The atmospheric change aboard the black, overprotected battleship was noticeable. The temperature in the air dropped, and Gojo could feel the pressure in his ears popping a little. The sorcerer leaned back onto the wooden guard aboard the ship. His snow-like hair flowed gently in the wind as he swirled the mug of water in his off-hand.

Gojo reared his head back, staring straight up at the still blistering desert sun. However, it cooled considerably when the airship entered the badlands territory. The clouds came in bulk, providing sunshade and giving the crew aboard respite from the golden death rays threatening to tear through Gojo’s perfect skin. He took a swig from the mug, exhaling through his nostrils and trying to get some sort of enjoyment from this.

Ocellus sauntered over from his rear, trying her best to stifle a yawn, but to no avail as a tear broke from her eye. “It’s too early for this…” Ocellus mumbled and complained,

“The cabin’s pretty vacant right now. Why not take a nap there?” Gojo suggested,

“I’d rather not break my sleep schedule…” Ocellus smacked her lips, eyes shut tight. “Mr. Gojo?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you helping us?”

“What do you mean?” Gojo shifted slightly, head still facing the sky.

“Well, aside from getting you back home.” Ocellus leaned onto the guard, soaking in the sights above the clouds as the winds kissed her cheek. “Isn’t it much more trouble to babysit two creatures you never met before over a journey filled with so much… uncertainty? And it isn’t like you lacked the power. In fact, you have such overwhelming strength. You could do whatever you want.”

Gojo was… stunned. He never really placed that deep of thought on these kinds of things. He’d usually follow his gut and think of things when the time came. Sure, there was the whole appearing in a world so similar yet so different. But… If he was asked to give an answer… then…

“Say…” Gojo began, hunching over. “Have you ever lived in a corrupt system?”

“Yup,” Ocellus snickered, “Though those days were long ago.”

“How was it like?” Gojo asked, staring at the horizon.

Ocellus joined him, “Torturous, when I first hatched, it was all I’ve ever known. To steal as much love as possible for the hive. Fight, fight, and more fighting. I was… to be frank, sick of it. But what can I do? I was just one changeling.” She chuckled, “Maybe because of my military past, I’d adjusted to the wastelands so quickly… that all this death and mountains of bodies I trek over became secondary to me…But only Faust would know.” She turned over to the human, eyes glazing over his person. “You?”

“You summed it up pretty well,” Gojo smiled, though not from cheerfulness. “I was sick of it all, those old bums that think everything will bend to their will. Sacrificing the youths of sorcerers in an attempt to maintain their power was revolting. I wanted change.”

Gojo’s smile died the moment the mention of the higher-ups left his lips, a scowl crossing his face as tension thickened in the air. Despite that, Ocellus never felt fear, which even surprised her. She thought that the moment Gojo stopped throwing jokes was when the situation was dire. But maybe it’s because they came from similar paths of history that she would emphasize with Gojo.

“But just killing those old farts would not change anything; some newer farts would just replace them… So, I thought of nurturing strong and clever allies that would make the change necessary to flip this corrupt society on its head. But…” Gojo took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I had a lot of time to think within that prison, and I came to a conclusion. If I nurtured them to achieve my goals, I’d be no different than those higher-ups taking control of my student’s fate. I reject that idea.” Gojo snapped his fingers, “I’ll guide my students, and if they choose to change Jujutsu society for the better, I’ll support them. If they defect, I’ll guide them back onto the right path. As an educator, I will still foster them as strong and clever allies who can make their own decisions... Or, that was my dream. Until all this stuff happened. I guess… You remind me of my students.”

“Educator? So, you’re a teacher to your… uh… sorcerer students?” Ocellus inquired, “You didn’t strike me as the teacher type.”

“Being a sorcerer is an occupation.” Gojo commented, “That both my work… and who I am.”

“A teacher,” Ocellus smiled, closing her eyes as she reminisced the past. “I hadn’t heard that word in a long time. I knew a teacher too, she was one of the bravest ponies I had known…”

“What was her name?” Gojo asked,

“Her name was… Fluttershy.”

“I see…”

“It’s actually pretty funny now that I think about it,” Ocellus giggled, turning to lean her side on the railing and facing Gojo head-on. “Rainbow mentioned taking a ride on an airship back when Storm King attacked Canterlot.”

Gojo folded his arms, “What? Another villain of the week?”

“I guess you could say that,”

“Man, you people can never catch a break, huh?” Gojo thrusts forward, getting his butt off the wooden guard in one swift motion. “Well, lunch is about ready, from what I heard. I’ll call you over when it's done.”

“Thanks… for the talk and the company,” Ocellus said, turning tail to the back of the ship. “I’ll be aimlessly wandering around. Feel free to call me…”

“Sure thing.”

The rest of the day was uneventful, or at least to Gojo it was. After sharing lunch with the cabin crew of five other ponies previously a part of Sombra’s army, Gojo wandered around the underdeck of the ship. Walking past storages, sleeping quarters, and…

Gojo pushed open the wooden door to a room filled with multiple stacks of crates. To the ordinary eye, it looked to be the most run-of-the-mill storage room, but Gojo had anything but ordinary eyes. His enhanced senses picked up a faint, almost imperceptible vibration emanating from one of the crates.

Intrigued, he walked over to the nearest stack of crates and ripped open one of the containers at the top. Wood splintered and cracked, echoing across the room. Underneath a pile of paper confetti and plush cushions, he found a helmet that was unmistakably identical to the ones worn by Sombra's army.

Gojo huffed, grabbed the headwear with one hand, and with little effort, crushed it in one swift motion, molding it into a shape beyond repair.

The sound of metal moaning and groaning and wood splitting could be heard for the next several minutes from outside the room. Not that anyone passed by to check on what the strange bipedal alien was doing. Gojo stepped out of the room, waving his hand to relieve the small tension built up from the repeated action of gripping solid metal in the palm of his hand. Shutting the door behind him, Gojo whistled a tune as he strolled down the corridor without a care in the world.

Climbing up the stairs and leaving the dark, confined basement area, the night sky greeted the strongest sorcerer with an even more stunning view of a golden sun dipping over the horizon. Its yellows bled into the surrounding blues and meshed together in a breathtaking display of colours.

“Dang.” He thought, scratching the back of his head and stepping on deck. “Is it that late already?”

“Mr. Gojo!” An unfamiliar voice came from below deck, turning around. A mare with a greenish coat and a long forest mane greeted him with a smile. Which Gojo happily returned.

“Hello there.” He waved, “You the captain?”

“Nope,” The mare said, hopping next to him. “Just cabin crew!”

“Is there something you need me for?”

“No, it’s just…” The mare shuffled anxiously where she stood, hooves kneading the floor in an effort to get her thoughts straight. “I just want to let you know how grateful we are for freeing us from Sombra’s control.”

“Don’t mention it,” Gojo patted her head, “if I hadn’t freed you guys, Silverstream would have grilled me alive.”

“You’re kidding!” The mare gasped, “Can she even lay a talon on you?”

“Nah.”

She giggle-snorted, playfully punching his leg as she tried to calm herself. “You’re funny!”

“Funny looking or fun to hang around?” Gojo smirked, rubbing his chin in mock confidence.

“Both!” she retorted.

“Isn’t that great?” he threw his hands up, shaking them in the air. “Your knight in shining armour freed you of your prison and has a great sense of humour!” He claps twice, celebrating his existence on the ship. “Hooray for Gojo!”

This time, the mare busted out laughing, tears teetering on the edge of her eyes as she held onto his leg for support. She laughed a whole minute before calming down, wiping the excess tears from her eyes. “I-it’s been long since I had a good laugh!” She got back onto her hooves, turning to look up at Gojo. “Thank you so much, Mr. Gojo. For saving us, for saving me!”

“No biggie.” Gojo blushed,

“By the way,” The mare brought her hoof to her back, rummaging around a little before pulling out a small metal ball. “Do you know what this is? I found several scrap metal balls lying about in a storage room with their crates torn off.”

Gojo took it off the mare’s hoof and brought it up to his blindfold for further examination. The sorcerer hummed, scratching his chin and tossing the thing overboard.

“Probably some trash, don’t gotta worry about it.”

“Oh, I-”

The mare was interrupted by the sudden booming of distant thunder, its remnant lighting flashing the entire airship in a blinding light for a fraction of a second. Gojo stood still for a moment, then turned to face the dark clouds in the distance. A large, looming cumulonimbus cloud towered over the battleship, bathing the aircraft in a deep, dark shadow as it soon blocked out even the moonlight. The occasional thunder would break through the dense cloud, with howling winds so strong that Gojo and the mare could feel it from where they stood as it whistled in their ears.

“Wow…” The mare mumbled in awe, “That’s a big cloud.”

Suddenly, Gojo jerked the mare back, pulling her to safety. A dagger struck where she stood, wiggling in the wood flooring before it stayed stagnant. Several more daggers flew directly at Gojo’s head from beyond the clouds but slowed to a halt before the weapons could actually reach him and clattered harmlessly onto the ground.

“Everybody, get into the basement!!”

As soon as Gojo gave the order, several pegasi rolled out of the clouds, each slinging daggers at the evacuees running to take cover. Gojo teleported next to a cabin crew further out deck, using his infinity as a shield for the pony and taking close to ten daggers in the face. None of them hit Gojo, of course, but it looked cool.

“T-thank-”

“No time for that!” Gojo yelled, “Get to safety!”

Taking two daggers from the air, Gojo hurled them at the fast-approaching pegasi. One landed its mark on a pegasus’s wing, forcing the pegasus to crash into the deck onboard, while the other dagger narrowly missed another pegasus.

Gojo rushed forth, grabbing the crashed pegasus by their tail and pulling them skyward. Reaching the apex of the arc, Gojo turns around and slams them down into the basement floor, smashing them through the deck.

One pegasus landed near Gojo and tried a sweeping kick, while another wanted to divebomb him from above with an extended hindleg. Neither achieved their goals as the distance between their legs, and Gojo grew vastly further and further the closer they got. Seemingly freezing in the air, their attacks halted in front of the honoured one.

“It's useless,” Gojo remarked, grabbing the leg of the pegasus that tried to divebomb his face.

Before he could punish the soldiers, something zipped past his peripheral view at lightning speed. Spinning around, Gojo bolted to the basement’s entrance, grabbing the dagger and saving a cabin member from permanent blindness. The blade was inches from their eye, the tip so close that Gojo sighed a sigh of relief.

Another pegasus rushed in and landed next to the cabin member, to which Gojo gave a warm welcome by smashing them with the struggling pegasus still in his grasp from earlier. Body slamming the two into the wooden railing, splintering the guard, and flinging them off the airship.

Gojo pushed the cabin member into the basement, yelling a quick “Sorry!” as the pony tumbled down the stairs and into safety. Three more pegasus charged at him from the front, twisting on his heel and pivoting his body, dodging one oncoming soldier and grabbing another from the air and chopping at the base of their neck gently. Incapacitating them and tossing them to the ground. The last pegasus wasn’t given as much grace as Gojo socked them straight in the face. Knocking them out cold before throwing them to the side.

Using the attraction of Blue, the last pony of the trio was sucked off the ground and straight into Gojo’s hand. Exhaling from his nostrils, Gojo held them upright by the neck, digging his fist deep into the soldier’s gut and knocking him unconscious, then letting them go.

In the next instance, an explosion went off at the back of the airship. The entire boat shuddered as the elevation dipped down a few notches. It may look insignificant, but every member onboard could feel the dropped difference, and it isn’t a fun experience.

“W-woah.” Gojo tumbled about, trying to get his bearings with the uneven flooring. As if the situation couldn’t get any worse, the bow of the ship begins to take a sudden nosedive. All cargo that wasn’t secured onboard begins to slide towards the front of the vessel. Another quake shook the foundation of the ground Gojo was standing on, and then after came a secondary explosion from the back motor.

The stern was in flames by now; it must be from the pegasi circling to the flank, tossing daggers into the fin, and jamming it. The ark at which the ship was sinking caused it to be swallowed by the cumulonimbus cloud. Thunder erupted and crackled at every angle, disorienting anyone on deck as a heavy downpour flooded the exposed areas of the ship. Adding on to the predicament Gojo found himself in, a lone pegasus landed at the forecastle deck of the boat.

Clad in the blackest armour that mimicked pure obsidian and with the emblem of the Crystal Empire engraved on its chest plate, the pegasus stood tall. His brilliant amber coat contrasted starkly with the armour, and even more so with the red mane sticking out his galea-styled mind-controlling helmet. He spread his wings wide in a fierce display. From the bend of his wings all the way to his primaries, they were clad in razor-sharp amour, his eyes glowing a devilish viridescent green.

“Surrender or die.” Flash Magnus commanded, taking a brave step forward.

“Damn,” Gojo spouted, standing upright. “Is this how guests welcome themselves aboard a transport ship?”

“Your blabbering mouth will be the end of you.” In one instance, Flash vanished from where he was. Reappearing next to Gojo in one mighty flap of his wings as he launched a vertical slash of his wing.

“Urgh,” Gojo moaned, clearly tired of this charade. “How many times must we keep doing this? You will never-”

That’s when it hit him: the tips of Flash’s wings were coated in a mysterious purple aura. This sensation was damn near unmistakable. This was the exact usage of cursed energy he faced prior to his sealing within the Prison Realm. The knife-like feathers of his wing armour clashed against the space of infinity surrounding Gojo. But instead of dragging to a halt as it’d usually do, the bladed tip of his wings got closer… and closer… and closer...Until…

Gojo swayed his body to the side, dodging the downward slice with a side step and composing himself. Dusting his jacket a little, Gojo turned to the pegasus general, getting up onto his feet even with the vessel diving vertically straight to the ground now. His carefree attitude hardened as Gojo's eyes never trailed from the first pony to have reached him through the infinite distance he placed himself against others.

“Where…” Gojo began, voice dripping with bloodlust. “Did you learn that technique?”

Flash got into a battle-ready stance. No one could see it, but it was blatantly obvious that he was smiling behind his helmet. Confidence oozing from his every pore. “I don’t talk to corpses.”

Author's Note

Thank you, Gege. 🙇
Also, I finished Cyberpunk and RDR2. I might do a story on those.