a tear fell down his face. “What’s going to happen now?” He muttered to himself.

Author's Note

so things are getting dicy now, lets see how much this affects our darling samurai now that his memory has started to return more rapidly.

Chapter 19

out of the frying pan, into the oven

Vigil slowly raised himself as he awoke from unconsciousness. With a jerk of his head into his hooves instinctively, he yelled out. “Ah! My head!" He clenched his teeth down until it made an unattractive gritting noise. He slowly opened his eyes and looked around before staring up at Omior. "Wh-where are we? What happened?"

Omior was silent. He chose his words carefully as if there was something important that Vigil had missed. "I do not know Vigil. I was attacked by some monsters while waiting for you and they knocked me out, I only awoke moments ago." Omior looked away and went from his position on his knee to sitting on his butt, watching the torch above the doorway as if it was the most important thing in existence.

Vigil felt something gnaw at the back of his head, but he couldn’t place it, so he continued on a different thought. “How are we going to get out of here? What in Celestia is going to happen to us if we don’t?”

The samurai looked down to his hands and feet as he spoke up. “No idea. Probably nothing good knowing our luck.”

Vigil turned his head towards the torch hanging above the door and noticed just barely there were two black as night pony shaped bugs adjacent of each other by the door. He stared wide eyed at the two before he turned to the samurai, distress written upon his features. “Omior we need to get out of here!”

The samurai turned his attention to the green unicorn and said, “I would have by now but I’ve yet to see a way to escape. What’s the rush?”

Vigil spoke a bit faster and more frantically. “It’s because those...” He pointed a hoof towards the two bugs guarding the door. “...are changelings! We’re dead if we don’t get out of here soon.”

Omior stood up and looked himself over now. The first thing he noticed was that his weapons were gone. He also noticed that some of his armor was missing as well. How the samurai had not noticed this sooner baffled him.

Sighing, he walked up to the bars of the cage and rattled them a bit, giving a good tug as unsurprisingly, they stayed in place. The samurai turned back to Vigil and spoke up. “Well it doesn’t look like we have a choice in the matter, my dark green friend.”

“Then how else are we gon-” A spear hit against the bars of the cage, creating a loud clang sound. One of the changeling guards had walked over to their cell to quiet them down.

It spit at the ground in front of the two and said, “Shut up. The queen will make short work of you two soon anyway.” The guard went back to his position at the door, acting as a statue once again.

Vigil turned to Omior, pale as a ghost. Before he could utter even a syllable, the steel door groaned as it opened, the other side holding a tall black figure of a bug pony covered with holes around her body. She kept her face stoic until she walked up to the bars. She smiled viciously and spoke as if giddy of some kind of death she had caused previously that day.

“So... it seems that I’ve gotten quite a catch in my hooves.” She enunciated the last word much resembling a snake’s hiss. “The mighty samurai, you are on my master’s death list. Best not to disappoint him.” The guards that stood at attention by the door went up to the cell and opened it. Once the cell door was open, Omior attempted to avoid and hopefully take the two guards down. Unfortunately, before he could so much as lay a finger on either chitin covered bugs; Chrysalis had used her horn and picked up the samurai, keeping him from doing anything but flailing at the air.

She kept him just out of reach as she calmly walked her way down the sickly green hallway. The ceiling dripped with goo and the floor squished with each hoof step from the chitin queen. Omior stopped his thrashing and scanned his environment as he was brought through it. It was confusing for him because of how similar the hallways were as they turned and crossed through the dank dungeons of the changeling empire.

The screams of pain and sorrow from other contained individuals rang out as they got closer to the end of a hallway that did not continue. The samurai noted a very fearful amount of blood -dry and wet- was covering the metal doors. It only took a moment for them to reach the final door that was drenched in blood so thick it seemed as if it would never dry out.

The queen laughed again as she spoke. “Hm.. hm.. hm.. welcome to your place of permanent resting.” She opened the door and the sound of chains and metal clanged as she used her magic and dragged him inside. “At least once I’ve had my fun.” The door slowly shuts behind Chrysalis as she laughs as though it was a very funny joke.

________________ Royal throne room, Canterlot Castle

The solar goddess stood motionless watching the hustle and bustle activity on the grounds below. She watched through one of the many windows that represented historical events that were almost never to her liking, She watched with a mood of disapproved surrender. Below, guards were running around and practicing drills and formations, preparing for something.

Next to the princess of the sun was a guard adorned with medals that hung from his armor’s sides, lazily flowing with an almost non existent breeze. He watched alongside the princess in a silence so thick you could take a bite out of it.

The guard spoke up with the utmost respect in his voice. “The plan to eradicate the changeling threat will come underway once the insurgent teams get the civilian’s out of there. We can’t rely on the elements of harmony for a threat such as this.”

“I know this White Night, but it still doesn’t sit well with me.” The solar goddess spoke more quietly now. “I just wish another way were possibly so as to avoid such needless bloodshed.”

“Do you forget already of the hostages the Changeling queen has in her possession? She and her people using them as a food source keeping them on the edge of death just far enough away to maintain them? Do not make light of the situation more than it is, princess.”

“Yes. Of course. Good day to you, White Night.”

“Yes princess.” White Night left to continue with his duties as Celestia took one last look out onto the grounds.

Chapter 16

Memories skirmish

Omior was slashing back and forth as the bug like creatures attacked, wave after wave. He was covered in cuts as he struggled to stay upright.

These things didn’t want to kill him he deduced as he staggered back from another swipe that got through his defense.

‘If they wanted to, I would have died by now from the sheer number.’ He thought to himself. ‘They must be trying to exhaust me. Whatever they have planned probably won't be any good too. Damn, if only Ahingor was here, they would be dealt with already with his help.’

Sweat pooled down his body, feeding the plants that had begun metamorphosis of color into a glistening shade of crimson, shining in the daylight.

Omior swung his sword in a wide arc, catching a few changelings mid attack. Most of the ones hit died from the damage, but a few managed to back away in time to gain only minor damage.

Another changeling caught him in his blind spot, leaving a rather sizeable wound on his back. Omior cried out and stumbled over himself attempting to do some damage to the changeling that attacked. The samurai’s vision was getting fuzzy as the sweat and tears ran over his eyes. He dared not wipe them away, lest the enemies get another opening to attack.

The changelings were closing in, but at the same time kept their distance to avoid permanent damage. This kept them from completely overwhelming him any faster, but it did save their numbers from dwindling too much.

Omior’s strength was nearly gone, he knew this just had to be it. He noticed they had begun to sense it too, and started to close the distance by a large quantity. He swung his weapon and it got stuck into a changelings side, it reared back in pain and fell onto its side that had the sword stuck in. This caused the sword to go deeper in, where it cried out even more in agony. The changelings ignored their own brethren’s cries for assistance and instead, blocked Omior’s path to the changeling where his sword was sheathed into.

“Dammit.” He muttered under his breath before the changelings closed in the final few steps, blocking all view of the samurai.

********** Vigil

The door was mysteriously cracked open when Vigil arrived. The entire time he couldn’t stop feeling as though he were being watched. No matter how much he tried to think otherwise, he couldn’t expel the feeling. A voice from inside the house broke his inner musings and permitted him entrance, to which he obliged, the incentive of the much needed monetary gain driving him forward.

Vigil went into the house to see that it was much bigger on the inside. Hallways lined left and right to a downslope into what the unicorn could only guess as underground housings. The voice beckoned him forward into the upstairs though, asking him to come up and greet the voice.

The stairs caused Vigil to falter slightly at the sight of it, the decrepit and dusty stairs had long since been out of use and could use some replacement steps. The wood creaked and groaned with so much as a feather falling upon the wetwood held by long rusted or much damaged nails.

Vigil would most likely get his money’s worth out of this....

He carefully gave the steps a few test steps and found that it groaned a painful sound that one would cringe at, but held nonetheless. Again the voice called to him, the raspy nature adding to the painful moan of the aged wood.

“Will you please hurry up, sunny? You are here for the job are you not? I’ve half a mind to do it myself by how slow you are!”

The unicorn picked the pace up as he climbed the perilous stairs, he thought of how the stairs’ age could rival that of the regal princesses. With an inner chuckled at his humor, he stole his nerves and continued up the stairs, gathering piles of dust on his hooves.

He reached the top of the stairs and saw an open door at the end of the hallway. At the opening of said door was an old stallion with an exasperated look. The old stallion had a dying grey coat that turned white near the bottom of his hooves and edge of his face. His hair obviously falling out from the stress of the daily life he probably endured (as an old stallion that is). His eyes were blue with a slight tinge of a yellow glow, Vigil chalked it up to the lighting in the house he was in, or perhaps a spell he had not heard of.

“Good, you’re here. Now let me show you what you need to do.” He carefully turned around and, with obvious arthritis, walked inside the room.

Vigil lost sight of the stallion as he made his way into the room. A hardly noticeable flash of yellow hit the unicorn in the corner of his left eye and before he could register what it was, the door slammed shut; the sound of the lock could be heard jamming together, Vigil realized two things.

One, the stallion that would have been behind him was dead in front of him and two, whatever was behind him was probably going to seriously fuck his shit up.

“....Well fuck me.” Vigil said, he turned around in time to see his attacker swing a heavy object into his head, effectively knocking him the fuck out.

Grabbing at Vigil’s legs, the changeling began to drag Vigil to a window that led to a fire escape of sorts. The changeling looked out the window and noted that nopony was in the alleyway it was directly connected to, and that it was just dark enough to sneak a body down without being noticed.

The changeling pushed the unconscious unicorn out the window, and unceremoniously started dragging him down the steps of the fire escape. Vigil’s head hit the cold metal hard every few steps when a limb of his got stuck on something. The changeling just muttered to himself and continued on his way with the rather ‘stupid vomit colored unicorn who weighed more than he should at that size.’