Rider on the Storm

“Haaaaaah~!” your new mint-coloured, harp-mark-having slave exclaimed. “More! Please, Master! More!”

Holy shit on a stick, all you’re doing is petting her. Why is she turning into a hentai character over this? Seriously, you’ve only had her in captivity for that whole day and a half of riverside scouting, and already she’s been totally enthralled by your touch, with fucking hearts in her eyes and everything--

Aaaaaaand she’s licking your fingers now. Nope, that’s a paddlin’.

“Ah-ah,” you tell her off sternly, reaching for the spray bottle of water and hosing her in the face with it. “No. Bad pony.”

“Noooooo!” she wails, recoiling and writhing on the ground as her personality flips from hentai character to fucking Sméagol in an instant. “It burns! It burns us!”

“Gonna have to work on that self-control, missy,” you chide, waggling a finger. “Now go on, back in your box.”

With a big, watery-eyed whimper of pure heartbreak, she complies with your command, shuffling her way back to her pet carrier and closing the door behind her, continuing to give you massive puppy-dog eyes the entire time.

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK

“Come in,” you call out.

The door swing open to reveal Tempest. She wastes no time, striding into the makeshift airship office.

“We’ll be in Klugetown in about half an hour.,” she states, plain and simple.

“Good, good,” you reply, donning a fresh smile for best co-op partner.

Tempest’s eyes flick over towards your new willing slave in training for a split second, her lip curling up in momentary disgust. Said slave glares right back at her with undisguised jealousy and hostility, ears folded back and everything.

“I need to speak to you in my office. In private.”

“In private, eh?” you intone with a smirk. “Of course. I understand--”

“Nooooooo!” your new slave literally hisses at Tempest, banging on her cage. “No touching my precious!”

Sadly, her deranged Gollum act evaporates the second Tempest shot some lightning towards her cage, the mare “eep”-ing before ducking and taking cover.

“Lead the way,” you snicker, entirely amused with the display.

After fixing you with a smouldering glare, Tempest does indeed lead the way to her office in the super-ship, which wasn’t all that far from your own. Indeed, it wasn’t all that different from your own, either; just the most spartan desk and chair set-up imaginable, neither one of you having much of a chance to customize the space, let alone use it. She doesn’t look back at you, even after you closed the door behind you.

“I...” she attempts to begin, failing to find the words at first as uncertainty creeps into her voice. “I need to ask you a question.”

“That’s funny,” you chortle. “I didn’t realize you valued my opinions.”

“I didn’t,” she deadpans, craning her head to fix you with the matching look. “I do now. Especially since you seem to be correct about things more often than not.”

“Yep,” you sigh happily, cradling the back of your head with both hands. “They don’t call me Nostranonymous for nothing.”

She snorts. “Fine. I’ll just come out and say it. Are we going to win?”

“Nope.”

She recoils a bit, shocked at both the speed and certitude of your answer. “What do you mean, ‘nope’?!”

“I mean exactly that, babe,” you wink, utterly unfazed as usual. “The Storm King has a zero-point-zero - repeating the zeroes - percent chance of winning this war. In fact, I’d wager a guess that he’ll end up as a lawn ornament by the time this is all over.”

“I didn’t ask if he was going to win! I asked--”

“Don’t matter how you phrase it, Tempie,” you cut in. “We work for the Storm King. Therefore, we, by extension, have a zero-point-zero - repeating the zeroes - percent chance of winning this war as well. Nothin’ complicated to it, it’s just simple causality!”

And now, as per usual, she becomes angry with you. “Then how, exactly, can you still be so calm and happy about your so-called inevitable loss?!”

You arch an eyebrow. “My inevitable loss? Au contraire, babe! I, in point of fact, have a net positive percent chance of winning this war!”

A low percent chance, to be sure. But it’s better than the King’s odds! And that’s only for Plan A!

“Buh--! But you just said that--!” she splutters, confused but no less angry.

“Yes. Yes, I did,” you hum. “You’re a smart gal, Tempie. I know you can figure it out.”

Tempest works her jaw for a moment, trying to snap back at you with something. While she doesn’t end up saying anything in the end, you could absolutely see the gears starting to turn in her head. She doesn't seem to quite understand what you were implying just yet, which prompts the look she gives you to shift from anger and confusion to anger and unease.

“I’ll be up on deck if you need me,” you sigh, shooting her one last wink as you crank the door to her office back open. “Don’t be late for the party!”

She makes no move to stop you, and it’s not long before you’re off towards your stated destination.

Half an hour later...

“Every time I come to this godforsaken shithole,” you remark aloud, not giving a single front-flipping fuck who hears it, “I have to restrain the urge to just raze it all to the ground and throw all of these furry fucks into a gulag.”

And there were a lot of said furry fucks around to hear it, along with some of their scaly co-conspirators, situated as you were in the middle of one of Klugetown’s biggest market plazas. Tempest, as usual, was walking next to you.

Normally, talking that kind of shit out loud here would net you a swift and brutal ass-beating plus a hearty mugging from the local denizens of this hive of scum and villainy. You, of course, are not normal, and are acquainted with most of those aforementioned hooligans on both a first-name and a five-knuckle basis, with precisely none of them wanting to upgrade to the ten-knuckle VIP club.

Besides, you love seeing them afraid of you. Lets them know who’s wearing the pants around here.

“Where are we going?” Tempest inquires, clearly not enthused with needing to be here either.

“To get us some information,” you reply. “We could spend hours digging through the markets to find where they’ve run off to, or we could just squeeze it outta the local Hutts.”

“You’ve done this before.”

“More than I’d like to, believe you-me.”

“I do believe you,” she finishes, her voice taking on the disdain she had for her current surroundings.

It takes another few minutes of weaving through crowds and strangling random lippy hood rats for directions before you break down the door of the twenty-sixth millionth new office of the local rat bastard. As in, the literal rat bastard. Complete with stupid top hat and fuck-ugly goggle-spectacles. One that, unfortunately, you already knew on a first-name basis.

“Yaaaagh!” Verko shrieks, jumping right out of his chair. “Y-y-y-you!”

“Yes, me,” you sneer, giving him none of your hard-earned mirth as you swoop over and grab him by the throat, lifting him into the air with little effort. “Me, me, me.”

“I-I’ve paid my dues already!” he chokes out, struggling in vain against you. “What more do you want?!”

“What we want,” Tempest says, taking over the conversation for you, “Is information.”

Her horn crackles menacingly, driving even more fear into whatever creature he was supposed to be.

“There are six ponies here, aren’t there? And they’ve got a little dragon with them too,” she continues, leaning forward and looking your captive dead in the eyes. “You’re going to tell us exactly where they are.”

Minutes later...

“My hoooooome!” you hear Verko wail behind you. “Not again!”

“That wasn’t as satisfying as I thought it would be,” Tempest admits as the pair of you walk out of the burning building.

“Tell me about it,” you say in response. “There’s no fun in kicking street trash to the curb. It’s just a chore. Like taking actual trash to the curb.”

The building collapses behind you, but fails to interrupt the flow of your conversation.

“At least we know where they are now.”

“Yup,” you concur, studying the crudely drawn map you’d beaten out of him. “Not surprised that a fucking Abyssinian is selling them out.”

“You don’t seem to like Abyssinians very much.”

“They did kind of push me into a career as a supervillain.”

“As opposed to a regular villain?”

“Of course!” you cheer, flipping back some imaginary hair. “The only difference between the two is presentation!”

“Of course.”

“So what’s your excuse, babe?” you ask, already knowing the answer. “What brings a smokin’ hot cutie like you into the League of Super Evil?”

She looks away, her cheeks flushing red at your words. “I’m only doing this to get what I need.”

“And now that you’re close to gettin’ what you need?”

She hesitates for several seconds before answering. “I’d rather talk about this in private.”

“Again, eh?” you smile. “Sure.”

“Without that strange pony you brought along.”

Tempest seems to sense that she said the wrong thing, turning her head to glare at you as you adopt the kind of knowing smile one gets when catching somebody in the middle of a Krabby Patty binge.

“Don’t you dare...!”

“Tempie,” you coo, “Are you jealous?”

“I will break your nose if you keep talking,” she hisses. “Don’t think I won’t.”

“I’d rather ‘ya didn’t. I need that for booping.”

You make a show out of sniffing the air, only to catch the very out-of-place scent of cotton candy on the wind. Which actually leads you to a strand of poofy pink hair caught in a plank of wood off to the side.

“And sniffing out our prey, apparently,” you chortle. “Man, that’s awful convenient.”

Tempest’s ears pivot towards the sounds of excited chatter, the kind that is never, ever heard in this awful fucking shanty city. Both of your eyes gravitate towards it’s source, otherwise known as your destination: an abandoned-looking cross-breed between a water wheel and a windmill, the former stacked on top of the latter with the water wheel having a notable lack of, well, water. The “first floor” of the windmill part was also connected to the nearby Nth floor of “civilization” with wooden boards, no doubt leading to the front door. Finally, the top had some kind of clothesline gondola looking thing, hauling pallets with crates on it and looking like it was driven by that windmill.

“Ah,” Tempest remarks. “There they are.”

“Mm-hmm. Alright, game plan time,” you reply, checking your flare gun.

“I assume you have something in mind?”

“Yeah. You walk in through the front door with some troops, and I’ll climb up top and head off their escape routes.”

“Sounds good. Anything else?”

“Yeah. Lay off the Spheres.”

She shoots you a confused look. “Why?”

“Noticed something during the last time we were chasing them down. We were relying on them too much, chuckin’ cockatrice grenades when a good CQC smackdown would’ve been better. Or in our cases, your Sith powers and my Daddy Gurranq cosplay.”

She opens her mouth to object, but upon thinking further on it, doesn’t wind up voicing it and instead nods in agreement. “I... hmm. I actually agree. But we need to capture them somehow.”

“I know. We’ll stone ‘em when they’re nice and cornered, but not while we’re chasing them. This time, we take ‘em down the old fashioned way.”

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask. I saw you hit that dragon with a Sphere. Why didn’t it work on him?”

“Oh, that? Dragons are immune to basilisk magic. One of the reasons basilisks hate them. Dragons hate ‘em back for making lairs in their volcanoes and cooling the lava down.”

“I see. That’s quite annoying.”

“Very. I didn’t think the little guy would go all Saving Private Ryan for his slave driver, but here we are. Ain’t makin’ that mistake again, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t suppose that means I’ll end up seeing more of your... hidden talents?”

“Only when Twilight decides to shoot some lasers,” you wink.

“I thought it had something to do with magic.” Tempest nods once. “All right. You have a decent plan, but I want to improve our chances.”

“What do ‘ya have in mind?”

“They’re too close to the docks,” she notes, pointing to said airship docks in the distance. “I want to get our soldiers into position to intercept them.”

“Good play. Shouldn’t use the flare though, that might tip ‘em off.”

“Agreed. I’m going there on hoof to give the orders. We’ll meet back here first before we make our move. If you see them trying to escape before then, use the flare. I’ll back you up as soon as possible.”

“Sounds good,” you concur. “Let’s do this.”

After the traditional fist/hoofbump of agreement that she was slightly reluctant to perform, she takes off towards the docks, taking the path that wouldn’t be in view of the windmill tower. After she turns a corner and inadvertently denies you some of that rear-view action, you allow yourself a little chuckle and climb up a nearby building to get a better vantage point, also taking the path of least visibility.

While you pop the spyglass back out and start casing the joint from afar, your thoughts once again drift to your co-commander. Now, you were still absolutely certain that she’d defect to Team Equestria at some point, probably near the end of the campaign. But you do wonder if, in the current term, you should try letting her in on the backstabbing grift?

Not now, of course. You still needed her to stay focused. But what about once you manage to bag that Twilight gal? She’ll be pleased as punch about finally bagging her, so maybe some tactical parade-pissing could work to secure her help? Sure, it won’t change that she’ll ditch you for the literal Princess of Friendship in the end, but having her back you up during the part where you whoop the Storm King’s lily-livered ass would be a very welcome boon.

Could backfire, of course. She could throw you in a cage for even bringing it up. Not that it’d matter, of course; you’ve planned around the possibility of getting caged thanks to all the loyal storm beasts in on your plan. Maybe if that happens, you could let the King do his Spaceballs routine on the princesses, let him betray her, then swoop on in and get her help in fighting him? Maybe even get some Elemental help on account of “enemy of my enemy is my friend”?

Yeah, that could work. Hardly an ideal route for Plan A, especially considering he’d have access to the fully armed and operational Staff of Sacanas. But that’s more of a danger for Tempest and the Elements; you know he’s planning to blast you with that Staff at some point, but he doesn’t realize that it’s not the trump card he thinks it is against you.

Especially when you consider that he never bothered to ask you about the real reason why the Abyssinians threw you in kitty jail in the first place.

Oop, pause those thoughts, you’ve got tone. Visual confirmation on ponies.

They were all pacing about up on the second floor of the windmill. You also got your first look at the Abyssinian that was planning to sell them out. Funny, you don’t recognize his face, but you do recognize his ratty-ass coat and facial structure as belonging to Abyssinian royalty. Too sleazy even for their society? Interesting if true. You’ll have to remember to trust that cat’s word even less than you’d usually trust his kind.

Ooh, wait a tick. Is Princess Purple arguing with cat-man there? Judging from her expression, it looks like she’s wise to his shit. And she’s got something in her TK grasp, a sheet of paper? Let’s try and focus in on that a bit, and...

Oh! Oh-ho-ho! So those are the friends they’re trying to lean on for backup! So sad then, that she’s holding up a map of Mt. Aris. They must have no idea that you bodied the hippogriffs a long time ago. That presents quite the prescient advantage for you, even if they do escape! And seeing how your gut is telling you that their luck is running on only a half tank of gas now, that is a very good advantage to have.

So nice when the planets align like that.

You briefly peer down and to the side to see if Tempest is back, and you manage to catch her trotting on back to the rendezvous point. So with a smile, you collapse and stow your spyglass and make your way back towards the meeting place.

“We good?” you smile.

“Yes, we’re good.”

“Good. Let’s go bag us some heroes.”

Without further ado, Tempest takes off towards the upper floors of the city and towards the front door of the building, once again making sure to avoid being seen from it’s windows as much as possible. You make a similar approach, this time towards the dry waterwheel. You ride the wheel up, but upon seeing the huge number of rusty and bent railway spike-sized nails protruding underneath the deck, you forgo getting up onto it in favour of monkey-barring your way underneath it.

You climb your way over towards the side of the windmill you know has no windows and make your ascent from there, taking advantage of the rickety-ass architecture to avoid making your own handholds and thus compromising your stealth approach. Before long, you manage to make it to the roof, and take stock of Tempest’s approach.

There she was, with half a dozen of her troops in tow, rounding a corner and heading for the front door. You and Tempest briefly lock eyes and nod to one another, with you taking that as your cue to head across the roof to the side of the building with the windmill on it, intending to jump through a window.

That is, until you overhear them talking.

“Let’s go, everypony,” said Twilight.

“Wait!” the kitty gasps, sounding as sleazy as he looked, “You can’t, you can’t make it by y’allselves. You need an airship! And lucky for you, I can get you a ride.”

Shit, that was fast of them. You pick up the pace, climbing your way down the side of the building.

“I think we can get there on our own,” Twilight replies, her scum senses serving her well.

You hear the front door getting magicked open, followed by the summary gasp of shock as they behold Tempest and her gang of troops. She, continuing the very tasteful pattern, puts on her bedroom voice as she chuckles all evil-like at their reaction. You, meanwhile, continue your stealthy descent, passing by the windmill’s shaft.

“Silly little ponies,” Tempest croons ever-so-sexily.

You spy that Rainbow Dash thinking fast and looking out the window you wanted to enter through. She looks up at you, double-takes with a gasp at your smiling presence, and ducks back indoors as you jump the rest of the way down, the sound of your impact drawing the gaze of the frightened Elements away from Tempest.

“♫ I’ve got an F and a C, and I’ve got a K too, ♫” you whisper menacingly, putting one leg through the window sill. “♫ And the only thing that’s missing is you! ♫”

The more feminine members of the group scream and whimper at your very sudden presence, cowering behind the tougher ponies of the bunch as the storm beasts file in and start to surround them. Much to your chagrin, the fucking cat goes ahead and chimes in, no doubt trying to smooth operator his way out of this.

“We-he-hello there, my good, ah, storm friends! To what do I, ah, owe the pleasure?”

“You’re not nearly good enough to talk your way outta keeping those ponies, kitty-cat,” you say with a smile and some well-earned venom. “Especially when you’ve been so helpful for us already.”

“A-haha! Er, helpful how?”

“What, you don’t remember?” You pull a blank sheet of paper out of your armour, pretending to read it’s contents. “Dear Verko, come on over to my place as soon as you can, and remember to bring the cage!”

“No!” he yelps, waving his paws in the traditional ‘please stop’ pose. “No no no no no, you don’t gotta read that out loud, now!”

“...I got six little ponies and a dragon to sell to you,” you finish, savouring his panic like a fine wine. “Won’t lie, not a bad plan to get rid’a all that debt of yours. We’re just here to collect, queen!”

“What?!” Rarity snaps, whipping around to face the fucking cat. “You were... You were going to sell us?!”

“He sure was!” you chirp. “And for way less than your MSRP, too!”

“I knew it,” Twilight glowers, glaring daggers at the now very nervous and fidgety looking cat-man.

“Trusting strangers, are we now?” Tempest chuckles. “Very big mistake.”

“I mean, I don’t know what you expected to happen, trusting an Abyssinian. But ya reap what you sow. Now,” you conclude with a snap of your fingers. “Bag ‘em, boys.”

The beasts all jump the ponies at once, causing quite the scuffle. But being bigger, stronger, and better trained, it doesn’t take long before they’re all bound up in chains, metal muzzles, and horn rings.

“Great job, fellas!” you cheer with a round of applause.

“Very good,” said Tempest, doing a wonderful job of containing her excitement. “Now load them into the cart. We’ve wasted enough time here.”

That was way too easy. No way this is the end of the line for them. Good thing you know about their destination now though, otherwise you’d be more worried about them spending the rest of their luck on escaping your clutches.

As everyone files out of the building, cat-man holds you up again and tries to sleaze it up with you.

“Well, hahah! Good stuff! Now, ahah, about that payment that ole Verko promised me...?”

Huh, wait a tick. His face, you almost remember where you’ve seen it before. It’s right on the tip of your tongue...

Oh!

You snap your fingers. “Dapperpaws!”

“Wh--?” he half-exclaims, shocked you figured out his family name. “How’d you...?”

“Fuck me, that’s where I’d seen your face before! You’re one’a the fuckin’ Dapperpaws,” you laugh. “Dude, small world!”

“Hold on now,” he half-demands, “How do you know about my family, greenie?”

“Funny you should ask! They’re the assholes who reported me to the feds, had me thrown into kitty jail!”

Yeah, they were way too smart for their own good, figured out what you were doing to their magical artifact collection. A pity they weren’t smart enough to not brag about reporting you afterwards; they might’ve escaped without any notable punishment from yours truly if they hadn’t!

“Let’s see,” you hum, happily skipping down the post-invasion Abyssinia memory lane with a few taps of your finger to your chinny-chin-chin, “Last time I saw Mr. and Mrs. Dapperpaws, I was shipping them down to the lowest levels of the salt mines, hot off of looting and demolishing Dapperpaw Manor.”

“Y-you what?!”

“Ahh,” you sigh happily with a hand over your heart, “Good times. Wait, shit, did I...?”

You fish through your armour, pulling free your trusty Testament and flicking through the pouch of photos in the back cover until--

“Yes!” you cheer, pulling free the photo of you posing in front of the ruins of said manor, flashing a peace sign with the biggest smile on your face. “Holy shit man, this takes me back!”

During your hearty laugh, you can see what’s-his-face look at this photograph with absolute despondency. By the time you put both it and your notebook back into your armour, his fists were shaking with rage and he wore a facial expression that was only a few anatomical incongruities removed from a crying wojak.

“Why, you... You... Bastard!”

“In the flesh, with that boom-boom-pow, and bitches jackin’ my style.”

He lands an ineffectual punch to your armoured chest. With a simple smile that wouldn’t be out of place on someone much more yandere than yourself, you tenderly grasp his wrist and squeeze it hard, causing cat-man over there to wheeze in pain and feebly bat at your squeezing hand as he drops to his knees.

“You’ve been very helpful today, sir. Very helpful, indeed. But if I ever see your weasel face around here again, I will personally ship your ashes and pawprint back to Mr. and Mrs. Dapperpaws in a fucking lunchbox. Capiche?”

After wheezing out something that could be construed as agreement, you hurl him by the wrist towards a nearby closet with a smirk, his body caving the doors in as the clothes within spill out over top of him.

With a satisfied little sigh, you finally leave the windwill house and fall into formation with an impatient Tempest, wiping off the spot on your armour he touched with one of your handy alcohol wipes.

“What took you so long, exactly?” she inquires, tapping her hoof and everything.

“Just took a nice trip down memory lane, is all,” you sigh happily. “C’mon, let’s head back. Been a long couple of days.”

And that’s just what your group does, the guards both guarding the rear and pulling the cage cart full of restrained ponies plus dragon as you and Tempest led the convoy through the streets towards your warship, over at the docks.

But you continued to have no illusions here; if ever there was gonna be a place where these gals blew the last of their good fortune, it was going to be right here, trying to bust free. Only question is what form their jailbreak is going to take.

You cradle your chin with a free hand and hum out loud as you think the possibilities over. The Friendship Gang would most likely have done just that; made a bunch of friends around here. Somehow. No, the ‘how’ ain’t important; the ‘who’ is. Who would they have befriended that could help them out of this bind?

Couldn’t be Verko: the only thing that unsubtle Semite analogue was missing was the ear tag with your name on it. And honestly, going down the list of other lowlife names wasn’t turning up any results. And that usually means you’re thinking about this wrong. So, time to Ace Attorney this shit and turn your thinking upside-doodley. Who else were they in contact with...?

Oh. The fucking cat. Right. Duh.

“Hey babe,” you pipe up, “Did you ever catch the name of that cat?”

“No.”

“That’s what I thought,” you hum, turning around to face the cage, walking backwards to keep the pace all the while. “Hey, do you gals know what that cat’s name was?”

All they do is glare at you. Spike in particular breathes fire at you through the slits in his mask, leaving it glowing a nice dull orange.

“So rude.”

You turn around to resume walking forward, only to notice the people in the streets. Or, to be more precise, the sudden lack of them.

“Why are you even bothering to ask?” Tempest inquires with a raised eyebrow and a sideways glance.

“Because I think he’s just called in a few favours,” you intone, your voice lower and with a dangerous edge.

Noticing your tone instantly, Tempest looks around and notices the same signs you do.

“Of course it couldn’t be that easy,” she hisses, shifting into a defensive stance with her ears pinned back.

“That’s what I was thinkin’, too. Ladies!” you call out to the guards, freeing the flare gun from your armour. “Pick up the pace and keep those eyes peeled!”

The flare fires skyward, only to be snatched out of the air by a fucking lizard tongue from a nearby window. Said flare-snatcher can be heard crying in pain at his phenomenally stupid choice of cuisine, right as a whole lot of familiar lowlife scum poke their heads out of the alleys and windows, cradling clubs, chains, blackjacks, and more than a few torches and two-by-fours with nails hammered into them.

And every single one of them was eyeing you up.

“Figures you fucking pukes would find your backbones once you’re in a big group,” you sneer at them, cracking your knuckles. “Make a single fucking move, and I’ll beat you to death with them.”

A good chunk of them, not used to such a direct and non-jovial threat, start looking mighty scared. Unfortunately, their fuckbuddies give them either a pep-talk or a shoulder shake, dispelling their momentary fears.

Both you and Tempest have yourselves a synchronized snort. Neither one of you has time for this shit. She revs up her Sith lightning while you rip a nearby lamp post right out of the ground with one hand, ready to turbo bonk at a moment’s notice.

And then, the sound of battle is heard from behind you, and you whip around to find that the majority of street punks were jumping the storm beasts instead of the two of you. You pick out that fucking cat in the crowd, already at work picking the lock on the cage.

That’s when the punks up front make their move; right when you were distracted.

In an instant, Tempest looses some of her high-explosive lightning, but the majority of the rest of the furry menace goes out of their way to dogpile you first, literally piling on by jumping out of the windows. You lose your grip on your improvised weapon and are briefly pushed down by the street rat tide, wailing away with their sad little blunt weapons. Their surprise attack succeeded for all of five seconds before they were thrown off all at once, sent flying in every which direction from a small taste of your real strength.

But you weren’t interested in them; you only cared about your targets. Your eyes settle on the now empty cage and discarded restraints surrounded by occupied storm beasts only just beginning to get a handle on the situation. You spy Tempest’s tail dart off down an alleyway, followed by the light of more lightning blasts beaming down said alleyway. Your instant reaction is to climb up the wall as fast as possible to get the height advantage on the escapees.

Fuck, and here you were thinking the restraints would be enough. That was stupid.

Precious seconds are spent bolting vertically upwards until you finally reach the rooftops, playing extreme ghetto Mirror’s Edge in real life as you quickly parkour your way over towards the explosive flashes coming from the exposed alleyways a fair ways away. The ponies eventually make their way towards the wide-open airship docks, Twilight working quickly to put a big bubble shield over them to protect against attacks. The docks themselves were full of storm beasts, obviously on Tempest’s behest, who had all dropped what they were doing and charged into battle the moment they saw the princess.

Snatching a boulder hanging from a crane, you leap down from the buildings towards them and throw it mid-air, the rock arcing gracefully towards the docked airship they were bolting towards. They skid to a rapid stop as the boulder craters the ship’s rear, totalling it in short order and forcing them to change course. Tempest emerges from the alleyways shortly after the boulder toss, entering the fray with more lightning blasts aimed at more of the docked airships.

It’s only now that you notice that the cat-man isn’t with them. He must’ve dipped sometime back when Tempest was chasing them down.

Speaking of Tempest, you land right next to her, rolling out once before breaking into a sprint and matching her speed. You reload the flare gun and fire a red one in a wide arc over the heads of the Elements, ringing the dinner bell for every storm beast in the vicinity. Your pursuit continues in this fashion for a minute or two, with Tempest blasting at them while you throw heavy objects their way, all while your forces converge on them both on the ground and in the air. But you know the dock’s layout all too well; enough to know about the dead end coming up in front of them.

Which they reach in short order, skidding to a stop on the empty airship dock.

“No pissing around this time,” you huff to your companion, snatching another metal lamp post out of the ground and twirling it around like a quarterstaff while you continued your death run. “Hit ‘em fast, and hit ‘em hard.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” she huffs back.

That Rarity pony takes over the shielding duty, putting up a bunch of smaller diamond-shaped magic shields to tactically block arrow fire. Which leaves Twilight free to power up that horn of hers and take aim, loosing a big magic laser beam blast straight at you.

Tempest veers to the side to dodge it, but you do no such thing, instead extending a free palm out in front of you and taking the beam straight-on. At first, the beam scatters all around it’s point of contact, destroying random shit all around you. Then, your hand contracts into a grip, as if you were trying to Force Choke a bitch.

You can hear Twilight gasping with sudden pain as the magic of her attack is vacuumed into a tight ball of compressed lavender-green energy held in your outstretched grip, lightning in both colours coursing along your arm as the black metal of your armour heats up to a very uncomfortable orange glow. She cuts off the beam’s power, and by the time it faded, the energy in your grasp had shifted to your signature green.

Leaping high into the air, you crush the orb of stolen magic in your grasp with a wince and swipe across the air multiple times with that same hand, your palm held open like before. You hiss slightly with pain as an absolute hailstorm of green magic missiles came pouring out of your open hand like the D&D equivalent of a spreadfire minigun, lazily arcing through the air in multiple directions before picking up speed and tracking towards the ponies. The last of the power was used to infuse your trusty lamp post, electrifying it and giving it the menacing green glow of your average CIA agent. And with that expenditure, the very uncomfortable burning pain of pulling out one of your stops ended, your arm cooling back down in turn.

You hit the ground running, able to dart past and keep ahead of your projectile hail as they course-corrected. You barely notice Tempest falling in next to you again, failing to notice her brief expression of abject shock pointed your way. On Twilight’s end, she gaped at the incoming death storm with horror before pouring enough power into her horn to generate a small, electrified whirlwind around her, the mare audibly straining with the effort.

As you and Tempest leap through the air, poised to attack and with your weapon raised overhead, you expected her to do many things with all that power. Conjure up a massive shield, shoot down all the incoming projectiles, fire a massive death laser, match your magic missile fire and try to out-danmaku you, even turn her entire group into pickles that fall through the cracks of the dock’s planks. You even had your hand extended again to take whatever she was going to dish out!

What you weren’t expecting her to do was to mass teleport not just herself and her friends away, but the entire section of dock she was standing on.

The section both you and Tempest were no longer able to land on.

Tempest’s gasp mirrors your own surprise, but you quickly get a handle on the situation as the two of you go into a freefall down the jagged sandstone cliff towards the very rocky ocean down below. Veering to your left, your free arm wraps itself around her barrel, bringing her brief, half-panicked flailing to a swift end. Your hail of projectiles rains down from above as you bank towards the rock face, burying half of your infused lamp post into the cliff with one motion in order to bring your momentum to a stop. An enormous gouge is carved out of the cliff as it’s power scythes through the rock with what most would consider disturbing ease. However, it’s power quickly expends itself, the glow fading along with it’s ability to carve through rock until it eventually returns to being a mundane lamp post. Your velocity finally comes to a stop once that happens, the gouge it carved out above forming a massive, rapidly tapering “V” shape in reflection of it’s dwindling power as the sand and crushed rock of the manoeuvre briefly showers the two of you.

All the while, your magic missiles fell all around you, some blasting solid craters in the rock face a good foot to a foot-and-a-half in diameter with the expected explosive potential. You become aware of Tempest’s rapid breathing and the way she clings to your side as the rest of the bolts finally fall into the ocean, creating huge explosive columns of steam as they impact the freezing water.

Exhaling deeply, you crane your head to look at Tempest and shoot her a tired, semi-forced smile. “You okay?”

She shuts her wide eyes for a brief moment to take a calming breath, nodding once she opened them back up. “Fine. I... I didn’t know you could do that.”

“If it makes you feel better,” you wink, “Nobody else knew, either.”

As if her noticeably more bashful countenance wasn’t a rare enough sight, she then does something you’ve absolutely never heard her do before.

She laughs.

It starts off as a light snickering, almost like something she didn’t even mean to let out in the first place. But as the seconds drag on, the floodgates open more and more, soon bringing her to the hearty laugh of somebody who just rode their favourite roller coaster.

And by the Emperor, if she wasn’t already a top-tier cutie pie, the sound of her genuine laughter just pushed her up into tippity top tier. It was enough to get even you to chuckle along with her!

“I can’t...” she tries to say between laughs before clearing her throat to speak properly, a small grin on her face and pinpricks of tears in the corners of her eyes, “I can’t remember the last time I had that much fun, Anon.”

“What can I say? I know my thrills.”

She fucking giggles. “That was one Tartarus of a thrill! That was...”

And just like that, the metaphorical unicorn sighting that was her mirth melts away as she realizes exactly what just happened, her face becoming downtrodden and sad for a moment as it shifted back to angry.

“They got away from us again!” she shouts.

“Relax, babe. They might've given us the slip, but unlike the last time, I know where they’re going next.”

“Where?” she demands.

You answer by flicking your eyes towards the distant Mt. Aris, your hopelessly adorable partner turning her neck to glare at the mountain as realization flashes through her eyes.

“The hippogriffs?” comes her incredulous question. “But we already destroyed them.”

“They don’t know that yet,” you hum. “They think they’re still up there, ready and raring to offer up help. They’ve got no idea they pussied out 20,000 leagues under the sea.”

“Then we’d better catch them before they get there.”

“Agreed. Lemmie just signal for help real quick here.”

“All right. Where do you need me to jump toooooooooo--!”

She yelps in surprise and clings to you even tighter as you let go of the lamp post, flipping around in mid-air as you align yourself to Naruto run directly down the wall. That allows your free right hand to pull out and reload your flare gun.

“What are you doing?!” she half-yelps, half-yells.

“Calling for help,” you answer quizzically as you finish reloading the flare gun. “Duh?”

Once the yellow flare was fired skyward, you stow it back in place and cease your run, your boots skidding along the vertical surface as your right hand plunges itself into the rock, bringing the two of you to a swift halt once again.

“Wh-what did you do that for?!” she demands, jabbing you in the chest with a hoof.

“Exercising my better judgment, of course!” you laugh, shooting her a sly wink as you give her barrel a squeeze. “You really thought I was gonna let you go that easy, Tempie?”

Her ears fold back as a furious blush envelops her face, followed shortly by her eyes screwing shut with a frustrated groan as she headbutts you in the chest.

“You are such a...!” she grumbles quite loudly, keeping her face planted where it was. “A... A dick!”

“No, I’m an asshole,” you chuckle. “Learn the difference, it could save your life!”

She can’t hide those errant chuckles from you, even if she tries to cover them up with groaning and the odd gut punch. While your airship support is heard descending down to pick the two of you up, your gaze remains fixed across the ocean and towards Mt. Aris, where a natural storm front was already brewing between the two.

The Elements would need to get there by airship, that much was for certain. But there’s no way most of the Klugetown regulars would just give them a ride, not after your show of force in town. Your best bet is probably to go straight for Mt. Aris and wait for them there, rather than waste time stopping and searching every airship that comes by.

Right after the two of you get cleaned up, of course.