A Heart of Stone

Chapters

Ch. 2 The Cost of Freedom
Ch. 3 A Rolling Stone
Ch. 4 Out of the Fire and into the Freezer
Ch. 5 Armor of the Sun
Ch. 6 One More Step
Ch. 8 Earth Vs. Air
Down But Not Out
Ch. 7 A Rock in the Ocean
Ch. 1 A New Start

Ch. 2 The Cost of Freedom

I regained consciousness and became aware that I was on a wooden floor that was jostling and bouncing around. I slowly opened my eyes and rose to my knees while rubbing my head and groaning. I looked around and saw that I was in a cage that was traveling through a forest, I canvased my head around my cell and saw in my cell were two black, four-legged creatures with insect wings on their backs. I let out another screech and scrambled away from the creatures and my back clanged against the bars of the cage.

“Sweet Celestia! Hey! This suit of armor is alive!” I heard a shout from behind me.

I turned my head and saw another four-legged creature that looked similar to a horse but smaller with grey fur, brown hair and tail and yellow eyes and a horn sticking out of its forehead. I looked down at the little creature in surprise as I watched him speak again.

“Hey everypony come and look at this!” he shouted and was soon joined by five more of the pony things.

“AAAHHH!” I cried out as I lurched away from the edge of the cage and stared at the horse creatures.

“Wow, would you look at that. We thought it was a suit of armor. Hey Thrash, good thing we decided to lock it up after all.” A tan pegasus with an orange mane joked out as he spoke to what looked like a unicorn.

‘What the hell is going on? Why is there a pegasus and a unicorn talking!?’

“You think we should tie it up? Looks pretty strong to me” the grey unicorn said to the crowd.

“Nah, those bars are plenty strong enough” the pegasus responded.

Even though I had no mouth I was apparently still able to hyperventilate as I was being ogled by these strange creatures. I wasn’t even paying attention to the two that were in the cage with me until I felt a tap on my back, I quickly snapped my head to behind me and came eye to eye with the black insect looking thing.

“Be silent ancient one, or they shall harm you further.” The little black thing half spoke and half chirped out.
My body was frozen with fear again as I looked into the solid blue eyes of the creature.

“Wh-what are you?” I shakily asked the strange creature in front of me.

“I am a changeling ancient one, my name is Copy and this is Duplicate and you have nothing to fear from us ancient one.” He placed one of his arm-things on his chest and then waved it over to the other changeling in the corner.

I took a few more deep ‘breaths’ and tried to calm my racing heart before I sat down cross-legged.

“Why do you keep calling me ‘ancient one’?” I asked Copy.

“Because that is what you are to our race. Do you truly not know what you are?” I only shook my head at ‘him’.

“Many eons ago, when our race was still in its infancy, we lived in a harsh and barren land far from Equestria that barely supported any life. The queen at that time was approached by creatures of crystal and stone who offered us the knowledge of how to feed off of emotions rather than physical food in trade for them to feed off of our magic. The queen agreed and then began a symbiotic relationship with the beings that called themselves Magic Eaters. Centuries later the Magic Eaters one day approached the queen and said that they were dying and had to leave but they would not say where they were going. The queen begged them to stay, that she would find a way to cure them but they could not and she could only watch them as they left, the queen even sent scouts to seek out other Magic Eaters but they met with little success. Duplicate and I recently learned of this ancient history of our kind through a long lost hive that we found in the Icelands when we were captured by these ponies” During his explanation our captors apparently went back to whatever they were doing before.

“I don’t understand; I can’t be one of these ancient Magic Eaters, yesterday I was a human.”

“Hu…man? I do not recognize this word. What does it mean?” he struggled with the word like it left a bad taste in his mouth.

“You know, human beings, Homo Sapiens, humanity… anything?” I looked back at Copy with worry as he shook his head.

‘How can he not have heard of humans? But then again I’ve never heard of changelings or Magic Eaters or unicorns and pegasi that can speak.’

“I apologize ancient one, I do not know of these Humans you speak of and we have traveled over most of Equestria and beyond.”

“Wait… What is Equestria? I’ve never heard of a place like that on Earth before.”

Copy looked back to Duplicate for a second before looking back to me, “Pardon me ancient one, but did you just say Earth?”

“Yea I did, why does that matter? Is this not Earth!?” I was starting to panic again at the prospect of being on a different planet.

“During our discovery of the lost hive we came across a large stone tablet that was written in a language that we did not understand aside from one word, Earth, which was written underneath a picture of a world that looked similar to ours but was also very different along with what looked like the board of a game that ponies call chess.”

“What!? There was a tablet that had pictures of my planet!?” I nearly screeched out.

“Please ancient one, you must be quiet, we do not know what these ponies would do if they got this kind of information. We will gladly take you there but we must first escape our confinement.” He whispered to me.

“Do you have a plan? Cause in case you haven’t noticed they are armed and we are not.”

“We do not need them, and you can make your own weapons from your mind ancient one.” He smiled and revealed his fangs.

“I can do what now?” I would have looked dumbfounded if I had a face.

“From the ancient text that we read, it is said that a Magic Eater is the embodiment of magic and can funnel their power through their bodies to create almost anything from crystal if they have the magic to do so.”

“But how do I do it? I never used magic before.”

“It is easy ancient one, simply close your eyes and imagine what you wish to create and your magic shall do the rest.”
I let out what sounded like a sigh before I closed my eyes and began to focus on the mental picture of a weapon. I started to feel a slight tug at the back of my brain which I assumed was my magic and I felt it draining from my body into my hand. I even started to hear sounds like glass cracking and stone scrapping together. I quickly looked down to see what was happening and saw that there was a mass of the same crystal and stone that made up my body, sitting where my hand used and slowly growing and changing shape. Like a time-lapse video, I watched my hand slowly form into the shape of a sword about four feet in length before stopping. I looked at my new appendage and saw that the core of the weapon was made of stone while the sharpened sides of the blade were made of crystal.

“Excellent job ancient one, now use it to cut through the lock on the door and Duplicate and I shall take care of these ponies immediately” Both him and Duplicate rose to their hooves and prepared for combat.

“Uh…ok” I responded as I too got to my feet but still had to crouch due to the low ceiling and staggered over to the door of the cage.

I took a quick glance around and saw that all of the guards were far too busy looking at other things to even pay attention to us before raising the sword and swinging it down on the lock. The lock offered no resistance to my blade as it sliced through like a hot knife through butter and watched as the cage gate swung open. I saw a green flash behind me and as I turned I saw both Copy and Duplicate wreathed in green flames as they rocketed out of the cell like green bullets. I could barely follow with my eyes as they bounced around, crashing into ponies and bouncing off of them like pinballs while avoiding retaliation by our captors. I slowly emerged from the cage as I watched them defeat our captors and was amazed at their speed and skill.

“You freak, I’m gonna kill you.” A dark and gravelly voice came from above me.

I looked up and saw the unicorn thing from before was levitating a spear and standing on top of the cage that we were held in. I then saw him leap off of the cage and attempt to stab me with the spear.

“AAHH!” I cried out as I dove away and the spear imbedded itself in the ground where I just was.

“I knew it was a mistake to leave you unbound. A mistake that I will remedy.” His was glaring daggers at me as he slowly approached me.

He galloped towards me with the spear in front of him and let out a battle cry. I was terrified by this strange creature that wanted me dead so badly, I had seen death before and it used to scare me, but I had never had another person actually try to kill me and the thought of a sentient being doing so had petrified me. With another shout, he leapt at me; I cried out in turn, closed my eyes and brought my hands up to protect myself.

I waited for what felt like hours for the pain of the spear to rip through my body but I only felt a small scratch that started at my abs and went outwards along my stomach. I slowly opened my eyes and came eye to eye with the pony, fear in his eyes. He let out a gurgled gasp as he coughed and blood came from his mouth that splashed onto the ground. I looked down and saw that my sword hand was sticking through the dead center of his throat and bleeding profusely with his blood splashing onto my legs. I cried out again as I slung the pony to the side, sword sliding out of his throat and I could do nothing but watch as his life slowly left him.

I stared at him, completely frozen and wasn’t even aware of the fact the one of the changelings had placed his hoof on my shoulder.

“Ancient one… are… are you unharmed?” his voice was ragged and he was breathing heavily.

I turned my head to address him and cried out again when I saw both changelings shakily standing with a spears and arrows sticking out of their bodies and green blood leaking from their wounds.

I quickly spun around and was looking at them with fear in my heart at the possibility that the only two creatures I knew in this world could be dying.

Copy only gave a weak smile as him and Duplicate collapsed on the ground, “Do not fear for us ancient one, we knew that this was going to happen and we are glad that we were able to at least grant you your freedom.”

“Don’t say that! You are going to be fine! You can’t leave me alone like this!” there would have been tears streaming down my face if I knew how to cry in this body.

“Do… not worry ancient one… there is one last gift that we can give you before our life leaves us. The gift of our magic… and our memories.” His voice was getting weaker as he spoke.

“Stop! Don’t talk anymore! You need to save your strength!”

“Please… ancient one… there is no time for us. Now… place your hands upon our bodies.” His eyes were growing heavy.
I could only obey his dying wish and I placed my hands on the both of them, I watched as their horns lit up with a green glow and saw the glow travel from their horns and up my arms. I could feel their magic as it coursed through me, rejuvenating me, feeding me yet it had no taste or flavor, I simply felt… full. Along with the magic, I felt something else coming from them, soon I was assaulted by a flood of images as they smashed their way into my brain. It was like I was watching the life of another in fast forward with all the experiences and memories flooding into my mind. I grunted as they finally slowed and then stopped, I tried to process all the memories that I had just learned but it was a tangled mess of garbled images and sounds. I looked down on the two changelings that had just given their lives for me and could only look down in sorrow at them. They were now just empty husks and their black carapace that had once had a beautiful sheen to it was now a withered grey and was flaking off.

“Good… those bugs are finally dead.” I heard a voice call from my right.

I looked over with anger and sorrow in my heart and saw a brown unicorn with a short-cut black mane and tail and dark brown eyes and was wearing leather armor that was missing pieces and was burned in places and he was bleeding from a few cuts that he had on his body.

My vision went red and I lost control of myself, I let out a screech and lunged at him, he swung the sword that he was carrying down on my head but it just snapped like a twig. I grabbed him by the throat with my free hand and lifted him to eye level.

My body was seething my rage as I looked at this monster that had killed the only two creatures that had helped me. As I held him in my grasp I could feel the magic coursing through his body and in a subconscious act, I began to drain his magic from his body. He tried to resist me at first but I easily broke his barriers and continued to drain him, I watched as his body seemed to lose its color and he began to struggle less and less as his body withered but I did not stop until he was left with nothing. My rage cooled and I looked down at the pony that I had just drained and saw that he was now just a withered husk of a pony, drained of his life. Even though I had taken the life of two ponies, I did not feel bad about them, I felt far worse for the two changelings who had died. I dropped the husk of a pony and walked over to them and knelt down in front of them.

“I am so sorry Copy and Duplicate, I am sorry that you had to die so that I could be free.”

I spent at least an hour digging a grave for the first two friends that I had ever had; human or otherwise.
Once their grave was done I slowly picked up each one of them and placed them gently in the grave before burying them and creating a tombstone from a nearby tree and etching the words into the tombstone before placing it in the soil at the head of their grave before I turned and walked away with my stone feet crunching softly in the falling snow.

Here lies Copy and Duplicate
Two changelings who gave their lives to save
Diamant the Magic Eater

Author’s Note: Hope you have enjoyed this chapter, I really hope that I didn’t throw a monkey wrench in the engine by adding a backstory to the changelings or that I have added another climate to the world but since there has been almost every other type, forest, desert, mountains and even a volcanic area, why not add a frozen area like Antarctica or Siberia? Or maybe a place a little less extreme, like Alaska? If these decisions upset the balance of the world I can change it if necessary. I hope they can stay but this is my first time working on a story that involves others so I will bow to the ones who came before me if needed.

Ch. 3 A Rolling Stone

Ch. 3 a Rolling Stone

I walked through the snow for what felt like hours with no direction in mind as I had no idea where I was and the snowstorm had got even worse and could barely see two feet in front of me, not that I cared, I just watched my only two friends die right in front of me,i felt dead inside. Like there was a hole in my heart and I was slowly bleeding out, I couldn’t even find the drive to look up at the sun to see the passage of time or get a general direction of what direction I was going. I wasn't even looking where I was going and I ended up tripping on a tree root that was sticking out of the ground.

I lifted myself out of the snow and snapped my head back to the offending tree, "GOD DAMMIT!" I lunged at the tree and in one swift motion tore it out of the ground, roots and all.

"GOD DAMMIT!" I roared again as I swung the tree around and struck another tree, making it explode in a shower of splinters.

"WHY!?" I dropped the remains of the tree and tore another out of the ground and smashed it into another, and another, and another until I was surrounded by piles of splinters and chunks of trees all the while crying out in anger and sorrow.

I collapsed on my hands and knees, "why? why did it have to be them? Why does it hurt so much?" I crawled over to the splintered stump of a tree and leaned my back against it.

"The first friends in my life, and they die right in front of me" I deadpanned as I tilted my head and looked up at the sky.

I sat there for what must have been hours as I was almost completely buried by the falling snow. I was starting to feel hungry which bothered me as I wasn’t even sure that I have a stomach but it must have been my body telling me that I was running out of magic or something and I needed to feed soon. I looked down at my hands and saw the visible effects of my hunger; my fingertips were no longer the clear blue color and had darkened into something similar to tinted black window glass. the snow shifted and fell of as I rose back to my feet and looked around at the forest and decided to try something, I placed my hand on a nearby tree that wasn't in pieces and tried to feel if there was any magic in it for me to drain. I could indeed feel a slight magical current flowing through it and reached out to drain from the tree. It was significantly easier to drain than that pony and it suffered the same effects as it withered and died, leaving only a brittle husk behind that fell down under its own weight. It only took the edge off of my hunger like a piece of bread would if one was starving and I went to the next tree and repeated the process. After some time I finally felt full and I looked back and saw the path of death that I left behind, there was at least two dozen trees that had fallen over after I drained them.

I continued walking until the trees became sparse and spread out as I left the forest and was met with only frozen tundra that stretched for miles in front of me. The sight caused me pause for a second before I started walking again all while thinking about the memories that Copy and Duplicate had given me. I struggled to focus on them but was met with only a cacophony of sound and images that were indecipherable and left me with a headache. I decided to leave the memories for another time and instead focus on learning my new body, I lifted my hand and again focused on creating a sword in my hand which was much easier the second time around as I created a double-bladed straight sword. It changed back into my hand and I then tried to focus on something a little more complex. I focused and watched as the crystal and stone formed and extended and formed into the shape of a two-headed axe about four feet in length. I swung my axe hand around, marveling at how easy it was for me to use and how light it was. I passed by a rock sticking out of the ground and decided to test the edge and durability of my weapon and swung it down at the stone. The stone was cleaved in two leaving only a mirror smooth cut in between the two pieces and not even a scratch on the axe. Impressed with the weapon I changed it back and thought of a weapon that would be even more complex, a flail, with only a little more effort than before, I was soon holding a spiked ball in my left hand and a ten-foot chain that led back to my wrist. I was surprised that I could still control the chain like it was still my arm as it coiled and twisted like a snake as I swung it around and smashed a rock to rubble with little effort. After changing my hand back and deciding to save my strength and magic in case I don’t find food anytime soon and continued walking through the howling storm that did not even make me feel slightly cold.

It had been a couple of days of wandering without seeing another intelligent creature and the only company that I had was the occasional memory from Copy and Duplicate that became clearer. I learned through the memories that changelings as a whole were a hive mind of sorts where the drones followed a Queen but they were still capable of individual thought and that they survived by feeding off of the emotions of others, freely given or taken, it didn’t matter, much like myself, the most powerful of these was love but they were just as capable of feeding off of lesser positive emotions while feeding off of negative emotions would be the equivalent of poison to them. I also learned that they were the last of their hive that was killed off a month ago by an army of mercenaries but none of the memories would show a clearer picture of what this army was. They were making their way north in order to find another hive run by a queen called Chrysalis when they were captured by the other ponies.

I had been surviving on hunting the local fauna and draining them when I could and draining any plants or trees I happened across. When I first attempted hunting I became woefully aware of how living as a human where the only challenge to getting food was having enough money to afford it as it became painfully apparent that I could not sneak up on the prey as a giant suit of armor and I wasn’t able to make any throwing weapons from my body. I soon developed the method of creating a very long crystal chain and would snake it under the snow and entangle my prey so I could reel it in and drain it. While this was not the most time effective way of hunting, it was the only one that truly yielded any results.

One day I came upon a moose; he was a behemoth of a creature, standing easily at twelve feet tall and probably weighted at least a couple tons. I was almost salivating (you know, if I had a mouth that is) at the amount of magic that the beast would have. I quickly crouched down so that he wouldn’t see me and silently extended my chain towards him. Although I could not see where the end of my chain was I could feel it and I knew that I was close to my prey, a mere foot away from his back leg I heard a klaxon alarm ring out that startled the moose from his grazing. I tried to catch him as he bolted off but I missed his back leg.

“NO!” I tried to grab him again but he was weaving far too much for me.

I groaned in anger at my lost meal as I retracted my chain. I quickly looked over to where I had heard the alarm and grumbled as I walked up the hill.

“Someone’s gonna pay for making me lose my meal.” I huffed as I crested the hill and looked down.

What I saw reminded me heavily of a military town with groups of small identical wooden houses all organized in a square pattern around a central machine that I couldn’t identify and groups of ponies that were all bundled up in winter clothes. I crouched down just in case they were as hostile as the other ones that I met, silently thanking the snow storm that obscured my presence. I spied on the town for a few minutes, absorbing the details of the town and finally let my guard down a little when I saw a small puff of a coat that was undoubtedly a small pony.

‘Wait… a small pony is called… a colt or filly. Do they treat them like they do human children? Does that mean this… town won’t attack me outright? Knowing my luck, they probably will but I have to find out where I am.’

I gave myself a quick nod before I rose back to my full height and slowly approached the town in the most nonthreatening manner I could. I was maybe a hundred feet away from the closest building when I heard the ear-shattering klaxon alarm going off again and the center structure roared to life and shot a massive ball of fire into the air, lighting the whole town up in a bright red glow. I stumbled back; surprised by the strange alarm that went off and watched as the fireball hovered in the air about twenty feet above the machine it emerged from. I then felt a pulse of magic as the fireball began rocketing towards me, I quickly dove to the side as the fireball engulfed where I was standing, creating a deep gash that carved through the snow and the earth underneath. I scrambled to my feet and looked back to the strange tower and watched in horror as another fireball was created.

‘Son of a bit-' my thought was cut off as I felt another pulse of magic and the fireball launched itself at me again.

I once again dove out of the way but this time I wasn’t able to avoid the blast entirely as I felt the flames hit my left foot. I howled out in pain at the feeling that reminded me of when I put my human hand on a hot exhaust pipe of a crane in the shipyard.

‘FUCK! Why does this hurt so much? Every other time it felt like nothing’ in a fit of brilliance the answer became clear, ‘my body is made of magic so of course I am more susceptible to magical attacks.’ I was desperately clutching my foot, hoping to alleviate the pain somehow.

I rolled on to my hands and knees, hoping to escape from the weapon that was about to kill me and saw a circle of red lights and little scribbles appeared underneath me. The magic circle seemed to be floating in the air right above the snow as it slowly spun in a circle before quickly spinning 90 degrees and locking in place.

‘Oh shit, please don’t tell me.’

I winced as I turned my head back to the weapon and saw yet another ball of fire floating above it. I watched the fireball leave the machine and rocket towards me yet again; time seemed to slow down as I stared my death in the face.

‘NO! I refuse to just roll over and accept this!’ I shouted out in my head with defiance and brought both my hands up to absorb the magic in the fireball.

I felt the fire reach my hands and kept going and engulfed the rest of my body. The pain was excruciating, like I was bathing in the business end of a flamethrower, I couldn’t breathe, my mind went blank, my vision became clouded, seconds dragged on for what felt like days, the flames blocked my vision of anything else. The flames suddenly disappeared and I was greeted once again with the sight of the village in front of me, my arms went limp and the rest of my body soon followed as I collapsed on the ground.

I was somehow still conscious yet I couldn’t move I could see that my hand had ended up in my line of sight and I could only stare at my hand as the crystal had lost all color and was black as the night sky, even the blue lines in between the plates had turned black.

‘Son of a bitch, why didn't that work?' I tried to move, but my body wouldn't even flinch 'so this is how it ends for me huh? I always knew that I would die young but I thought it would be as a human. I’m sorry Copy, Duplicate; I wasted the life that you gave to me.’

My vision was darkening once again and I simply waited for death’s sweet embrace, not even noticing the bright red body of a unicorn entering my field of vision.

“Buck its cold tonight!” a pony completely wrapped up in a heavy coat and boots said to no pony.

The stallion in question was Red Shot, a unicorn stallion with a bright red coat and a dark blue mane and tail that was cut unevenly and unkempt, sticking out in almost every possible direction and bright blue eyes. He was also carrying his specialty bow ‘Hawkeye’ that he had enchanted back in Canterlot to never break and also give his arrows greater penetrating power, enough to punch through solid stone at a hundred hooves. He was currently on guard duty on the Protector Tower, the most recent invention of the mad scientist Second Gear, possibly the craziest and most infuriating pony that Red Shot had ever had the misfortune to work for. Although Red was a smart stallion, he could in no way decipher the techno-babble that Second Gear always used when he described his latest brain-foal but what he did understand about this tower was that it would protect the town from the local inhabitants of The Icelands with little effort... supposedly.

“Stupid machine, making me stand out ‘ere in the cold with nopony to talk ta.” He huffed at the machine and gave it a swift kick with his front hoof.

All of a sudden the machine’s proximity alarm went off in an ear-shattering noise that made Red leap back and bring his hooves up defensively as the display lit up with a two-dimensional display of what set it off. It was a large bipedal creature that made Red Shot’s breath catch in his throat.

‘A Yeti!? What in Celestia’s name is one of those doing so far from the mountains?’

A second display lit up and a jumble of letters and numbers quickly scrolled across the screen as the ‘targeting- algorithms’ as Second described them calculated out the threat and given by the fireball that erupted from the tower’s cannon showed, it was hostile. He watched as the fireball rocketed off towards the eastern end of town towards the supposed target, he watched as the target, some huge bipedal creature that looked nothing like the fur covered yeti the machine thought but was covered in armor made of what appeared to be stone and blue crystal, quickly dove away from the blast. Another blast fired from the tower and this time the ‘thing’ wasn’t able to avoid all of it and was caught in leg, it howled in pain that sounded like a griffon’s talons on a chalkboard.

Red Shot quickly descended the stairs of the tower and heard as another blast of magical fire launched from the tower but he did not watch to see if it connected with the creature, he had to wake up the other guards in case this threat was too great for the Protector Tower to handle, or if Second Gear greatly overestimated its capabilities. He raced towards the barracks where his fellow mercenaries were bunked and kicked the door open with a loud bang.

“Everypony up! We got an intruder at the east end!” he shouted out and saw that most of them were already up from the alarm.

All the guards quickly donned their winter clothes before throwing on their armor over it and quickly following Red Shot out the door, grabbing their weapons on the way. The alarm had also woken up most of the other scientists and they were all looking out their windows and doors as the two dozen mercenaries raced towards the east end of town.

They soon came upon the scorch marks from the Protector Tower and saw in one of the craters was a massive suit of armor that easily stood hooves taller than the biggest earth pony he had ever seen, That Big Macintosh pony that he met that one time when he went to Ponyville to get some of their renown apples, but it looked different, no longer did it have that strange blue glow but was now black and darkened.

He was brought out his thoughts by one of his fellow mercs gingerly poked the creature with his sword.

“Hey! Watch it! We don’t know what’s in that armor” Red had his bow drawn in his red magic aura as he cautiously walked around the creature, the others all had their own weapons at the ready.

He soon came upon the face of the creature and saw a blue glow that drew his vision and saw two gems where its eyes should have been were staring back at him before they too turned black. The sight slightly disturbed him but the voice of another pony drew his attention.

“So Shot, what are we gonna do with this… thing” A grey earth pony asked him.

“What ya think!? We’re gonna get rid of it.”

“No you will not!” A new voice that he recognized as Second Gear called out from behind him.

“Gear, get back to yer house, this is a matter for us mercs, that’s why ya pay us right?” he said with a great deal of sarcasm.

“No, we pay your salaries for doing what we require of you, and at the current moment, we require that you detain that specimen and let us study it” his nasally high and mighty tone grated against Red Shot’s ears.

“No way in Tartarus! We ‘ave no idea what this thing can do.”

“Then you shall not receive your stipend for the month.” Those words were Second Gear’s personal favorite and would use them every time Red Shot disagreed with him.

He shook with anger and growled through clenched teeth, “FINE! Take you stupid ‘specimen’, I hope it kills you!” he shouted as he huffed past Second Gear and his fellow mercenaries followed behind him.

Second Gear simply glanced at him before clearing his throat and looking to his fellow scientists, “gentlestallions, shall we?” he said as he lifted the creature with his magic and a few others soon joined in and carried his newest specimen back to his lab.

Ch. 4 Out of the Fire and into the Freezer

My consciousness returned and my eyes refocused on my surroundings, I was surprised that I was in what looked like another cage in in a basement and a low buzzing noise in my ears. The bars of the cage were brightly polished and even in the low light of the room, I could see some kind of rainbow colored smoke coming from them. I tried to stand up but not even my fingers would move and I could only lay there with a gnawing hunger in my stomach.

“…uly incredible, I have never in all my years seen a creature such as this, it’s entire body is composed of stone and crystal, right down to its internal organs” a nasally voice caught my attention as it was at best only a few feet away from me.

“This specimen seems to be able to contain magic within itself in a primal state, always in flux but still maintaining perfect control, I doubt even the Princesses could manage such a feat for very long.” I could hear in his voice that he was excited about this ‘specimen’ of his.

My attention was drawn away from the conversation when I heard a small squeak, when I looked over to where the noise came from; I came eye to eye with a small orange coated pony that had a horn and a pair of wings with a short cut blonde mane. She gave another squeak before quickly running off out of my sight.

“The thingy is awake!” her distinctively high-pitched female voice told me that she was a filly.

“Third Gear! What have I told you about using such slack-jawed language!?” the first voice that I heard shouted with frustration and I heard what sounded like a fist hitting something soft and a yelp.

“Sorry… Professor, the thi… specimen is awake” The filly apparently named Third Gear said with a shaky voice.

“Is it now? Then let it get a look at us” his voice had a certain smugness that made my stone skin crawl.

I hear the clopping of hooves on wood as the unicorn came into my line of sight. He was tall and gangly with a pale green coat, a forest green mane and tail, sickly yellow eyes and on his… flank was a tattoo of some kind that looked like two interlocking gears. He was also wearing a pair of rectangular glasses and what looked like a flannel turtle neck but didn’t have any pants on.

“Hello there Specimen, do you understand me?” there was a clipboard and pencil levitating in a sickly green aura that was matched by the aura on his horn.

Another set of memories from Copy and Duplicate came barreling into focus.

‘Unicorns are capable of all sorts of magical feats that originate from their horns; each unicorn has a unique aura to match their color, the simplest form of magic is telekinesis.’

“Hmm… Specimen does not seem to understand Equestrian” he was thinking out loud as he wrote down more notes.

“No… I… under… stand” each syllable was agonizingly painful as I struggled to speak.

“Oh… well that makes things easier” he quickly dragged his pencil across the clipboard to scratch out his previous note.

“Hun… gry… need… magic.”

“Ah yes, we thought that may be the case so we have something you might like” he had a sinister smile on his face as he waved a hoof to a pony of to the side.

I heard a door open and close and a few minutes later it re-opened and I heard the squeaking of wheels and a guttural roar of a creature that was all too familiar, a yeti. My heart felt like it dropped into my feet when I heard the two cages clang together and the squeak of the rusty hinges as the cage door opened and let the yeti in. I then saw a huge fur covered hand grab me by the neck and lift me into the air and hold me off the ground with both of its hands around my neck. I could feel it slowly clench its fists around my throat and I could feel the pressure as he tried to choke the life out of me. I was able to slowly drain some of the magic out of his body as feeling returned to my own while he roared at me, only inches from my face. I gave my own crystalline roar and snapped my hands around his forearms and started syphoning his magic away in earnest.

He noticed what I was doing and started swinging me around in an attempt to get break my grip on him, but I didn’t let go, he even tried slamming my back into the wall of the cage. I felt a few of the smaller crystals on my shoulders break off, but I still would not let go. Soon the yeti struggled to stay on his feet and his grip on my throat loosened and he fell to his knees, but I continued to feed on him. I watched as his body withered, his fur fell off in clumps; he let out pained whimpers as his body went limp. When I was finished, I let go of his arms and let him fall to the ground in a heap; much like the pony that I had drained, he was nothing but mummified skin and bones, and I let out a sigh at being back to my old self again with my crystals lit up with their blue glow.

“Amazing” Second Gear whispered out as I looked back to him, “I knew my theory was correct, but to see it in practice… it sends a chill up my spine” he shivered slightly, whether it was from the cold I couldn’t feel or his own senses, I couldn’t tell.

“Can you let me out of here? I won’t be a danger to any of you” I was getting rather sick of always being in a cage.

“Sorry, I cannot do that, there has never been any record of a creature like you and I simply must know everything about you” he let out a sinister snicker that terrified me.

“You can’t keep me in here” I deadpanned as I shifted my hand into a sword and swung it at the bars of my cell.

As soon as my sword connected with the bars, my body was wracked with pain as lightning arced through my body. My body shook violently and I howled in pain before collapsing on my back, smoke slowly wafting from a couple of scorch marks.

“Oh I think I can keep you here as long as I want” he let out a sickening cackle as he left through a door and a couple of other ponies followed him.

I rolled over to my hands and knees and slammed my fist down of the floor of the cell in anger. I took a few deep breaths to cool my rage but it boiled over again as I roared and body slammed the bars in an attempt to break it but I was just met with the excruciating pain as lightning arced through me again and I fell to my knees; I didn’t even notice the filly that was hiding in the shadows of the room until I heard her stutter.

“I… I…” I quickly snapped my head to face her which she flinched back from.

“What do you want?” I said with a great deal of anger in my voice.

“I… I’m sorry for my… father, he… isn’t the… nicest of ponies” She said while looking at the ground.

“Whatever, you didn’t answer my question, what do you want?” I huffed as I sat cross-legged in the center of the cell.

“I… um… what… what’s your name?” the question dumbfounded me for a second.

‘Why does a pony care about my name? Isn’t she with that creepy scientist? She called him father.’

She was looking up at me with a smile that looked like she didn’t have a care in the world. I noticed that she had a fresh bruise on her face and a black eye that was probably a few days old. I was about to say my name but no words came out, I searched my mind for my name but I soon realized that I had forgotten my own name. I was about to start panicking when another name seemed to burst into the front of my brain, the name that I wrote on the tombstone.

“My name is… Diamant.”

“I’m Third Gear” she had that happy smile on her face, which for some reason, cooled the anger in my heart.

“Well then Third Gear, maybe you could answer a few questions for me.” She nodded her head, “Ok first, where am I?”

“We’re at Research Station Alpha, on the border of the Jagged Peaks in the Icelands.” At the mention of Jagged Peaks, another splitting headache came as another memory became clear in my head.

‘The Jagged Peaks are the southernmost mountain range that separates The Icelands from the Southern Sands desert, one week distance from Equestria as the pegasus flies and is one of the least explored areas in the world given its inhospitable climate.’

“What exactly are you all researching here?”

“My father was contracted to discover and write down all the plants and animals here.”

“Ok so why does he feel the need to keep me locked?”

“Well… um… that’s because… he tends to ‘experiment’ on new things he discovers. Mr. Red Shot says he’s a… mad scientist but he isn’t really angry, he’s just mean.” The mention of experiments greatly unsettled me.

“Who is Red Shot?”

“Oh, he’s the leader of the mercs that protect this station. He’s really cool too; he even let me play with his bow.”

“Third Gear! Get out here and make dinner!” I heard Second Gear shout from the door.

Third flinched for a second before looking back to me, “I… I have to go.” She spat out quickly as she ran through the door, leaving me alone again.

I started lose track of time after being in the cell for so long, it could have been days or even weeks, I wasn’t sure as almost everyone of that monster Second Gear’s experiments would make me pass out. Sometimes he would blast me with lightning, other times it would be fire or ice, but each one was incredibly painful and he would never say what he learned from doing it. I constantly tried to escape the cell but was only met with the pain of whatever spell was holding me, I even tried to absorb the magic in it but it just felt like drinking hydrochloric acid and being eaten from the inside out. One of the particularly more painful ones was when it felt like he tried to pull my body apart, piece by piece, fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, my body didn’t break apart. He would always bring another creature of some kind for me to feed on, making sure that I wouldn’t die, sometimes it was a yeti, other times it was a wolf, but most of the time it was foxes, bobcats and other small to medium sized animals. There was a few times where I thought about not eating, somehow hoping that I would die and escape this hell that I found myself in, but my resolve didn’t stand up to my hunger very long.

The only thing that kept me going was Third Gear, she would always come and visit me when she could and we would just talk. It was… nice to have someone… I mean somepony to talk to after being alone for so long. I assumed that it was what it was like to have a friend, I still counted Copy and Duplicate as my friends but I never got to know them before… yea. She was enthralled by my stories about the human world, asking a million questions about all sorts of things such as how the sun and moon rose and set when there wasn’t a princess to control them or even down to how a world can survive without magic. She would also explain as much as she could about her world, but there wasn’t nearly as much information as she was only twelve years old. I learned that she was what was called a ‘pegacorn’, a pony that looked similar to alicorns (the most powerful form of pony kind) but had severely limited magic and could barely perform even simple magic. She did tell me that the machine that attacked me was called the ‘Protector Tower’ that Second and a group of other scientists made. I asked about her father and she seemed to be emotionally distant from him, which made sense as the limited interaction that I saw between the two gave me the impression that he was physically abusive and treated her almost like a slave which was evident by the constant appearance of fresh bruises as the old ones faded.

After a couple more days (I always had to ask Third what day it was every time I saw her) she came to see me.

“Hey Dia, are you feeling ok today” I groaned at the nickname that she made up for me.

“Yea… I’m ok… he didn’t do that much to me today, how long was I out for?” I asked as I rubbed my head.

“Not long, only a few hours”, she sat down on her flank right in front of my cell, “can you explain ‘airplanes’ again? How can something so big fly without magic?”

I gave a playful huff at her huge eyes brimming with wonder, “well you see; it’s all a matter of aerodynamics…”

I was suddenly interrupted by a huge explosion and rumble as the entire room shook and knocked some of the beakers and test tubes off the tables and shelves.

“What was that?” I said while looking at the walls of the room.

“I’m not sure, it couldn’t have been father, he usually does his untested experiments outside.” She was looking around as well when another explosion that was much closer that caused my cell to rattle a little bit.

Third started heading towards the door, “No! Don’t go outside!” she flinched at my sudden outburst, “whatever is causing this is definitely not friendly, stay in here where it-” I was cut off by the room exploding in a shower of fire and wood.

I found myself on the ground with the wreaked remains of the room; I shook my head to get rid of the ringing in my ears. I looked around and saw that the entire room had been reduced to splinters and even the bars of my cell had been warped and blackened by the explosion. I looked down at the ground and saw a small orange ball lying under some splintered wood.

“Third! Are you ok?” no response.

‘Dammit, I’ve got to help her!’

I looked at the bars of my cell again, they were warped and bent in mismatched ways that showed me that they were exposed to a great deal of magic very quickly, I could only hope that the spell put on them had been dispelled by the blast as I slowly inched a single finger towards the bar and touched it. I flinched, fully expecting to be wracked with pain again but nothing happened, I placed my palm on the bars and again, nothing happened. I quickly grabbed the bars with both hands and started prying them apart, I grunted with effort before the bars finally yielded and shattered into pieces, I ran over to Third and looked her over. She was covered in small to moderate cuts that were bleeding, her horn had a serious crack running through it and her the feathers on her wings were burned and missing in places along with a nasty cut right above her right eye and she wasn’t moving; I gently placed my hand on her side to feel for a heartbeat and had to focus so that I didn’t subconsciously drain her magic. I could indeed feel her heartbeat, I let out a sigh before gently picking her up and carrying her thorough the doorway that had been blasted to pieces.

I walked down the small hallway quickly and after passing through a small doorway, I was standing on the floor of what must have been a house as there were pieces of wood everywhere as well as what could have been a fridge that was dented and banged up. I soon spotted what must have been a bed at one point, I quickly walked over and grabbed all of the sheets that were still somewhat serviceable and wrapped up Third in the blankets and sheets so that she would stay warm and hopefully the sheets could stop some of the bleeding. She groaned and slowly cracked one eye and looked at me with tear filled eyes.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe.” I whispered to her before her eyes shut again and her head went limp.

I gentle put her down and covered her with what remained of the bed so that she would be hidden and would be protected from the snow and wind. I stood up to my full height before a red light from behind me illuminated the area and caught my attention. I quickly spun around expecting that stupid machine to shoot another fireball at me but instead of me I watched as the fireball blasted off in a different direction.

‘So that must have been whoever attacked the station’ I looked down where Third was hidden before another series of explosions echoed all around me, ‘I have to make sure it is safe before I take her anywhere.’

I quickly ran towards the machine, passing other houses that had been destroyed as well as a couple other ponies lying on the ground, all the while, more magical missiles smashed into buildings and promptly detonated with tremendous force, a couple of the closer blasts sent me through some of the buildings, shook up, but no worse for wear as I scrambled back to my feet and continued to the machine. As I approached the tower I watched as it fired another blast in the same direction, I followed the blast as it flew past the destroyed houses and hit its target and detonated. I could see from the light from the fires it emitted that there were a large group of ponies marching towards the town.

The soldiers didn’t look anything like what I thought they would look like, none of them had any form of uniformity with their armor, and even the ‘formation’ they were in was more of an unorganized blob moving forward. The different races weren’t even organized into the same general area, from what I saw there was only earth ponies and unicorns. I turned my head skyward and tried to see if there was some pegasi flying around but the oppressive dark of the night sky along with the clouds blocked my sight.

For a second, I thought about charging them head on, hoping that I could take them down before they had a chance to react to what I was, but a dozen beacons of light from the army brought that particular line of thought to a screeching halt. I watched as the flashes of light became beams as they flew through the air and smashed into the tower, blowing it up. I dove to the side when a particularly large piece nearly fell on me. I looked back at the destroyed machine and saw a strange rainbow colored haze coming from it.

‘If that thing was able to shoot out huge blasts of magic like that, maybe there is a core that could act like a bomb or something. Taking on that many unicorns doesn’t sound all that appealing.’

I quickly climbed the destroyed machine and saw what was making the strange smoke; it was an object about the size of a basketball with a swirling mass of energy inside of it that looked like a spiral galaxy as well as letting out a low hum. I reach out and tentatively poke it with a finger, a jolt of energy runs up my hand causing me to retract my hand. I look down at my finger and saw that it was glowing bright red like a road flare before it slowly faded back to its original color.

‘Maybe it’s not a bomb; maybe I can use it as a supercharger.’

I turned my head and looked back at the approaching army, they were closer and there were a lot of unicorns there along with earth ponies. I looked back down to the core thing and took a deep breath before grabbing it with both hands.

A/N: Hello everyone, sorry it has taken me so long to update the story but I'm sure everyone has heard the generic excuse of real life stuff getting in the way so I will now be using it as well. Hopefully it will not be get in the way as much so the chapters should start updating faster.

Ch. 5 Armor of the Sun

“*pant*… *pant*… dammit… *pant*… Celestia dammit! Why are those bucking bandits here!?” Red Shot was breathing heavily after running behind a house before shooting another arrow right between the eyes of an earth pony.
Attacking the army was merely his own stubbornness more than any chance of winning; he knew this research station was lost the second the bandits set their sights on it the place. Those greenhorns that Second Gear hired were probably all dead, they were there mostly as a façade of power than any form of actual skill.

He was running in between the houses, hoping to somehow make it to the Protector Tower, praying that it would miraculously repel the attackers. He quickly popped his head out from behind a house and took down another pony and ducked down as a lightning bolt arced through the air right above his head.

“*pant*… ha… *pant*… gotta be faster than that mate.” He rasped out with a smile as he raced around another building, only yards away from the tower.

He looked up at the tower and saw bolts of energy come from the attacking forces connected with the tower and it detonated in a shower of sparks and metal.

“BUCK!” Red shouted as he dove into the snow.

He lifted himself back out of the snow and cursed his luck at the sight of the tower; it was nothing but a twisted skeleton of what it once was. Pipes and gears were scattered all around the site while the tower itself was banana-peeled around the center with pipes bent outward in every direction. Red let out a sigh and dropped his head before a faint glimmer of light drew his attention, he looked up and saw the suit of armor that had wandered into the town almost two months ago was standing onto of the remains of the tower.

‘What is that thing up to?’ he thought to himself as he watched the strange creature.

He watched it as it turned it head towards the army, looked back at the tower, reached for something before recoiling its hand back quickly. It turned back to look at the army once again before grabbing for something with both of its appendages. Red Shot was knocked off his hooves by a huge blast of wind, his senses were dulled and his entire body was tingling, he stared up at the sky and watched as all the clouds were blown away, revealing Luna’s stars, even the wind and snow from the storm was blasted away, leaving only an eerie silence. He rolled over and tried to get back to his hooves but his legs were trembling like a new born foal. He turned his head back to the tower and saw something nearly overwhelmed his mind.

The suit of armor was standing there; the blue crystal was gone and was replaced by a glowing red light like the fires of the sun itself. The spires that were sticking out of its shoulders had shattered to pieces but they were floating in the air, as if held by an invisible force as they had no magic aura surrounding them and flames were erupting from where the spires stood. Red could only stare at the armor that made him feel like he was standing in front of Celestia herself. He watched as the creature leapt over the railing of the tower and landed in the snow with a quiet thud, the snow instantly started melting and evaporating from around its feet as he stood up. It then let lose a thunderous roar that rattled Red’s teeth before he lunged forward with such incredible speed that he became a blur of light

I grabbed the ball of energy and instantly felt the effects, insane amounts of magic started pouring into me, I almost couldn’t keep track of it all, and it felt amazing and terrifying at the same time. I released the ball and took a step back and looked at it, gone was the strange swirling mass in the center of it and it looked like a plain glass orb. I took a deep breath and looked down at my hands, my entire body was glowing like a spotlight yet I didn’t have to squint my eyes at all. I felt AMAZING! Like I just drank a case of Red Bull and had way too much energy to just sit still. I turned to face the approaching army before heaving myself over the railing and fell to the ground. As I fell, the world seemed to be moving at quarter-speed, even the fall from the machine which was only ten feet high, it felt like it took thirty seconds. I heard a quiet sizzling and I looked down and saw the snow around my feet melted away in seconds.

The strange feeling I had when I first woke up returned again and I realized that my body was moving on its own, like I was a passenger of my own mind.

“RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!” I roared out as I ran headfirst into the soldiers with a sword as my left and an axe as my right.

My body felt like it was moving on its own, like I was a passenger watching through the eyes of another but even though I wasn’t in direct control of my body, it seemed to take my ideas and use them as I thought of them.

'I' reached the front lines in seconds and loped off the heads of the first two ponies before any of them could react. The rest were all looking away, apparently blinded by the light but that didn’t stop me as I continued cutting down more and more of them. I cleaved the head of a unicorn in half, watching as his brains spilled out in a shower of blood, I hacked off the two front legs off an earth pony, my sword sailing through his steel armor, skin, muscle, bones and the earth beneath him like water, I then cut another one clear in half from chest to tail, separating him from his legs, and five other ponies before the first even hit the ground.

[....]

A few of the other ponies, still unable to see, started stabbing wildly at where they thought I was, most missed by a mile, one actually stabbed another pony right in the eye and the only one to actually hit me got a glancing blow against my upper arm with a spear before catching under my shoulder and snapping like a toothpick as I brought my axe around and decapitated him. Time was beginning to speed back up and the light was fading fast.

‘I’m running out of time, gotta finish this now.’

I brought both my hands together and morphed them into a greatsword about fifteen feet in length, I groaned as the weight sent me off balance and the tip fell into the dirt. With another roar, I spun my body around in a circle, bringing the sword around in a massive arc, slicing through dozens of ponies in a single swing. The sword changed back into my hands and I fell to one knee, panting heavily. I looked up; hoping that I had killed the last of them and my eyes went wide when there was still another six ponies alive, all unicorns.

‘Fuck, it just had to be all unicorns did it Murphy?’ I sighed as they all charge up spells in their horns.

I watched as the heads of two unicorns standing next to each other suddenly exploded that showered me in blood, brains and bone. They all turned suddenly to see what had killed the two of them, but I took full advantage of their lapse in focus, I smashed my head straight into one of the unicorns, snapping his horn off and hearing the satisfying crunch of a fractured skull as I grabbed two of the others in my hands. I clenched my fingers closed until I felt the snap of breaking bones and the ponies went limp. I dropped them and looked to the final unicorn; he flinched backwards as I locked eyes with him. I lunged at him, he cried out in terror and launched a lightning bolt that was off target and hit me in one of the spires on my shoulder. The blast sent pain through my shoulder that sent me off balance and I ended up tripping over my feet and body slamming into the pony. I got to my hands and knees and saw that I was directly on top of the pony, he was unconscious and his legs were bent and twisted at wrong angles, showing me that they were broken. I raised my hand, clenched it into a fist, and slammed down hard on his head, the last sound of his life merely the sound of his brains as they squished between my fist and the dirt.

I stumbled back to my feet and snapped my head around, hoping that there were no more ponies hiding somewhere waiting for me to drop my guard. Deciding that I was fairly safe the reality of what I just did finally sunk in as I came down off my adrenaline and magically-supercharged high as I collapsed to my knees, emotionally and physically drained. My body was tingling and felt like it was made of lead and the crystals were flickering from blue to black and every color in between.

‘Guess my body can’t handle having that much magic running through me for very long, gives new meaning to ‘burn twice as bright for half as long.’

“Bucking Celestia, you are a one-pony army mate!” a voice that was happy and jovial and sounded like an Australian called out from behind me.

My flickering crystals soon settled back down to a slightly dimmed blue and I reassumed control of my body as I struggled to get back to my feet, spun around and took a defensive position and came eye to eye with a red coat pony with a blue mane and a longbow strapped to his back that looked vaguely familiar. He was also wearing a heavy coat that covered most of his body except for his face.

“Whoa, whoa mate, I mean ya no harm.” He brought his hoof up over his face in some form of submission.

“Who... are... you?” my arms felt like they weighted a thousand pounds each and my legs were shaking while trying to hold myself up.

“Name’s Red Shot,” he placed a hoof on his chest, “leader of the merry band of mercs that watch… er… watched over Research Station Alpha” he said with a sheepish smile as he looked over the remains of the research station.

Most of the buildings were destroyed; those that weren’t were fully engulfed in fire. A sudden realization hit me like a ton of bricks.

‘Third Gear!’

“Hey, Red Eye or what-”

“It’s Red Shot!” he huffed at me.

“Whatever. Is there a medical building somewhere?”

“Yea its right over… well damn, that sucks” he turned around to point at a building but ended up pointed at the splintered remains of a building.

‘Son of a bitch, I just can’t catch a break can I?’ I staggered past Red Shot, my legs felt like they were made of rubber and I stumbled with almost every step and straight to the remains of the medical building.

‘Come on, come on! There has got to be something here!’ I quickly scanned the remains of the buildings, tearing away splintered beams, chunks of wood and all sorts of broken medical supplies, ‘Ah ha!’ I exclaimed in my head as I came across a tin box with a red cross on it.

I quickly opened the box and scanned the contents.

‘Let’s see, gauze, disinfectant, pain killers, good, it’s all here’ I quickly snapped the kit shut and lumbered back towards the house where I left Third.

As I staggered as fast as I could, I was soon joined by Red Shot following next to me; I snapped my head to face him.

“What do you want?” I growled as I passed more destroyed building.

“I came to help ya out, ya saved my life, I owe ya a debt” he answered as we came upon the house again.

I didn’t say anything back to him as I walked over to where Third was hiding and lifted the rubble out of the way and knelt down next to her. She was still unconscious, but still had a heartbeat.

“Oy, is that the foal Third Gear?” Red asked as he walked up beside me and looked down at her.

“Yes.”

“She don’t look so hot, you think you can help her.”

“SHUT UP! I am going to save her! I’m not going lose someone else!” I shouted at him as I tore open a package of gauze and started carefully wrapping it around Third.

I had to be careful, my fingers were still sharp and I didn’t want to give any more cuts than she had. I had never bandaged an injured person back when I was human and doing so in a body with razor-sharp fingers added an extra level of difficulty that I did not appreciate.

“FUCK!” the bandages weren’t doing their job; she was losing too much blood, she was going to die at the rate she was going.

The bandages were suddenly engulfed in a dark red and they lifted into the air.

“Buck mate, you can’t do emergency first aid to save your life, step aside, I’ll have this filly taken care of in a jiffy.”

I couldn’t do anything to help so I just shifted to the side and hoped that he could somehow help her. I paced around the floor of the room, still unable to feel the cold of the weather but the icy grip in my heart still made me shiver, I kept pacing until a cough from Red drew my attention.

“Alright mate, I’ve done everything I could, it’s up to her now.”

I rushed over and quickly looked down at Third, she looked more like a mummy than a pony, her wings were individually bandaged and then tied to her side to prevent her from using them, her body was covered in bandages with some red splotches on them, even her horn was wrapped up but as I placed my hand on her side, I could still feel her heart, it was weak, but steady. I let out a sigh before I leaned up against the remains of a wall, right next to her. Red Shot let out a sigh of his own before slumping down next to me.

“So mate, mind tellin’ me yer name?” he asked with a cheesy grin on his face

“Diamant.”

“Diamant eh? Well then if ya don’t mind me askin’ what are ya? I’ve never seen a living suit of armor before.”

“I’m not a suit of armor, I’m a Magic Eater” I answered with a little frustration, why him calling me a suit of armor bothered me, I had no idea.

“That how ya turned yer claw thingys into swords and what not? That the abilities of yer race?”

“Yes, and they are called hands, but I don’t know of any other Magic Eaters, the last sighting was apparently millennia ago. I think that I am the only one left” my head drooped a little; the thought of being the last of anything unsettled me.

“Oh… uh… sorry mate, I can’t imagine what that’s like.”

“Yea, well… whatever, why don’t you go see if there are any other survivors or something.”

“Alright mate, be back in a little bit” he answered as he got up and walked out of sight.

I followed him with my eyes till he was out of sight before giving another sigh and looking down at Third and noticed her shiver, I reached over and grabbed a scrap of a bed sheet that large enough to cover her and wrapped her up in it. I tilted my head back and got an eyeful of the extremely clear night sky, there were stars everywhere, it almost seemed way too crowded with stars just thrown around randomly but then I remembered where I was.

‘I wonder how long it takes… Luna to make each night?’

I kept star gazing looking to see if I could spot any familiar constellations but my lack of any real knowledge in astronomy kept me from recognizing any of them. It was strangely calming staring up at the stars and I didn’t even notice when my eyes grew heavy and I fell asleep.

My sleep was interrupted by a large boom that rocked to caverns and sent dust and a few small rocks tumbling down from the ceiling, one of which hit me square in the head and rolled out of my bed while clutching my head. I was interrupted from nursing my head by my friend poking me in the shoulder.

“Something is wrong. That boom wasn’t from a cave-in or simple digging. We have to go see her!” I nodded my head and stood up and followed him as we raced through the door.

As soon as we passed the doorway we knew immediately that something was very wrong. The others were all racing towards the sound that had rocked the cave; I had suspected it was from somewhere down in the lower caves but the direction the others were running only led to one place, the entrance, we were under attack. I was tempted to follow them, to see what had happened, but I knew that we had a different job than the rest.

“Come on, if we truly are under attack, we have no time to waste!” he nodded his head and we raced through oncoming crowd.

The going was slow, fighting against the tide of the others was slow as they had a job to do and were unwavering in their resolve to complete it, as were we but in the opposite direction. I was bumping shoulders almost every other second, almost knocking me to the ground but still I pressed on until I felt something wrap around my neck and pulled me against the wall.

“This way! We can use the service tunnel to get around the crowd!” he shouted at me that I barely heard over the noise of the crowd running through the cave and shouting orders of their own.

I gave him a nod and we were soon racing through one of smaller service tunnels that were barely big enough to fit me as I followed behind him. I could still hear the din of the crowd as they raced by and it was soon accompanied by a series of thud and muffled booms that shook the walls just as fiercely as the first one that roused me from my sleep. After what felt like a few minutes the service tunnel had looped around and exited into one of the main caverns and was mostly empty aside from a few stragglers who were making their way to the surface. We quickly got our bearings and recognized where we were and quickly sped off into another cavern.

“We must hurry! We cannot fail!” I shouted to him as we raced through the darkened caverns with practiced ease, we had been down this way many times and could probably make it with our eyes shut.

He nodded again and we ran even faster, my legs were burning, my throat was dry and ragged but I did not slow down, we had a job to do and would see it finished even if it killed us. We soon came upon our destination and there she sat, quietly weeping. She heard us enter and looked up at us, her beautiful green eyes were marred by tears as they swelled and fell down her equally beautiful face.

“You have come! I was so worried that none would make it here in time!” her face brightened immediately that also lifted our spirits as she lifted herself out of her seat and quickly walked up to us.

“A-are we the first ones to make it here?” I looked up at her with worry.

“I am afraid so and there is not enough time to wait for the others, you two must escape this place, now please, lower your heads.”

I wanted to object, to beg her to wait for the others; this charge was far too great for just us but as soon as my eyes met hers, all desire to object bled away from me in an instant. I lowered my head and closed my eyes and felt her touch on my forehead and a tsunami of memories crashed into my head, all the memories that she has been burdened to carry for her long life, the memories of lives lost, battles won, challenges overcome and the secrets that weighed heavy in her mind. All of these were now mine and they weighed as heavy in my mind as they did in hers. Once she was finished she looked down on both of us with tears still running down her face and a forced smile on her face.

“You must hurry, there is not much time before the invaders breach this place” she looked back to her chair and gave it a swift kick, knocking it over and revealing a small tunnel that was the same size as the service tunnel, “this will lead to the outside, now please, you must go now!” she was still crying but her voice was strong and unwavering.

I lingered for a moment as my friend entered the tunnel first, I looked back at her as she turned her head towards the tunnel entrance that we came from, the sounds of shouting ponies and the clatter of weapons rang out against the cold walls of the tunnels. The ponies came bursting into the room and she took a defensive stance, ready to slay the invaders of our home. They all gave out a battle cry and charged her and she in turn gave a cry of her own and a massive wave of green fire erupted around them and engulfed them and reduced them to ashes in seconds.

I suddenly felt a tug on my back leg and saw that my friend had remerged from the tunnel and had grabbed my leg; he gave a strong tug that made me lose my balance and fall over as he dragged me to the tunnel. I struggled against him, trying to kick him off of me.

“No! Let me go! I will not abandon her!” I continued to struggle but his grip would not falter and I was soon hanging on the edge of the tunnel.

With a final tug I slipped over the edge of the tunnel and the last glimpse of her was her looking back at me, her eyes were somber and full of sadness and a halfhearted smile on her face.

“MY QUEEN!” the entrance of the tunnel erupted in green fire and collapsed as she sealed the only way back to her closed.

I lurched awake and saw that I was once again leaning up against the destroyed wall with Third Gear right next to me and Red Shot sitting a few feet away with a roaring fire in between us. He gave me an uneasy look as he turned his head and I followed his eyes and saw that sitting close to the fire was a green coated pony with a bandage over his eye.

Ch. 6 One More Step

“YOU ASSHOLE!” I roared as I lunged from my position and grabbed Second Gear by the throat and heaved him into the air.

I really wanted to just drain his life from him and leave his body in the snow but I held back as the thought of this bastard memories in my head made my skin crawl and I also wanted to make him suffer for what he did to me. His two front hooves were wrapped around my wrist in some attempt to make me let go and his back legs were flailing about.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now” he was hacking and coughing as he struggled to breath.

He opened his one good eye and his horn lit up as he tried to shoot some spell at me but whatever had happened to him before had severely weakened his magic and his spell glanced off my head right above my eye but it felt like someone pinched me. Even though it didn’t hurt it still infuriated me that he was still trying to hurt me.

“That’s how you wanna do it? Fine!” I brought up my other hand and in one quick motion snapped his horn off of his head, to which he gave a pained scream.

I dropped him on the ground and he proceeded to roll around and kept on screaming as he clutched the spot where his horn used to be. I was extremely tempted to crush him under my foot but I stopped myself and instead picked him up again and brought him a few inches from my face. He was still whimpering and had tears rolling down his face but was otherwise silent as I stared down at him.

My stomach was doing backflips at its desire to drain his life but my rage wanted to make him suffer further for what he did to me, even my hand was trembling, the desire to crush his windpipe gnawing at my mind, my entire body was fighting with itself at what to do to him. My mind was able to regain control over my rebellious body and I simply flung Second out into the snow.

He slid a few feet in the snow before he came to a stop and looked back at me, “I suggest you start running before I change my mind.”

He didn’t need a second warning as he struggled to his feet and took off into the darkness. I walked over and flopped back down next to Third and let out a huge sigh. I looked back across the campfire and saw Red just staring at me.

“What?”

“That was pretty extreme mate, did he really deserve that? I didn’t like him myself but a unicorn losing their horn is like losing yer legs”

“I don’t feel sorry for him, that pony was a monster and I’m still debating if it was a good idea to let him go but I wasn't gonna let him walk away like nothing happened. Maybe We should chase him down and break his legs and let him crawl through the snow like a worm until he freezes to death.” a second voice using my mouth to speak called out that scared me.

'What was that? Did I just say that? No, I probably just though it in my head cause I'm really tired from absorbing all that magic from before, yea that's it, that has to be it.'

“Uh…ok, I won’t mention it again… but… what we gonna do now?” Red only seemed slightly taken aback about what I just said.

“I… I don’t know… get some sleep. We’ll figure out… something tomorrow.”

“What about you mate? You only slept for bout two hours and that thing with Second-.”

“I’ll be fine” I interrupted, “don’t think I could sleep right now anyways.”

“Alright mate, just don’t push yerself too hard now.” He said as he lowered his head to the ground and was asleep in minutes.

‘Heh, wish I could fall asleep that fast, guess that’s a talent a merc picks up after a while.’ I looked down to Third and felt for her heartbeat again, ‘good, still there, but what are we gonna do? We can’t stay here, but where can we go?’

I just stared at the fire, losing myself in the hypnotizing flames; seconds turned into minutes, minutes turned into hours as I kept adding fire to the flames to keep the ponies warm. A stupid thought entered my brain and in an equally stupid move, I grabbed one of the flaming logs with a hand. I don’t know why I did it, I was half expecting it to burn like when the Protector Tower blasted me, but instead I found myself holding a flaming log in my hand like it was nothing, it didn’t even fell warm against my skin.

‘So I guess only magical fire can hurt me? Proves my ‘weak against magic’ theory’

I continued to play with the fire, occasionally poking it with my hand and making sure it didn’t get too small. I was so busy taking care of the fire and thinking everything that had happened to me so far, I didn’t even notice the sunrise. It wasn’t a bright and sunny day by a long shot as the clouds had rolled back in and covered the hole in the sky, but it was less dark, sort of like an overcast day and it wasn’t snowing. I heard a mumble and looked over to Red who was on his back with his hooves kicking in the air like a dog chasing something in a dream. He then tilled over and his hooves hit the ground with a thump that shook him awake.

“Huh! Wha happen?” he said through half-lidded eyes and a slack mouth.

“Have a nice dream?” I said with a chuckle.

“Ugg… no, had nother nightmare bout that crazy pink pony I met back in Ponyville chasing me with cupcakes and stuff. Just thinkin bout her… “He suddenly shivered.

“I did some thinking… We need to leave this place, there is nothing left here and we have to make sure Third is ok.”

“Good plan mate, while looking for survivors last night, I saw that there is plenty o’ food n’ stuff for a trip. Where we gonna go?”

“I was hoping you would know. Is there a town close to here?”

“Hmm… the closest town is Black Port and its bout a week west, wouldn’t really call it a town though, more of a half dozen buildings with a dock on it.”

“Then that’s where we’re heading, go gather up as much food as possible and don’t worry about food for me, I eat magic and I can get that from plants and animals.” He gave a quick salute before bolting off into the ruins of the town.
I looked down at my hands, ‘good,fingers are still blue so I won’t have to eat for a little while at least’

I was interrupted from my thoughts by a small groan from my side, I quickly snapped my head and saw that Third had woken up.

“Third! I was worried you weren’t gonna wake up!” she groaned again as she brought her hoof and rubbed her head.

“Dia? What happened?” her voice was weak and raspy.

“The station was attacked by an army of mercenaries.” She slowly looked around at the destroyed ruins of her house.

“Where is everypony?”

“I… I’m sorry… but you, me and Red Shot are… the only ones who… made it” I winced as I told her.

“O-oh” she simply looked down.

‘She must be in shock, any normal kid would be and I can’t really blame her.’ She didn’t even have a tear in her eye.

“Hey, are you ok?” I gently put my hand and her back to attempt to comfort her.

“Yea, I never really liked the other ponies here, Mr. Red Shot was the only one that ever nice to me, and at least you are here.” She looked up and gave me a forced smile but I could still see the pain behind it.

I scooped her up and tired my best to give her a comforting hug, “What… what are you doing? I’m… I’m fine… really” she started shaking before exploding into sobbing.

She grabbed on to my arm and started nuzzling into the crook of my arm; I could only hope that my stone skin wouldn’t hurt her. She continued sobbing while I held her without saying a word. After some time, her sobbing got quieter until she was just sniffling.

“I’m sorry Third” she only gave a small squeak.

“She’s awake is she? Good, was startin’ ta worry bout ‘er” I heard Red call out from behind me.

I turned my head and saw him carrying a large sack in his magic along with a saddlebag; the sack was big enough to fit both him and Third in it with room to spare while the saddlebag looked like it belonged to him. He let out a sigh as he dropped the sack on the ground and flopped on the ground and let his saddlebag slide off of him.

“*whew* that’s everythin’ I could think of that we might need, sorry mate but yer stuck carryin’ the bulk of the gear since yer the biggest of our little group.”

“That’s fine. Before we head out I think you guys should eat something.” I placed Third back on the ground.

“Righto, ‘ere ya go little one.” Red said as he levitated over a couple of pieces of fruit.

She tried to use her own magic to lift up the fruit but ended up letting out a pained grunt and grabbed her head with her front hooves.

“Easy, little one, ya got a nasty crack in your horn, it’s gonna take some time ta heal, so until then ya gonna have ta do things earth pony style fer a bit.”

She gave a slow nod before grabbing an apple with her hooves and started devouring it in earnest, Red grabbed a hoof full of nuts and popped them into his mouth and crunched down on them. I wasn’t really hungry so I decided to look through the bag that I was going to be carrying.

Inside the bag was an assortment of survival gear; rope, a lantern, a folded-up tent, blankets, a first-aid kit, a compass, a rough map of the Icelands, a good deal of fruit, vegetables and nuts. During my inventory of the stuff I would be carrying, Red and Third had finished their meal.

“Right mate, all set to go.” He said as he stood up and stretched.

Third also stood up and untangled herself from the blankets before quickly donning her winter coat and pulling the hood up to protect her face. Her coat was different from Red’s; his was black and very thin, looking almost like suede with a lining inside of it to not restrict movement. He also had a short sword tied to his back along with his bow and a quiver of arrows and similar styled boots that covered his hooves. Third’s coat was a dark purple and very poufy, much like the kind of coat a human child would wear along with her purple fuzzy boots. I stood up and slung the large pack on to my back with the strap over one shoulder, thankfully none of my shoulder spikes tore it open. Red used his magic and sling his own saddlebags on while Third wasn’t carrying anything, she was the smallest and was injured so neither of us said anything.
I looked down to Third and saw that she was shaking a little bit so I reached down and picked her up and placed her on my empty shoulder, she gave a little squeak but was quiet otherwise, she knew that she was too injured to be walking around a lot.

“Alright then, let’s go.” I said as we walked out of the ruined house, past the charred remains of houses, past the twisted skeleton of the Protector Tower, past the frozen corpses of the bandits and the mercenaries and past the outskirts of the research station into the wilderness of The Icelands.

Red said that it would take about a week to reach Black Port and we had just seen the sunrise (more or less) on our fifth day. The trip was thankfully uneventful aside from the occasional close calls with the local wildlife; I was luckily big enough to scare off most of them. Another stroke of luck was that it wasn’t snowing constantly, according to Red, winter had just ended so it wouldn’t snow as often but without anypony to perform ‘Winter Wrap Up’ as it was called, the snow would still be there when winter starts back up; we were able to make great time with me not needing to sleep very often, carrying Third and Red being so fit. I could still sleep if I wanted to, but it seemed like it was more for a way to pass time than to actually rest and regain energy, in fact, the whole trip to the port I only slept once yet i didnt feel sleepy at all. Hunting was also far easier thanks to Red’s bow, he was a dead shot, in all the time that we spent traveling together, he had yet to miss what he was aiming for. He was taken back a little when he first saw how I drain magic from things but after I explained it, he just shrugged it off like it was nothing. I continued telling Third more stories about my world, the most recent one was telephones, I even explained that I used to be a human to Red and he just accepted it at face value without a second thought, when I asked him why he accepted it like he hears it all the time, he just said “I’ve been all over the world mate, not much fazes me much anymore.” with a smirk.

“Oy, Diamant” Red said as he looked up at me.

“Hmm?”

“I’ve been thinkin’ since we are pretty close to the port, what are we gonna say when other ponies see ya? I doubt they just gonna leave it alone when they see ya.”

“You’re right… hmm” I tapped my chin with a finger before it hit me, “ah-ha! I got it!” both Red and Third flinched at my sudden outburst.

“I can be a golem.”

“What’s a golem?” Third chirped in while lying on my shoulder.

“Well back in the human world, there was a game called Dungeons & Dragons that was based off all kind of magical and mythical creatures, a lot of them seem to be here as well which is why I thought of it. In this game golems were magical constructs made by powerful spell casters, or in this case unicorns, made from mostly inert material such as clay, wood, stone, iron and stuff like that as protectors for them, I can just pretend to be one of those, it’s not like anyone will be able to tell the difference.”

“That sounds like a plan but ya said that golems were made by unicorns, but I think that we should ‘ave Third be yer ‘maker’ since my magic stinks aside from telekinesis and me with my bow and sword would conflict with being a powerful unicorn.”

“Smart thinking.” I turned and looked at Third, “So Third, you mind being my master for a little bit?” she let out a giggle and a nod.

“Good, so for this to work, I am going to be silent while we are around other ponies and Third can just order me if she wants me to do anything other than follow her since golems possess no intelligence beside enough awareness to follow orders.”

We all agreed with the plan, and continued waking. After another hour or so, Red looked around quickly before galloping ahead and diving through some bushes.

“Follow him Golem!” Third giggled out.

I shot her a look before I started lightly jogging to catch up with Red, I passed through bushes and saw Red standing on a snow covered road with two fence lines on each side.

“Ha-ha! Found it! The port is at the top of the hill.” He exclaimed while pointing a hoof to a hill that the road followed.
I stepped over the low fence and looked to where he was pointing and true to his word; I could see a thin trail of smoke wafting over the hill that was probably from a fireplace or something. We both looked at each other and with a silent nod, started walking up the hill towards the town. As we walked up the gentle slope, looked down and saw there had been some traffic before us, some hooves were coming from the town and others were going to the town, there were even some wheel tracks, probably from a cart.

We soon crested the hill and were looking down on the town and like Red said, town was being generous. There were only six buildings and only three of them were two stories and larger than a single-wide mobile home. Two of the larger ones were built right next to each other and the third one was across the street from them. The lone building had a small porch running the length the front of it with an overhang protecting the ponies on the porch when it snows. The sign that was hanging from the overhang had a picture of a mug with a… saltlick on it and was called The Mule’s Ass. The building across the street had the same porch and overhang but its sign was that of a mattress and pillow but didn’t have any words on it. The last building didn’t have the front porch but instead had a pair of double doors and the sign above it had a single crate and said Bits and Pieces.

‘So we have an inn, a bar and a general store.’

Farther past the buildings there was a single dock that led to a ship that looked like it came from that pirate movie that I remember seeing the posters from. It had three masts with an assortment of sails all wrapped up and a whole bunch of rope lines covering it. The entire thing looked fairly large and could probably hold about two hundred ponies or so. I could also see a couple of ponies scrambling around on the deck of the ship, pushing barrels around along with a couple of pegasus flying around the upper rigging of the ship, tying ropes off with their hooves.

Red looked up at me, “we should head ta the bar, see if the captain o that ship can take three more passengers” Third agreed and we headed down the hill towards the bar.

As we approached the bar, I heard the sounds of fighting and then saw as a pony crashed through the window and slide to stop in front of us.He was an earth pony with a yellow coat that was covered with grease and dirt smudges and missing patches of fur, his mane was shaved off but his tail was a dirty brown that was almost black near the tip that dragged on the ground. He turned over and groaned as he opened his eyes revealing his brown eyes that instantly locked onto me.

“Whoa, I need ta ssshtop drunkin sa mush” he slurred out as he staggered back to his feet and hobbled back into the bar.

“Pirates. That’s gonna make things a might tougher to get passage but I think we’ll manage” Red sighed as we continued walking up the porch and into the bar.

The wood floor creaked and sighed as I took each step on the porch, there was some jovial music that was being played on a piano in the bar along with a cacophony of talking and shouting that all instantly stopped as I walked through the swinging doors. It was quiet enough to hear a pin drop but I couldn’t do anything that showed intelligence so I followed Red over to an open table and picked up Third off my shoulder and put her in a chair before standing next to her.
Red looked at Third but was talking to me with a hushed voice, “You see that pony sittin’ over in the corner there?” he gestured with his head over his right shoulder and I looked over without turning my head, “He’s the captain, I’m gonna go over and talk about getting a ride back to Equestria” he didn’t wait for me to respond before putting down his bow and saddlebags on the table, grabbing a small pouch from his bag and made his way to the captain.

The captain was a pegasus with a dark-blue coat and large wings that draped over his cutie mark, his mane and tail were jet-black that was tangled and unkempt. His eyes were deep yellow that almost looked orange, he wore a red bandana that covered his forehead and kept his hair back, he was wearing a dirty white shirt and a light blue coat over that. He also had two sheathed swords that were tied to each side.

My attention was drawn away from the pegasus by three ponies who walked up to our table and looked up at me.

“Whut yu suppose to be” one of the ponies drunkenly slurred out at me.

Third was the one who answered him, “He is my golem and he doesn’t talk” she said with confidence.

“Oh isn’t that cute, little freak thinks she’s in charge” another earth pony who didn’t sound as drunk reached over to her.

Playing my part as a protector, I quickly moved my hand and placed it in between him and her and all three of them flinched back.

“I would suggest you not try to touch me, he doesn’t like it” Third was playing the part of a snooty unicorn perfectly.

“Oh is that so? Well why don’t we just turn him into gravel and then see what he does then?” the pony said as him and his two buddies drew their swords.

Maybe a little too perfectly.

Ch. 8 Earth Vs. Air

Ch. 8 Earth Versus Air
It had been a few days since the truth about me had come out and since then the crew as well as the captain had kept their distance, not that it really bothered me since I had Third and Red. One thing that I noticed about the crew was that they were more or less amiable with Red but Third seemed to be snubbed outright, like she was diseased or something. I secretly asked Red about it one day and he told me that pegacorns were considered a freak mutation and therefore shunned like monsters. Even he didn't know exactly how it started just that it has always been that way, I still didn’t understand as they looked almost like the mental pictures I had of… who were they again, Celestia and Luna? Maybe they thought pegacorns were a mockery of the princesses? Or maybe they were just jealous of a pony that could fly and do magic? Suddenly how she was treated back at the research station became clear to me.

‘Wow, are all ponies this racist? If they treat other ponies like this, I can only imagine how they treat other species.’

Red was nice enough to allow me to drain some of his magic for food, the first couple of times he was really wobbly on his feet but after a few more times he got used to it. My stomach would still twist and churn when I stopped but I was not about to kill him for a meal. I really couldn’t thank him enough but he said that he had no problem helping out a friend. Friend… that word that used to be so alien to me had now become as common as the air I breathed yet every time I heard it, I would get a strange feeling in my heart, not painful or pleasurable, just…strange. I spent most of my time on the deck of the ship since the doorway to the lower level was too small for me to fit through even if I did crouch so I resigned myself to living on the deck. It was a few hours after sunrise when Third came up from down below and sat down next to me.

“Hey Dia, how ya doing?” she was all smiles.

“I’m good, how’s your horn doing? Can you use your magic again?” I sat down cross-legged next to her.

“Yup! Just watch!” she pinched her eyes shut and stuck her tongue out in concentration.

I felt the tiny ping of magic flowing from her before I watched as her horn started spitting out sparks like a sparkler on the 4th of July. She could only keep it up for a couple of seconds but when she opened her eyes and looked at me, you would have though she just lifted the entire ship out of the water.

“Good job Third, won’t be long before your shooting fireballs.” I ruffled her mane with my hand and she wobbled a little when I pulled my hand away and gave me a big smile before running off to another part of the ship.

She ran past Red who was leaning against the mast of the ship and he gave Third a big smile when she performed the same trick for him and ran off to practice some more. Red hefted himself forward and clopped over to me and put his forelegs on the railing with his hooves hanging over the water.

“She really looks up to ya mate. Yer probably the closest thing she’s had to an actual father” that strange feeling in my heart came back at those words.

I looked down at the waves as they crashed against the hull of the ship, “yea… me a father. A Magic Eater that survives by syphoning magic from living things taking care of a pegacorn” I said with sadness and sarcasm.

“Look mate” he tapped me on the arm and I looked over at him, “she thinks the world of ya, it’s as plain as day, just promise me ya’ll take care of her, you already know how pegacorns are treated.”

“Yea.”

He suddenly slammed both his hooves into my shoulder; “promise me!” he shouted only inches from my face, making me have to catch myself with my free arm as I almost fell onto the deck.

“Alright, I promise I’ll take care of Third Gear.” He let out a sigh before returning to hanging his hooves over the railing, looking somber as he stared at his reflection in the water.

“What was that about?” I asked warily as I too returned to my sitting position.

He let out another sigh, “I’ve seen a lot o thing I wished I didn’t.”

“And that is?”

“Let’s just say… I’ve done something’s in the past… I’m not particularly proud of.”

I was about to ask him about his past but I was interrupted by a voice from above.

“ROC! ROC OF THE STARBOARD BOW!” I looked up and saw the brown pegasus that was sitting in the crow’s nest shout out.

“Bugger” Red jumped to his hooves while the rest of the crew scrambled around.

“Hey Red, what the big deal with a rock?”

“A Roc mate, big meat eating bird, nasty piece o’ work” he said over his shoulder as he drew his bow.

I then heard a thunderous screech that drew my attention towards the ocean and I caught sight of the Roc. It was massive bird with at least a fifty foot wingspan and brightly colored feathers that reminded me of a tropical parrot as its main body was covered in red feathers and the tips of its wings were a mixture of yellow and orange feathers. It also had three long feathers that must have been its tail feathers that looked like a peacocks tail feathers sprouting from it and its claws where black as the night sky and glinted in the noon sun, each talon looked as large as an average pony. It beak was straight and tapered down to a point much like an eagle or hawk, meaning that it was meant to pierce flesh, but the edges were jagged and bent giving the impression of some type of saw. It locked it beady eyes on me and I felt a chill run up my spine.

I jumped up to my feet before looking back to Red, “Red, make sure Third is safe!” he gave a nod and took of across the ship to find Third and hopefully put her somewhere she would be safe. The Roc started circling the ship at a breakneck speed that I could barely follow with my eyes.

“LOAD THE CANNONS!” North was still shouting out commands to the crew and half the ones topside ran down the stairs below deck.

The Roc continued to circle the ship a few more times, surveying the meal to come before he quickly changed direction and came careening straight at the ship. It passed right over the top of the ship and snapped his beak down on the pegasus that was in the crow’s nest, wood and all. The wind from his passing sent the ship rocking and blasted everypony including me off our feet and hooves, some of the crew that were standing near the railing got sent overboard. The Roc then returned to its pattern of circling the ship as everyone who was still on the ship got to their feet.

The Roc had just crossed in front of the port side of the ship when I heard North yell out again, “FIRE!” and was followed by a cacophony of booms, thuds and explosions as cannonballs rocketed from the side of the ship towards the Roc.

The crew either sucked at aiming or the Roc was too fast, probably the latter, as none of the cannonballs even came close as it made another pass over the ship and another blast of wind rocked the ship and knocked all of us down again and it dragged its claw across the deck of the ship, leaving a huge gash on the deck as a couple of ponies were snapped up in its claws and carried away screaming.

‘Dammit, I can’t even get close enough to attack it, there has got to be something I can throw at it! I can’t just stand around till it tears the ship apart.’

I snapped my head around the deck of the ship, looking for something that I could throw at it before the ship got torn to pieces. As the ship rocked back to its neutral position, a cannonball that had been knocked loose rolled over and bumped into my hand. I reached over and picked it up with one hand, it was about the size of a baseball in my huge hand and weighed about the same.

‘This could work.’

I got back to my feet and located the Roc again before taking a pitcher’s stance; I wound up for the pitch and put all my strength into the throw as I sent the cannonball rocketing at the Roc. I threw the ball a little ahead of where the Roc was, hoping that by leading the shot I would hit it somewhere vital like the wings, chest or head but as always, luck was against me as I simply knocked off on of its long tail feathers, I heard it screech at me but it kept on flying as easily as before. I turned around and yelled at the crew.

“Get me some more cannonballs!” they just stared at me.

“What are you staring at!? Hurry up!” they didn’t move.

Suddenly the ship rocked much more violently before but I was able to keep my balance. I noticed that the sun was eclipsed from me by a huge bird shaped shadow.

‘SHIT!’

I dove to the side in a second, just in time to avoid a huge yellow beak smashing into the deck of the ship where I was standing; the Roc was perched on the railing of the ship, staring daggers at me. My body went on auto-pilot again as I scrambled back to my feet and changed my left into an axe, ready to take its head off the second it was exposed. It pecked at me again but I was able to sidestep to the right just enough to avoid it and I brought my axe around to take its head off but he pulled it back too fast for my axe and only met with the deck of the ship. It lunged again and again I was able to narrowly avoid it and again he was able to dodge my counterattack. This continued for what felt like hours but was probably barely a few minutes, I even changed my axe back to a hand, hoping that I could make a faster swing and make an opening but neither of us connected any attacks with the other, I knew that the longer this kept up, the weaker I would get as I had to make much larger movements to avoid its attacks then it did to avoid mine and the deck of the ship probably couldn’t take much more punishment as it was full of countless holes.

It made another lunge at me attempting to hit me square in the chest, I stepped to the left to dodge it but my foot caught on a hole in the deck of the ship and the Roc’s beak connected with my chest and sent me flying into the main mast of the ship, I felt the wood of the mast snap and break as I smashed straight through it and crashed into the railing on the opposite end of the ship. The world was spinning and my chest was screaming at me and as I looked down at it, I saw that there was a spider web of cracks originating from where I was hit and some type of phosphorescent blue liquid leaking out from between the cracks.

‘Guess that’s what my blood looks like now. Not that I'm really happy to see it.’

I looked back up and saw the Roc had taken off from the side of the ship and was circling the ship again. I struggled to my feet as best I could but the screaming pain in my chest made me stumble as I struggled to stand up straight as the world was still spinning. I looked around as quickly as I could to try and spot the bird again but I was too slow to react as it swooped down on me and snapped its talons around my chest and hefted me into the air. My arms were pinned to my side and its grip was like a vice that was slowly tightening around me.

I struggled and fought as best I could but the wound in my chest was giving me constant pain. I was looking up at the bird so I couldn’t see how high I was but I could feel the change in pressure as we gained altitude but I couldn’t be certain as I couldn’t turn my head far enough to see the ground. I tried to transform my hands into weapons or even make spikes shoot out from my forearms but when I tried to focus I felt the pain from the wound in my chest intensify which instantly broke my concentration. I even tried to use my free legs to kick the bird in the gut but I was held too far away from its body to hit it.
It was then that an idea popped into my head and I focused my magic again, but this time instead of focusing on my hands, I focused on my left foot as I funneled my magic to it, the pain from my chest was still there but it was lessened the more I focused. Concentrating on such a distant appendage was much harder than when I first learned how to do it but it was my only option. My focus finally paid off as I felt my magic take shape around my foot; I had a five-foot crystal spike sticking out of my foot at the toes. I steeled my resolve and put everything I had into one strong kick as I swung my foot with all my might straight into the gut of the bird. I felt the spike penetrate the flesh of the bird, the organs tear, the blood gush from the wound, I heard the pained screech from the bird as it’s body seized up from the pain I inflicted on it as it began to plummet out of the sky, but its claws clenched down even tighter on my body.

I looked up (or down as I was falling head first) and saw that I was directly over the open water and was heading straight at it and very fast. The Roc’s talons were still clenched around me in a death grip and no matter how I struggled, it wouldn’t let go. I removed the spike from its guts and kicked it again; hoping that it was still alive and my hurting it more, it would let me go. On the fifth kick, my prayers were answered as its talons snapped open and I began free-falling on my own.

I pushed myself away from the bird and watched as it accelerated past me and slammed into the water at such a speed that it looked like it disintegrated on impact. I knew that if I hit the water at such high speeds, even with my new body, I wouldn’t survive the impact but then I remembered something that might just save me. I remembered that the reason people dive into water is so that it will be less painful than a belly flop but also so that their body doesn’t instantly stop when it hits the water and get torn to pieces from the sudden stop. I was maybe a few seconds from impact when I straightened my body into a dive and I clenched my fist together in front of me in order to break the surface tension of the water before the rest of my body impacts it.

I hit the water and I’m pretty sure I passed out for a second cause when I opened my eyes; I was under the water and slowly sinking. Everything was hurting, it felt like I had just been put through a meat grinder (or maybe a rock crusher was more appropriate) and I could barely move. I struggled to look up at the surface of the water and through my probably concussion-addled mind; I saw my arm, severed and torn off of my body was following me as I sank further down.

I kicked against the water and tried to swim to the surface with my one good arm, but it didn't even slow my desent.

‘Damn it, I should have realized that I can’t swim anymore. Ha, I guess I survived the impact long enough to drown. Shit.’

I was struggling to stay conscious, but with the pain from my wounds along with my waning magic, it was a losing battle. As my vision went dark I could have sworn that I heard a strange voice in my head say a single word.

“Pathetic.”

Down But Not Out

Ch. 9 Down But Not Out

“Red, make sure Third is safe!” Red gave Diamant a nod as he began weaving in between the crew to find Third Gear.

He found her standing against the center mast of the ship, trying to stay out of the way of the pirates as they scrambled around the deck of the ship to prepare for a fight. Red raced up to her and before she could open her mouth, she was hefted on to his back by his magic.

“Hang on!” he shouted as he began bobbing and weaving through the crew again with Third hanging onto his mane.

He was just about to the steps that led below deck when a huge blast of wind slammed them against the wall of the stairwell; they both tumbled down the remaining steps with Third still hanging on to Red’s mane. Red was the first to get back to his hooves and he looked back and saw that Third was still hanging on to his mane with her eyes rolling around in her head as she shook her head to regain her vision. That was when they both saw two talons tear through the ceiling, leaving two huge gashes in the deck of the ship, and moments later heard a defiant screech from the Roc and then the ship heaved again and Red was thrown into one of the supports of the upper deck, where he definitely heard the sound of a rib cracking. Red struggled back to his hooves even with the burning pain of a cracked rib in his chest and quickly made sure Third was still safe, and aside from being thrown around, was no worse for wear, he then thought about his other friend that was risking his life to keep them safe as he could just make out what was going on through the massive cuts in the deck.

Diamant was fighting with the Roc, the bird was attempting to peck at the magic eater and he in turn was trying to take its head off but neither was connecting with the other. That the bird lunged forward and scored a direct hit on Diamant and sent him crashing through the center mast of the ship and flying into the railing. He was stunned as he staggered to his feet and was clearly shell shocked as he didn’t react quick enough to avoid getting grabbed by the Roc and carried off into the air.

“NO!” Red looked down and saw Third racing towards the stairs to the top deck.

Red reacted in an instant as he enveloped the filly in his magic aura and lifted her into the air.

“No! Let me go! I gotta help Dia!” Third shouted as she flailed her legs and flapped her tiny wings as she struggled against his grip.

“Calm down, ya can’t help em!” Red shouted back at her as she stopped struggling and slumped her body in defeat with tears flowing from her eyes as she gave Red the most pleading expression ever as he floated her over till she was eye level with him, “look, you have to trust him alright? He’s made of stone, no way some pigeon gonna beat him.”

Tears were still flowing from Third’s eyes and she was sniffling as she used her hoof to wipe her nose. A deafening screech from the Roc tore through the air and not even a minute later, the sound of something very big hitting the water and the boat heaved to the side. Red didn’t say anything but the wide-eyed expression on his face said more than enough as he raced up the stairs with such speed that shouldn't be possible with a broken rib, Third still floating next to him in his aura. He reached the top of the stairs in seconds and quickly surveyed the deck, he saw the two huge gashes that led from port to starboard of the ship as well as the splashes of blood that came from the ponies that were too slow to get out of the way in time. He also saw the two dozen holes that were scattered around one general area of the ship where it and Diamant were fighting.
He looked out over the railing to the ocean and saw what remained of the Roc as it slowly sank into the blood-red water, but he didn’t see any blue crystal or stone hanging on to the remains of the bird or swimming back to the ship.

‘Where are ya mate? Ya can’t just go and die on me after ya just made yer promise!’

His thoughts were pulled away from the water when he felt the atmosphere suddenly grow cold and the air tasted stale and he quickly spun around and saw that the remaining crew members were all gathered around a blood-drenched dark-blue coat that had been torn to pieces. Each were giving the others wary glances and sizing up their options, for without a declared captain, the job was up for grabs to whoever can climb to the top. Red may not have known this but he knew the body language and he didn’t want any part of this soon to be bloodbath. He silently levitated Third back onto his back and slowly shuffled his way to one of the lifeboats, all the while, the crew were trying to stare each other down. The air was silent, not even the caw of a seagull or the crash of waves as they hit against the hull of the ship could be heard as the ponies were locked in a staring match with each other.

Suddenly, without any outside influence, every pony suddenly exploded with shouts and yells as they readied their weapons and leapt against each other in a fight to the death with ponies that were their friends only minutes ago. This was no noble fight, this was a brawl to the death as alliances were made in seconds and broken seconds later as soon as one dropped their guard, ponies would stab another in the back while they were busy with another only to be stabbed themselves. Pegasi would swop down and slice an earth pony across the neck only to be tackled to the ground by another and hacked to pieces by five others. The sound of gunfire from pistols filled the air as they fired their deadly cargo that tore through flesh and shattered bone, the area was filling with the acrid smell of gunpowder and the smell of freshly spilled blood. This battle to the death would only end when there was nopony left to kill and Red was gonna make sure he wasn’t among the body count.

As soon as the fight broke out, he used his magic and abandoned all semblance of stealth as he tore the rope that held the lifeboat aloft and watched as it dropped and slammed into the ocean. He heard Third let out a scream and Red dove to the side, just in time to avoid a sword that would have split his skull sink into the soft wood of the railing. Red jumped back to his hooves in a second as the pony removed his sword from the railing and readied another swing with an almost crazed look in his eye, he took one more look back at the deadly brawl before he yelled to Third, “hang on!” to which she clamped her hooves around his neck and her teeth around his mane and pinched her eyes shut as he leapt over the railing of the ship, avoiding yet another swing from the pony.

Self-levitation is one of the most difficult adaptations of the rather simple spell of telekinesis, some of the most successful unicorns in history can only manage it for a few minutes, and that is usually after months of training. Red didn’t have months; he didn’t have minutes; he had seconds. He had originally aimed for the water but he realized mid-fall that his jump was off and was on a direct course for the lifeboat and even the relatively small drop from the deck of the ship to the boat he would definitely break a leg or worse. With every ounce of focus he had, Red poured his magic into his hooves and exerted all his energy on pushing against the force of gravity.

Red hit the wood of the lifeboat with a loud thud and heard the squeak of Third as she was bounced off of him and landed in one of the planks of wood that served as a seat. Red’s entire body was aching, his horn felt like it was on fire and his brain felt much the same way, but aside from the broken rib from earlier, he was unhurt.

“Mr. Shot, wake up!” Third asked as she pushed against his side and made him rock back and forth.

“Hey… I’m… not sleeping… just… tired” Red wheezed out through exhausted breaths.

Red heaved himself up and threw his hooves over the side of the boat nearly threw up at the excruciating headache that assaulted him but kept the meager lunch down as he looked around. By some grace of Celestia the ocean current was dragging the little dingy towards the shore much faster than the much larger galleon where the pirates were probably still killing each other, sure the Volcanic Wastes was not the best place in the world to end up but Red would take a chance of death over a guarantee of it any day of the week. He looked down into the dark water.

‘ya better be alright mate or I’m gonna beat the ever-living buck outta ya.’

Red tried to let out a sigh but his cracked rib made sure it was not forgotten as he let out a grunt as he clutched his side with a hoof, Third quickly scampered over to him.

“Mr. Shot, are you ok?” the little filly looked up with tears welling up in her eyes.

Red gave the filly a pained smile as he looked down at the filly, “yea, I’m fine, just a little sore.”

“Where’s Dia?” she was on the verge of sobbing as tears ran down her face and she began to take gasping breaths in between her sniffles.

Red was a pony of many talents but taking care of a crying filly was not one of them, he reached over with a hoof and gave her horn a little tweak, while it wouldn’t hurt her, it would stop her crying as she held her horn with both her hooves.

“Now we won’t have any of that ya hear me. There’s a time and place tears and this ain’t one of em. He’ll be fine alright?” Third gave a quiet nod as she wiped the tears from her eyes and gave a big sniffle to clear her nose, “Good, now let’s get out o here.” He said as he picked up the two oars with his magic and began rowing to the nearby shore, a small headache gnawing in the base of his horn.

There was an uneasy silence between the two ponies as Red rowed towards the shore, neither of the two wanted to talk, especially when they were short one from their little group, the pain steadily increasing in his horn wasn’t helping Red’s mood either. Maybe an hour or so of rowing later, Red took a look over his shoulder and saw that they were in the shallows of the coast and with a few more rows, the hull of the dingy scrapped up onto the sand. Red gingerly stepped out of the boat, taking care not aggravate his injury and grabbed the mooring line of the boat and gave it a few strong tugs to make sure it would not get washed away in the surf. He took a quick look around and made sure there were no immediate threats in the area. They were indeed in the Volcanic Wastes as they were on a charcoal black beach and the air tasted heavy and irritated his nose and made his eyes water. Looking past the beach he saw that they were surrounded by black spires of stone that jutted straight up and were spewing smoke and soot into the air.

“Right, out o the boat.”

Third was just about to jump over the side of the boat and onto the sand when she was suddenly pushed back into the boat by Red’s magic where she hit the bottom of the boat with a thump and ‘Oof’.

“Hey! What was that for!?” she squeaked out but was quickly silenced by a deadly glare from Red as he drew his bow, nocked an arrow and drew it to half draw as he turned and scanned the area, looking for the killer intent that just sent a chill up his spine and put his hair on end. Third didn’t make another sound as she slowly slid back into the boat, her eyes barely peaking over the edge of the boat. Red did not like it, they were in a kill zone and somewhere out there was something looking down on them with bloodlust and given by where they were, his little bow was looking a lot smaller than normal. Red’s eyes kept darting around the area as he slowly backed up until he was lined up with Third who was still hiding in the boat

“When ah say run, ya run, ya hear me?” He whispered to the little filly.

He quietly walked back to the front of the boat and tried to quiet the pounding of his heartbeat in his head as he waited… and waited.

He waited for what felt like hours and if it was not for the blood thirst in the air, he was not even sure there was anything there. His nerves were shot, his horn ached and his cracked rib was burning in his chest.

“I ain’t got all day… COME OUT ALREADY!” he shouted out in frustration but no one responded. He then felt a slight shift in the sand under his hooves.

‘No. Mother of Celestia please no!’

Red leapt from where he was standing and not a moment later, the sand exploded into the air as a very large, brown blur flew out of the hole and landed with a heavy thud in the sand.

‘Diamond Dogs’

Red watched as the dog turned around and matched the pony’s glare with one of his own as well as rows of pointed teeth seated in the short flat muzzle and ears and jowls that drooped down. Red did not waste as second as he pulled his arrow to full draw and loosed it.

The arrow flew straight and true and struck the dog right between the eyes as it punched through the extremely thick skull, the dog’s body shuttered for a moment before collapsing on the ground with a dull thump. If only it would be that easy, Red knew dogs never traveled alone and where there is one, there is no doubt at least another six.

“RUN!” he shouted to Third as he nocked another arrow and kept his head looking down towards the ground, looking for any shifting of the sand as the filly ran with all her might to the red pony.

'Not to me ya blasted filly!' he wanted to shout but he didn't get the chance.

She did not get very far as the sand shifted a few lengths in front of the fillys hooves and a thick and muscular claw erupted from the sand on a direct course for the fillys throat. It never reached its target as an arrow pierced the forearm of the dog and diverted its course and only scratching the filly along the right cheek, Third tripped over the exposed appendage but quickly scrambled back to her hooves and dove underneath Red where she curled up and covered her eyes with her hooves and shook like a leaf in a hurricane. The rest of the wounded dog exploded from his hole and gave a deadly glare to the pony that just shot him with an arrow; he brought his other arm to the arrow sticking out of his arm and with a sharp tug and a pained howl, he tore the arrow from his arm.

Red had just nocked another arrow and was readying it to release at the dog when a dozen clouds of sand were spewed into the air around the two ponies and out of each cloud came a diamond dog. Red quickly looked around and saw only a few of the dogs had weapons of any kind, most were wearing tattered rags and armed with nothing but their claws and teeth but the one that had been shot in the arm with an arrow had a long muzzle with a pronounced under bite and sharp pointed ears that stuck straight up was wearing crudely made patchwork metal armor and strapped around his chest were vials carrying some type of greenish-yellow liquid in them, most likely knock-out gas if the stories that he had heard about diamond dog slaver parties were even half-true.

All of the dogs were barking and yipping at the two ponies they had surrounded, all except for the one leader dog that was just glaring and barring his teeth as he clutched his wounded arm. Red was in a very vulnerable position with the filly hiding underneath him, while the dogs were barking and yipping, they were not advancing, they were holding a loose circle around the two. Guessing that he would have a moment before they attacked, Red used a back leg to make sure Third was still underneath him. The lead dog suddenly let out a loud series of barks and yips and a few of the dogs lunged forward.

Red let out a yell as he loosed another arrow at the closest dog, the arrow sailing through the dogs open maw, tearing through the back of its mouth, probably severing the spine from the skull resulting in instant death. The others were too close to draw another arrow so he did the next best thing and swung the bow around his head and cracked one of the dogs right on the side of its head, the density of the dog’s head was evident through the magical feedback through the bow but Red didn’t have time to think on it as he swung the bow again and stabbed the other dog through the eye with the limb of the bow. He was so focused on the dogs attacking him he didn’t notice the vial of green liquid flying through the air until it was too late and it exploded on his face, covering him with shards of glass and a putrid smelling liquid dousing his fur. It smelled horrible, like a city’s worth of sewage had just been shoved in his nose, it made Red’s eyes burn and set his throat of fire as he took a huge whiff of the foul smell.

The effects were almost instantaneous as his mind became fogged and sluggish, his legs grew heavy and refused to listen to his orders and his bow felt like it had just gained a thousand pounds. His back legs were the first to go as his flank flopped into the sand and Third had to wiggle her way out from underneath the pony and through half lidded eyes, he saw that Third was saying something but the words never reached his brain. He turned his head back to the lead dog and noticed he was standing right in front of him yet his body felt even heavier than before and when the dog brought his good arm up and pushed the unicorn over with little effort onto his cracked rib side. Red tried to stay conscious, but the tendrils of sleep slowly dragging him down and he was so very tired, a little nap wouldn’t hurt… would it?

Unbeknownst to the drugged stallion or the tiny filly that was kicking and screaming in the vice like grip of a diamond dog or the rest of their captors or the rapidly dwindling crew of the Lovely Mare, a lone figure slowly trekked its way along the ocean floor, the stone boots making a dull thump along with kicking up a puff of ocean silt and sand with each step as it moved close to the shore. An abandoned arm lay off to the side of the tracks in the ocean floor but it looked far different than normal. All the color had drained from it, giving it the look of fresh obsidian and a network of cracks began to form starting at the fingers and working its way up until the entire appendage was covered in cracks. Without warning, the arm suddenly split open like an egg and the entire thing collapsed into a pile of shiny rocks, completely worthless to its original owner who silently walked along the sea floor.

Its form was dark, the crystals along its body were black as night aside from the small glow and constant release of bubbles that came from the right shoulder where the cracking and scrapping could be heard resonating through the water as crystals sprouted where the missing appendage used to be. Even though the strange being moved with purpose as the skeletal framework of its missing arm took shape, it showed no intelligence as it walked with a shambling gait, as if sleepwalking, stepping over rocks, breaking coral beneath its feet, and fish scattering as their homes were destroyed, yet the strange calm that the creature showed hid the storm that raged within.

Author's Note

Hey check it out, I'm not dead!

But in all seriousness, i apologize about not updating this in a couple of months ( more than a couple actually, wow it's really been that long?) the reason is my computer decided to explode on me and it took a while to save up enough money to buy a new one. But now i got a new one and should be updating this more regularly again.

P.S. a word of advice to the non computer savvy people, if your computer starts spewing out black smoke, that's not supposed to happen.

Ch. 7 A Rock in the Ocean

Ch. 7 a Rock in the Ocean

North Wind, Captain of the Lovely Mare had recently docked in Black Port as a storm had pushed them off course and was too rough to try and sail through. Although he loved to be on the sea, he knew that his crew was getting stir crazy and having your hooves on dry land is a great way to blow off some steam, whether it was through drink, fresh food, fighting or pleasurable company and as long as they came back without any extra baggage, he didn’t care what they did.

He had just finished his third mug of hard cider when he saw the three of them enter, a red unicorn stallion that looked like a merc and an orange pegacorn filly with a bandages on her horn and wings riding on the shoulder of a huge creature encased head to… they didn’t look like hooves or claws so he didn’t know what to call them, in armor made of stone and some kind of blue crystal that he wasn’t familiar with, and he knows his gems and other assorted valuables.

He watched them as they walked to an open table and the red one whispered something to the others before trying to be subtle and nodded his head towards North but he was as obvious as if he pointed with his hoof. He then put down his bow, took off his sword and saddlebags, grabbed a small leather sack from the bags and made his way to the captain. North watched as this stallion walked up to him with a smile on his face and a trot in his step. North looked a little closer at his hooves and realized that he wasn’t trotting because he was ignorant, he was putting his hooves exactly where they needed to be, and each step was deliberate and controlled.

North smiled, ‘This colt knows how to move, he could probably handle himself in a fight.’

The red unicorn pulled out a chair at the table and sat down across from the captain and before he could open his mouth, North interrupted him.

“Thousand bits a head, two for the big one and this ain’t no pleasure cruise so don’t be expecting us to wait on your every command” he knew exactly what the unicorn wanted, it was as easy to see as if he was carrying a sign.

“What’s yer headin’ if ya don’t mind me asking?”

“Equestria.”

The unicorn smiled and tossed the small sack towards North and it landed on the table with the musical sound of gems rattling, “I believe this should cover us” North opened up the bag and looked inside.

There was a rainbow of small gems, not too big but not too small either. He gave it a shake, listening to the sound they all made and estimating their value, it was just about four thousand bits. He looked back at the unicorn.

“We leave tomorrow at dawn, don’t be late or we’ll leave yer flank behind without a second though and I’ll be keeping your bits.”

“Pleasure doing business with ya” he answered with a smile and hefted himself out of the chair.

North Wind quickly looked up when he heard a crash and saw the big stone thing was hold two of his crew, one in each hand and one under his leg and the small filly was once again back on his shoulder.

The red one was the first to speak, “Oy Dia-… Third! Call off yer golem, we got our ride!”

The slip of the tongue caught North’s attention but was not going to pursue it right now as he watched as the filly tapped the golem on the shoulder and it dropped the two and stepped off of the other. The ponies were unconscious and looked like they lost some of their already dirty color.

The red one quickly ran over to the others and grabbed his gear before looking back to North, “sorry bout that capn’, we’ll see ya tomorrow” he gave another cheesy smile as the three of them left the bar, the big one had to crouch down so he didn’t hit the top of the door frame.

North just sighed and looked over to the barkeep, “Hey! Another cider!” the barkeep gave a nod and started pouring another mug of cider.

‘A golem huh? This is gonna be interesting’

‘Damn it, so much for getting a ride with these pirates.’

I took my hand that blocked the pirates and quickly scooped up Third again and put her on my shoulder before taking a defensive stance. I could see that these ponies we extremely drunk and were just itching for a fight, so I decided that I wouldn’t kill them. Their movements reinforced my initial thought of them being just about blackout drunk as they were swaying around and their eyes were half lidded. Two of them drunkenly stumbled forward while lifting the swords in their mouths into the air. Once again, my body seemed to move all on its own as I took a step forward and brought both my hands forward and caught them both right under the chin and lifted them into the air. The third one soon came at me; I took another step forward and brought my shin up to greet his face. He crashed into me and fell back on the ground and I took my foot and lightly stomped down on his shoulder, pinning him to the ground without badly injuring him. While holding the other two, I took the opportunity to drain them of a little of their magic, not enough to kill them but enough to knock them out for a while. My stomach twisted a little when I stopped feeding, saying that I should take all their magic but I resisted it.

“Oy Dia-… Third! Call off yer golem, we got our ride!” Red called out as he ran back to us, I almost turned my head to face him but luckily Third was ready as she tapped me on the shoulder.

I dropped the two and took my foot off the other one and took a neutral stance.

“Sorry bout that capn’, we’ll see ya tomorrow” Red said while looking at the captain and quickly got his gear back on and motioned to us to follow him.

“What the buck was that about?” Red hissed at me as we walked across the street to the inn, I just looked down at him without saying anything, “Ugh… right, right, no talking, I get it, but next time can ya try ta not attack our only ticket out of here.”

We crossed the threshold of the inn and I once again had to crouch a little so I wouldn’t hit the door frame and was once again met with stunned silence from the ponies in the lobby. Most of them looked like the same pirates as before sitting in chairs and talking with… mares dressed in clothes that if they were on a human woman would probably make a priest blush. Something that bothered me was the fact that some of the ponies were naked, so why does wearing clothes seem to be sexually suggestive than being naked? I chose not to pursue that particular thought as it would probably leave me with a headache. We walked up to the front counter and the purple pegasus mare working just stared at me with mouth agape until Red coughed loudly to draw her attention. She snapped her head to him and stuttered as she spoke.

“W-w-welcome t-to th-the P-Prancing Pony, h-how m-may I h-help y-you?” she kept on stealing glances at me.

“Yea, we’d like a room with two beds for the night luv.” He said as he dropped a couple of coins that Third said were called ‘bits’, the currency of this world, the mare quickly slid the coins of the counter with a hoof before pulling out a key on a ring with a hoof and placing it on the counter.

“Y-your r-room is #13, u-up the s-stairs, s-second door on the l-left.”

“Thanks luv” he gave her a wink as he lifted the key with his magic and walked towards the stairs.

The stairs creaked and groaned under my weight, but they held me until we reached our room and stepped inside. The room was very… quaint as it only had two beds with a couple of sheets on them and a small night stand with a lamp on each and a single window that looked out over the main road. The beds were only big enough for an average pony so I would be sleeping on the floor or against the wall which didn’t really bother me since I didn’t feel aches or pains that came from a human body anymore.

Third Gear didn’t feel the same way as she jumped from my shoulder on to the bed and immediately sprawled out on it and sighed.

“Finally, I get to sleep in a bed again” she cooed as she rolled around on the bed.

Red just laughed as he shut and locked the door behind him, meaning no pony would surprise me acting like… well me.
I let out a sigh as I removed the pack on my back and slumped down against the wall and looked back at Third, “You did an excellent job at being my ‘master’ but let’s try to avoid getting into a bunch of fights if possible.”

“Ok” she giggled.

“Oy, Third, get over here so I can change yer bandages, don’t want em getting infected.”

Third gave out a groan as she hopped off the bed and walked across the room to Red, who levitated up a pair of scissors and expertly cut away the old bandages. Thankfully most of her cuts had scabbed over and didn’t show any outward signs of infection but Red knew what he was doing as he grabbed a glass bottle with some clear liquid in it that might have been rubbing alcohol or some other antiseptic and dipped some clean bandages into the liquid and quickly wrapped up Third again. She winced slightly as the larger wounds were wrapped up but was otherwise silent. When Red finished, Third didn’t have nearly as many bandages on as the last time as most of her smaller cuts had either sealed shut or had healed completely. The crack on her horn had mostly closed and her wings were also healed aside from a few missing feathers. She gave out a sigh as she stretched her wings and started flapping them, I expected them to sound like the wings of a bird but instead they beat so fast that they started making a buzzing noise similar to an insect or something. I was waiting for her to take off and start flying around the room but instead she just stood there not even so much as lifting off the ground.

“Don’t go crazy and hurt yerself again, I think we ought to eat something then get some shuteye, gotta wake up at dawn to catch the boat” Red said as he removed his gear and levitated some food out of the pack and floated some over to Third.
I looked out the window and saw that it was probably a few hours till sundown; I looked back to Red and nodded. They both quickly ate their meals and tucked themselves into bed while I just leaned against the wall. I looked down at my hands.

‘Good thing I took some magic from those ponies at the bar. What am I gonna do during the trip though? Should I just drain little bits of the crew?’

I tilted my head and looked up at the ceiling and allowed my mind to wander again, ‘what am doing here? Am I just going to wander around the planet for the rest of my life, or should I try to get back to my earth? Do I even want to go back home? I wonder if anyone is actually missing me, probably not… it’s not like I had any friends before I got here.

I was so lost in my little pity party that I didn’t even notice that the moon had risen and was setting. I blinked and pulled myself out of my thoughts and looked outside, the moon was just about gone beyond the horizon, meaning that the sun would be rising soon. I rose to my feet and walked over and shook Red and Third awake, Red was up in seconds, getting his gear on and waking himself up, Third on the other hand, just grunted at me and rolled over. I huffed at her and used my new strength to pick the entire bed up and tilted it until she fell out. She let out a yawn before looking at me with her eyes pinched shut and pointed a hoof at me.

“Golem, carry me.” She said in her fake snooty accent.

“Don’t get carried away ‘master’” I said as I slung the pack over my shoulder and placed her on the other, where she promptly fell asleep again.

“It’s a little before dawn yet, wouldn’t hurt ta board the ship a little early” Red said as he looked out the window at the docks.

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“Righto, follow me then Golem.” I nodded back to him as I went back to my ‘golem mode’.

As we passed the front counter where the purple pegasus was the day before now had a smaller, darker purple earth pony that was identical to the pegasus from yesterday in every other aspect. Red levitated the key over to her and gave her a wink, she just gave a coy smile and rolled her eyes as we walked out of the inn and turned towards the dock.

As we reached the wooden planks of the dock I could see countless earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi all running around, shouting out commands and pushing, pulling, floating crates and barrels onto the ship. Some of them stopped and stared at me but the others, probably the ones who were at the bar last night, shouted at them and they all got back to work. The three of us walked pass them and saw the gangplank that led from the dock to the ship; it was barely wide enough for a pony and looked like it was made out of plywood, even with only Red’s weight it was creaking and sighing.

“Hey! Over here!” I heard a scratchy and guttural voice call out.

I looked over to see a dirty blue unicorn standing next to a wooden pallet with ropes tied to each corner of it that led up to a crane and pulley.

“That hunk of rock is too heavy to get on the ship like the rest of us so get him on the crane here” he said with a huff.

“Golem, step onto the crane” Third chimed in and I quickly obeyed and grabbed one of the robes to stabilize myself.

The pony gave out a sharp whistle and the pallet suddenly lurched a few feet into the air causing me to sway a little as I regained my balance, a few seconds later it lurched again and again and again as we were slowly hoisted into the air and swung over the deck of the ship. The dozen or so ponies that were in charge of lifting me suddenly let go of the rope and let me fall the few feet to the deck of the ship, I let out a large thud as I landed on my feet and staggered a little to stay standing. The offending ponies all let out a laugh before returning to whatever they were doing. I looked around the ship and saw standing next to the steering wheel was the captain, he was shouting out orders that I couldn’t understand cause of all the nautical jargon he was using but his crew seemed to know exactly what to do. The captain quickly spotted us and waved us over with a hoof, we climbed the stairs and stopped right in front of him.

“Glad you could join us” his voice was smooth and he spoke with confidence, “welcome to The Lovely Mare, the finest ship this side of Equestria, and I am her captain, North Wind” He had a huge smile on his face.

Red took a step forward, “so capn’, what’s our heading?”

“We are gonna be heading north along the coast of the Volcanic Wastes and then up the river to Tailton Springs.”

“Alright then, anything ya need us ta do?” Red asked.

“No, just stay out of the way.”

“Righto” Red gave a salute before waving a hoof at me to follow as we walked to the stern of the ship before I heard North call out to me.

“And Golem, I know you ain’t as stupid as you pretend to be so I will be talking to you and only you very soon” he didn’t even turn around to address me.

‘Shit, I can’t act to save my life.’

Red looked up at me and I looked down at him before giving a slow nod, he nodded in return as I sat down and leaned against the railing of the boat, only twenty feet away from the captain. It was about another hour of North shouting random commands to the crew before the ship left port and we made our way into the ocean, staying probably about five miles from the shore line. During that time I took a look around the ship and like I thought from before we boarded, it did indeed look like an Elizabethan Era ship except for along the railing of the ship were some type of cannons that were on a rigging that allowed the cannon to spin and swivel around, probably to hit a target that is out of the line of fire of the regular cannons. North called out to another pegasus to take the helm and he turned and walked to the our little group with a scowl on his face.

“You two go somewhere else” he said in a grave voice to Red and Third.

Third was a little apprehensive, but Red was quick to scoop her up and carried her away in his magic, leaving me and North alone.

“I know you ain’t some mindless creature so you best start talking, who are you?”

I let out a sigh before looking back to him, “My name is Diamant, and I am a Magic Eater.”

“I never turn down the opportunity to make some bits, but you better tell me why you are trying to make it back to Equestria.”

“I don’t have to tell you shit, you got my name and that’s all I’m gonna tell you.”

“Oh really? Then you probably don’t care if I pitch those two ponies over the side, bet that pegacorn ain’t strong swimmer” he looked at me with an evil glare.

I turned my hand into a sword in a second, “touch either of them and you’ll be dead before you hit the floor.”

He didn’t even blink when I changed my hand; he just kept on staring daggers at me before he broke into laughter, not a sinister laugh but a happy and almost mocking laugh. I was taken aback for a second at the sudden flip in his personality before he looked back at me, “good, you can at least stand up for yourself.”

“What are you talking about?” I still hand my sword arm at the ready just in case.

“One thing I don’t stand for on my ship is cowardice, that little pegacorn even showed a backbone when she stood up to my crew in the bar last night and I can tell that red one knows how to handle himself in a fight. You were the only one I couldn’t read since you were hiding your face and pretending to be stupid, so you mind taking that helmet off and letting me see your face?”

“This isn’t a helmet, it is my face” I changed my hand back, I still didn’t trust this pony but he didn’t seem like he was evil, for now at least.

“That so? Well whatever, just a word of advice to you and the pegacorn though, my crew is nice enough but don’t expect em to extend the hoof of friendship anytime soon. They can be a little rowdy sometimes and if ya get into a fight with any of em, you can defend yerself but don’t kill any of em.” He said as he floated into the air with a flap of his wings and with another flap, flew off to another part of the ship.

‘What the hell is with this guy? Is he warning me or giving me advice? I think he might be messed up in the head, I’ve got my eye on you, North.’

Ch. 1 A New Start

“Another day, another failed attempt out of this shit-hole.” I sighed as I wandered through the trash-filled streets of my hometown.

I lived in the worst part of the city, the local government always called it a ‘low-income neighborhood’ but everyone who lived there knew what it really was; a slum. This was my daily life, walking by muggings, drug-dealers, prostitutes and homeless. When I was first forced to live in this area I used to look at these individuals with sadness at the life they lived, but after three years of living in the same conditions as them, they were nothing but white noise to me. I had tried for years to escape this reality, to get a good job, move into a decent neighborhood and start living the good life, but that is rather hard when you don’t even have a GED. Even though I never had a high school diploma, it didn’t mean that I was not intelligent, in fact I was very smart but when Murphy’s Law has a hard-on for you, nothing you try will ever get around it. The week of my senior finals in high school I got mugged and left for dead in a ditch only to wake up a week later in the hospital with someone telling me that I had failed high school. I was then kicked out of my parents’ house for being, and I quote ‘A good-for-nothing who doesn’t know when to avoid a dangerous area’. For years after that I took every opportunity to take the exam to get a GED yet every attempt was met with Murphy’s Law kicking me in the groin. Walking to the exam hall only to get hit by a tire from an accident over two miles away, getting barfed on by a random person and not being allowed inside for smelling nasty and for the finale, a little boy who stole my wallet and while chasing him getting hit by a car and broke my arm.

After so many attempts, I just gave up and resigned myself to working in a shipyard as untrained labor; it was exhausting, demeaning, long hours and just plain unfair but it was the one place that good ol’ Murphy seemed to leave me alone. After another day of grueling work I staggered back to my rat-filled, urine-smelling and drafty apartment and after walking past what was probably the third dead body I’ve seen in the past month, I saw something that made me stop, a little girl under a cloak of some kind, giggling softly. I locked eyes with her piercing ice-blue eyes that entranced me, she beckoned me over with a hand and my body refused to listen to me and I followed her into the darkness of an alley.

She stopped after a minute and looked up at me before beckoning me to kneel, which my body obeyed without question. Once I was eye-level with her I got a good look at her face, it was pale blue with what looked like little chunks of ice stuck to her face yet she didn’t seem to be cold at all. She only let out another giggle as she placed both of her hands on my cheeks, I also noticed that her hands were rough and abrasive as if they were covered in callouses and blisters.

“You will be perfect.” Her voice wasn’t one that a small girl shouldn’t have, it sounded like a woman in her thirties.

She leaned into me and kissed me on the lips and I felt the energy leave my body and the world grew dark as I passed out.

My consciousness slowly returned as my mind began to start back up. The first thing I noticed was that my body felt unusual and alien, yet familiar at the same time. I slowly opened my eyes and I could only see darkness that hid everything from my sight, looking around I spotted a single speck of light off in the distance. I rose my body into the sitting position and became aware that there was something wrong with my body, my nerves felt deadened like I was drugged or something which must have been the case when I raised my hand and felt my leg and didn’t feel the softness of clothing or skin but a rigid and smooth material that felt almost like glass. I tried to look down to see what it was that I felt but since there was no light I may as well have tried to look at Alpha Centauri with the naked eye. I got to my feet and staggered and swayed as I struggled to stay upright and began walking towards the pinprick of light in the distance.

As I walked to the light I brought my hand up and groped the darkness for some kind of hand-hold and was greeted with a rock wall. It was smooth and had no jagged edges, meaning that it was not made recently and was most likely machine-made. As I continued to walk my hand along the wall as I walked, the pinprick of light became bigger and bigger, I could see outside of the cave that I was in. I was overjoyed to see that there was a way out of the darkness and I started to run towards the opening and instantly tripped on something sticking out the ground and slammed into the ground and heard a cacophony of glass crashing onto the ground.

I looked back at what I had tripped over expecting it to be a glass sculpture or something given by the noise that it made when I tripped over it. I couldn’t see anything through the oppressive darkness even with my close proximity to the cave opening.

‘First rule when you break something; don’t stick around to see who owned it or they will kick your ass’ I thought to myself, having previously experienced that type of exchange before.

I quickly scrambled back to my feet and made my way out of the cave and into the open world. I squinted my eyes a little as they readjusted to the increased level of light, which wasn’t much since it was nighttime and it was snowing. I was surprised by the fact that even though it was snowing, I wasn’t cold at all. I looked down and brought my hands up to look at what I was wearing and was met with the sight of two hands that were covered in some type of armor with the color of grey stone and had fingers that were made of some type of clear crystal.

I looked down in horror at the two appendages in front of me, they looked like human hands but the palms were much larger than they used to be and the fingers were short and stubby and the fingertips were sharp and looked like daggers. The hands began to shake as I slowly closed my fists and the strange hands in front of my mimicked the action, the fingers didnt even have any sort of joints yet they bent like human fingers, I was frozen in fear at the realization that these two hands in front of me were mine. I struggled to remove the strange armor, hoping that my human hands were underneath it but it would not budge and I even began to feel the sensation of touch through the armor. I was able to get the fingers underneath one of the plates and I pulled at it and the pain of trying to pull off my own skin greeted me. I stopped trying to remove the armor and continued to look further down at the rest of my body and was just as horrified at the sight of what was once my body had been replaced by a massive suit of dark blue and grey armor with glowing blue lines in between the individual plates and segments.

I screamed out in horror and was met by the sound of my new voice, it sounded like claws on a chalkboard that hurt the ears and sent a chill up the spine. I felt back onto my butt in shock as I placed my head in my hands and was horrified once more by the lack of feeling of my facial features. I started groping at my face, trying to feel what had happened to my face and was met with what felt like a full face helmet covering my head. I tried to remove the helmet and was once again met with the sensation of trying to pull my skin off and the non-moving helmet; I turned my head to the side and saw that my shoulders were covered in similar looking armor as well as crystal spires that were sticking out all along my shoulders. As I continued to grope my face,I could feel an opening in the helmet where my eyes were and as I slowly probed it I saw that my crystal fingers were right over my eyes.

‘What is going on!? What the hell happened to me!? Why can’t I take off this armor? What about my voice!? What happened to my voice!?’

A million other questions ran through my mind as I tried to discover how any of this was possible as i sat in the snow when a massive roar from behind me drew my attention. I slowly turned around expecting to see a bear but instead was greeted by a huge beast of a man that was covered from head to toe with white fur.

‘What the-? A Yeti!? There is no way that is real!’

I turned my body and attempted to rise to my feet but instead heard a single thump and in an instant saw that the yeti was in front of me with his fist pulled back for a punch.

“Wait!” was all I could get out as the fist met with my face and sent me flying back and bouncing down the hill through the snow.

Even though I had just been punched in the face and sent flying at least ten feet back I should have had a broken face or been in an excruciating amount of pain but instead I simply felt dull pressure where the yeti had struck me.

As I slid down the hill, I tried to orient myself as I bounced on the ground and sounded like a chandelier with each bounce, I splayed out my fingers and dug them into the ground which made a rough scraping sound as I began to slow. I then felt the ground leave my back and my left hand catch on a rock as I realized that I was hand off the edge of a cliff by one hand. I quickly snapped my head down and saw that I was on the edge of a massive cliff, even the clouds that were below me looked like they were miles away. I tried to use my free hand to grab the cliff and pull myself up but I couldn’t coordinate my arm and could only hang there, that was at least until I heard the snort of the yeti creature again. I looked up and saw it looking down on me as it took a foot and placed it on my hand.

“No!” I cried out as he shoved my hand off of the rock and I began falling.

“FUCK YOU MURPHY!” was the only thing I could think of to be my last words as I fell.

I think he heard me as I fell for what felt like hours, hitting every rock as I went and even with my apparently dulled sense of pain; I was having trouble staying awake. As the world grew dark again I could see a lake below me but couldn’t do anything as the world faded to black again.

“You hear that?”

“Yea, sounded like something crashed into that lake we just passed, and hit hard too.”

“You think we should go look?”

“Yea let’s go, make sure the others lockdown the cages, don’t want those things going anywhere.” The pony leading the train of carriages said to the second.

The first pony was a brown unicorn stallion with a short-cut black mane and tail and dark brown eyes and was wearing leather armor that covered most of his body. The second pony was a tan pegasus stallion with a dull orange mane and tail, blue eyes and an identical set of leather armor with holes cut in the sides to allow him to use his wings. He also carried a spear that was attached to his back with a strap as he ordered the other six ponies around.

Once the cages were locked down, they both quickly galloped through the trees to the lake that their caravan had passed only a few minutes ago. They cleared the trees and came upon the clearing and the lake that it held; they could both see that something had hit the water very hard as all of the nearby trees were dripping with water.

“What do you think did this?” the pegasus asked the unicorn.

“Dunno, fly up and see if you can see it in the lake.” The unicorn ordered the pegasus.

The pegasus quickly took off into the air and over the lake to try and spot whatever had hit the lake. He stopped instantly when he saw a glint of light in the bottom of the lake indicating that there was something shiny down there.

“Hey! There is something shiny on the bottom!” he called out to the pony on the shore.

“Well don’t just look at it, go down there and get it!” he barked back to the pegasus.

“Cool your hooves, I’m going!” he responded with a huff as he dove at the water and tucked his wings in as he hit the water.

A minute later the pegasus emerged and struggled with his cargo to the shore, as he reached the shore the unicorn looked at what he had dredged up and was amazed at what he had found. It was a statue of some kind of bipedal suit of armor made of stone and crystal that stood almost seven hooves tall.

“We hit the jackpot with this. What kind of creature do you think it was made for? It's too tall for any diamond dog and the legs are all wrong.”

“I don’t know and I don’t care, we are taking it with us, let’s take it back to the carts.”

“But we don’t have any more room for loot after we raided that town yesterday” The pegasus explained.

“Well then we can throw it in the cage with those changelings we came across.”

“Righto” he quickly answered as the two of them hefted the creature onto their backs and walked back to the slave caravan.

When they returned to the caravan, they were instantly greeted by the other members of the group who all wonder what the newest prize was.

“Shut it! Doesn’t matter what it is! We are taking it with us and the Boss can tell us what to do with it.” He shouted and the group all returned to their posts.

The pegasus quickly opened the cage where two changelings were held and threw the armor in before locking the cage again.

“Have fun with your new friend bugs!” he laughed as he returned to the front carriage.

The two changelings quietly chirped to each other as they looked at the creature that lay before them.