Chapters It was Friday, but not just any Friday. It was the Friday after semester finals. The day all college students get let out for a week of fun and relaxation after a stressful semester of study and tests. I remember coming out of my physics exam and heading straight to the bar. Me and my friends had all agreed to meet up there after finals to catch up and discuss possible vacation plans.
The bar was called O'Malleys, and it was just across the street from the dorm we all bunked in. Obviously someone was thinking wisely when they decided to open up a bar across the street from a college. Now, don't go raging at me just because I praised the guy who installed a bar close to a college. I know how harmful alcohol is, and I know the effects that follow. And frankly, I don't care. At the moment, all I could care about was booze.
O'Malleys was a typical bar. The lights were dimmed slightly to give it some sort of atmosphere. But really, what kind of atmosphere could you get in a bar besides, well, bar. All the seats and booths were furnished with fine leather, which goes to show you how well the place was doing. There were a couple patrons scattered throughout the bar, but not that many that it could be considered busy. Thankfully I got here before a large crowd of college students, because once you get enough frat boys and sorority girls in there, you could literally smell the liquor. Trust me on this. You don't, and I repeat, do not want to be there once the usual crowds take it over.
So I walked into the bar and got a seat at a corner booth, and waited for my friends to show up. I waited all of five minutes before they arrived, and we exchanged greetings.
There was James, the technophile. He was the most advanced of our group, and some might argue on the whole campus, in anything electronic. You could give him any handheld device, and he could tell you all the features it came with, what features were available for download, and could take it apart and put it back together in working order in a minute flat.
Next was Adam, the gamer. None of us saw what good playing video games would do for him when we were younger, but that changed when he was given a job offer to beta test the latest games for companies like Square-Enix, Nintendo, and even Microsoft. The only reason he was in college with us was because he was required to have some sort of college credits before he was given the job. In my opinion, he got lucky.
After Adam was Kyle, the patriot. Technically, he wasn't even in college. He was accepted into the US Marines as an avionic engineer two years back, and he was on a week long vacation, same as us. Don't ask me how he got it to work out exactly to our break schedule, but he did. He must have some friends in high places. Still, he's the best at what he does and we're damn proud of him for it.
After him was Michelle. Jeez, where do I start with Michelle? Let's start off with saying that when I first met her, she was obsessed with burning, stabbing, or shooting things. Now, don't get the wrong impression. She's a sweet girl, and the only stabbing, shooting, or burning she did was in video games or in her head. Since then, she's calmed down quite a bit and focused on more practical things. Like the study of psychology for example.
Lastly, there's me. My name is Jack and I'm, for lack of a better word, a nobody. Unlike my other friends, I don't know what I want to do in life. I have no job, and I'm currently just taking random classes and hoping one clicks. I'm also pretty violent. I had been bullied back in elementary school constantly, and the only way for me to make it stop was to fight back. I also had a pretty thin skin for insults, so that didn't help either.
It started out small, just me pushing a kid to the ground when he tried to harass me. It eventually grew to the point where I was suspended from school for nearly hospitalizing a kid because he made fun of the fact that I lived alone with my mom. Oh, did I not mention that? Yeah, my dad left me when I was 2. Would I ever want to see him? No. Bastard never wanted anything to do with me, so I don't want anything to do with him.
Because of what happened in elementary school, I tended to stay away from other kids. Michelle changed that. She was the first one to approach me who wasn't taunting me or trying to prove how tough they were. She talked to me for a bit, and we eventually became friends. Mind you, it didn't happen just like that, but I'm simplifying. In reality, it took about a month before I trusted her enough to call her a friend. But after that, she introduced me to her friends, and they eventually became our friends. The only times I was ever happy was when I was spending time with my friends. Then Michelle started studying psychology.
I don't know how her mind tricks work, and I don't intend to find out. But after a while, she managed to break me out of my shell. I never got angry when I was around her or the others, and I stopped the violent tendencies. Now, thanks to her, I almost never get angry. At least when she's around. If someone antagonizes me when I'm alone, things don't end well for them.
Anyways, enough about us. Back to the story.
My friends joined me at the booth, and we all started chatting about what we've been doing lately and what we could all do for the upcoming week long vacation. All that talk ended once we started ordering drinks. I don't exactly remember what happened after that. I can faintly remember the order of events that dropped me here in this place though, so I'll try to retell it as best I can.
We got our drinks, and after about five rounds we were noticeably buzzed. Someone, I don't know who, shouted something about drunk poker, and we all cheered and headed for my dorm room, as it was the closest. We paid for our drinks and left the bar, albeit at a slow and slightly staggering pace. We managed to cross the street without incident, although Kyle nearly fell over in the middle of the street. We swayed into the front lobby of the dorms and slurred a drunken hello to Larry the doorman. He grunted back at us, his usual greeting.
Larry was a nice guy, even if he wasn't too vocal. None of us really knew why he would always grunt instead of actually talking, but that's how he communicated. In other words, one grunt meant yes and two meant no. Sometimes I had to wonder whether or not he was mute. But then again if he was mute, I don't think he would be able to grunt.
After that, we went upstairs and into my dorm. There was nothing above average about my dorm room. There was a desk to your left as soon as you walked in the door that had a computer sitting on top of it. It contained a couple drawers with odds and ends assorted in a chaotic fashion inside. If you continued in, you would see my bed, which was just a hammock with a pillow and blanket on it, in the furthest corner from the door. In the middle of the room there was a small table that looked like something out of a 90's mafia film. You know, the kind where they're all sitting around the table, playing poker while they smoke their cuban cigars. That kind of table. Only I wasn't in the mafia, it wasn't 1990, and none of us smoked.
We all grabbed a seat and slumped down around the small table just big enough to fit the five of us with enough arm room to spare. I grabbed a deck of cards out of one of the drawers in my desk and we commenced with the game.
Seeing as how this was just a friendly game of cards between friends, we decided to abandon the traditional money bets of poker. Again, someone slurred 'strip poker' and the rest of us cheered. After that, things get a bit hazy. Though either Michelle wasn't as drunk as she seemed, or she was just plain lucky. All she lost was a shoe, while I was shirtless and the others were down a few articles of clothing. Before any of us could lose our pants, there was a loud knocking on the door and I went to answer it.
On the other side of the door, there was a woman in a red shawl. Again, I don't remember what she said, but she somehow ended up coming into my dorm to meet my friends. What happened next, I remember clear as day. She had offered us a chance to win a trip to a faraway exotic land, and all we had to do was be willing to bet anything to win it. If we won, we got the trip. If we lost... well, we were drunk and weren't thinking straight. But, as the drunken teenagers we were, we accepted anyway. She explained to us that the game we would play was a bit like blackjack, only slightly modified. She said she would deal out two cards to each of us from her special deck, and we would flip them over as soon as we got them.
She dealt us out our cards, and we all looked at our respective hands intently. I was confused with my specific cards, as all they had were the words 'Vesta' on one, and 'fire elemental' on the other. I flipped my cards face up for everyone to see and looked back at the woman in the shawl. She then proceeded to congratulate all of us and told us we had all won. Then, she snapped her fingers and everything went black.
After about a second, the darkness receded and left nothing but a pure white void behind it. For a second, I thought I was in purgatory, and that the woman in the shawl had killed us or something. It wasn't helping that I couldn't feel my body. I tried looking down, but all I saw was more white. It didn't look like I had a body, but I could still see everything around me, or at least the whiteness around me.
Another minute of floating through white went by, and I heard a small cough coming from my right. Or what I assume was my right, seeing as how no body meant no definite direction.Still, I looked in the direction I heard the cough from and saw one of the weirdest sights of my life, or unlife. It was still hard to tell whether I was alive or not.
What I saw before me was a woman wearing a cloak that looked to be made of fire. Not even made of it, it looked like her back was actually on fire. In addition the living flame cloak, she herself looked like she was made of fire. She had light red skin that glowed slightly, and her hair was long and flowing, almost flickering and crackling like a real fire. Once she knew that I was looking at her (don't know how that was, but she did) she started speaking to me.
"Hello Jack, how nice it is to meet you. I hope you're enjoying yourself?"
I stared at her for a bit, not quite sure if she was actually concerned about my well being, or if she was making fun of me. After a few seconds of awkward staring, I finally found my voice and answered her back.
"I don't think floating in an endless void of nothingness with no body would constitute as me enjoying myself. Now would you please tell me who you are and why you're here? For that matter, how do you know my name? And where exactly is here?"
"I could answer both of those questions for you," she began. "But I'm afraid I will only answer one. This place has many names. Purgatory, limbo, the lower world, the place of torment. But where this is isn't important. What is important is the promise you must live up to."
"What promise? I've never met you before, so how could I promise you anything?"
"Ah, but you see, you have promised me something. You remember that woman in the red shawl from earlier? Of course you do. When you agreed to play the game, you officially entered into a spoken contract with me. You see, my cohorts and I are playing a certain game, like chess. Each of us gets to choose our own piece for the game and send them into play whenever we want. By agreeing to the game, you agreed to become my piece."
"Bullshit!" I spat. "If everything you say is true, then why didn't that woman give us some sort of warning?"
"Ah, that's the beauty of it. She did give you a warning. She asked you if you were willing to bet anything to win the trip, and you all accepted. Sorry boy, but you should have read the fine print."
I gawked at her. Now that I thought about it, it did make sense. What kind of person would be willing to send five random strangers on an exotic vacation for nothing? I should've known this was coming, though maybe not the way it did. Hindsight's a bitch, that much was clear. I decided to ask a few questions on the off chance she might answer some.
"So this game. Why exactly do you need me? And what am I supposed to do anyway?"
"I need you because we can't just randomly take people without their consent. You were the first to accept my offer. As for what you're supposed to do... well I won't spoil it right away, but for now just try to survive. Also, before I send you into the game know this. Most of my cohorts have given their pieces some advantage or another, and I intend to level the playing field. I leave you with these final words. Enjoy the new body."
And before I could do anything, my vision went black again.
I woke up some time later, although I'm not sure how much time passed. As I slowly regained consciousness, I became aware of the fact that I was lying on what felt like dirt. The scent of fresh cut grass wafted through my nose as I slowly regained functionality over my basic senses. I couldn't feel anything at first, so I slowly started to move my fingers in an attempt to re-establish feelings to the muscles in my body. As I slowly gained control of my body, I started to go through the recent events in my head.
'I was drinking with my friends.' I rotated my wrists.
'Someone shouted drunk poker and we headed back to my dorm.' I managed to push my arms beneath me.
'We got back to my dorm and started playing strip poker.' I pushed my up on my arms until I was in a sitting position.
'That woman came in and offered us a deal for a trip somewhere.' I rotated my neck and got all the cricks out.
'Then she snapped her fingers and I met that fiery woman. Wait, fiery woman?' My eyes shot open, but I had to quickly shut them again out of a need to adjust to the light. Slowly but surely, I opened my eyes. I looked around and saw that I was in a small field in the middle of a large mountain range. But what seemed odd was that all the colors seemed too cartoonish. Everything was vividly colored, and had an outline to it. Everything just seemed... happy.
I slowly took in my surroundings before I did anything else. I was sitting in an open field, complete with little daisies, tulips, and any other kind of flower you can think of. Off to my left was a forest, I presumed, as I saw a line of trees and no end in sight past that. All I saw were more trees and some weird blue flower that I had never seen before just past the tree line. Off to my right and far ahead of me were large mountains that towered above the clouds, though some of them were short enough that I could faintly see the white color of snow dipping beneath the cloud cover. Not so far up ahead I saw a small pond.
I reached a hand up to my head to scratch the back of my neck, but I stopped when I felt something wavy behind my head. I reached for it and grasped it with my right hand, and slowly brought it around to look at it. When I tugged on it however, I felt a sharp pain on my skull. Thinking that a large parasite had attached itself to my head, I started swatting at it. When I felt my hand go through it, I looked towards the pond I had spotted earlier and slowly rose to my feet.
I walked over to it on unsteady legs, and when I knelt down in front of the pond, I got quite a shock. Turns out that the so called parasite was hair. Not just any hair, but long, flowing, fiery orange hair. All attached to my head. Now, I wasn't bald before, but I sure as hell didn't have long flowing hair. And, my hair was originally brown. So to see myself with long fiery orange hair left me speechless. The hair wasn't the only thing different about me however. When I looked back at the pond's surface, I saw that my skin had turned from a pale white to an orange a shade lighter than my hair. Running all over my skin were glowing yellow lines, making up some sort of pattern all over my body.
In addition to the new skin and hair, I was wearing some new clothes as well. I had on a light red vest with black trim. I also had on a pair of pants that were a semi-dark gray on the insides of my legs, and the same colors pattern as my vest on the outside. On my feet I had a pair of blue gray boots with gold trim. Around my waist was an orange sash that dropped off a bit to my side. Around my wrists and ankles were more sashes like the one on my waist, only shorter. The last two things I noticed were two pairs of slender golden rings wrapped around both my biceps, and my crimson red irises.
While I was looking at my reflection in the water, I noticed the reflection of something big behind me. I whirled around in time to see something very large and very furry throw a net at me. By the time I realised what was happening, I was already caught in the net and struggling to get free. While I was struggling, I looked up to see what had thrown the net on top of me. What greeted me was a very large, muscular bulldog that walked on its hind legs. It then bent over and picked up the net I was trapped in and carried me, like I weighed nothing, back to a group of dogs like it.
They were all wearing some sort of armor on, and a few had spears and crossbows while some had multiple vials of multicolored liquids in bandoliers across their chests. What got to me though, was when the one carrying me spoke.
"What we do with this? Never seen before."
Another dog looked at me quizzically before it shrugged and said, "Look strong. Put it to work in mine. Help us dig up delicious gems."
The dog carrying me grunted in approval and slung me over his (I'm going to assume it was a guy, seeing how deep his voice was) shoulder. I looked around and saw a couple more dogs with nets. One of them had what looked like a griffin in it, and another had some sort of blue lizard. A third one had a horse in it's net. But what was weird about the horse was that it was butter yellow. It also had a horn, and some sort of mark on its butt. Before I could think about it any further, one of the dogs carrying the vials of liquid pulled some green powder out of a bag and blew it in my face. I detected a faint hint of cinammon in the dust, but before I could think about it any further, my eyelids started to drop. I tried to fight the drowsiness off as long as I could, but it was a losing battle. Soon after the cinammon smelling dust had been blown into my face, I fell asleep.
I don't know what happened while I was unconscious, obviously, but I do remember what happened after I woke up. And to say the least, I was not happy.
Author's Note
Well, here it is. Flames of Oblivion, my first try at a chessverse fic. Please, be as harsh as necessary in the comments. Without criticism, I will not be able to improve. So don't hold back.
I awoke to the sound of water dripping. It was slow and methodical, like a metronome.
drip. drip. drip. CLANG!
That last sound broke me out of my trance, eyes slowly opening to reveal a dark cave with a light source coming from above me. I opened my eyes further and noticed, thanks to the light, that I was in a metal cage. I also noticed that all that was stopping me from escaping said cage, was a giant metal padlock, affixed to the door of the cage.
I sat up straight and moved my arms out in front of me. I examined my body for any signs of abuse or any missing items. Then again, all I had were the clothes on my back, so there wasn't much to take. I was still relieved though when I discovered I still had all my clothes on. I then looked up to find out what was giving me light to see by and discovered that it was my hair. It was casting light as if it were on fire. At first I thought my head was on fire, but after a cursory swipe at my hair, I found that my head was not, in fact, on fire. No, it was actual fire. I could hear it crackling in the silence of, wherever I was at the moment.
Before I could investigate this strange phenomena, I heard a clicking noise coming from the door and saw another bipedal dog unlocking the cage. Before I could move towards the now open door, it pointed its spear at me and growled, "fire head not run. You work for us now." It then thrust a pickaxe into my hands. "You mine for ores with rest of workers. Slack off and we punish." With it's declaration of servitude issued, he motioned for me to follow. Not seeing any way out at the moment, I did as instructed. Soon after I left the cage, another two dogs seemed to materialize out of thin air and accompanied us to wherever it is we were going.
We waked along dark hallways for a bit, turning left or right whenever the path branched off. I tried to remember the combination of twists and turns, but I gave up after about the 20th turn. I figured I could solve that mystery another time. For now, I just needed to think of how to escape. There was no way I was becoming a slave to these stupid dogs. For christ sake, they couldn't even form a single complete sentence.
After another few minutes of twisting and turning our way through a labyrinth of tunnels, we emerged into a spacious cavern filled with luminous gems lining the walls. Aside from the gems adorning the walls, there were also several large towers surrounding the cavern, each with a dog holding a crossbow positioned so they could see the entire cavern. Most likely they were watchtowers designed to discourage a riot if I had to guess. I looked around some more and saw that along with myself, the dogs were forcing all sorts of creatures to dig up gems. There were small horses, griffins, more lizards, and even what looked like minotaurs. Some of the horses looked like they were sick, and a few other creatures looked to be at death's door.
I was about to say something to the lead dog in front of me when one of them shoved me from behind. Without even thinking, I placed my hands out in front of me, caught myself before I hit the ground, and used the forward momentum to hand vault back to a standing position.
'Wow, that was new. Guess it's something to do with the new body. Maybe this isn't so bad after all.'
I turned around and faced the dog that had shoved me, and stated in a controlled voice, "Do that again, and you'll wish you were never born."
The dog looked at me for a second before it, along with the other dogs near it, started laughing. I waited for a bit for them to calm down and just continued staring at the same dog. It in turn looked to me, then at it's fellow dogs, and stated out loud so that everyone in the cavern could hear. "Puny creature thinks it can take me? Ha! Tiny thing need to learn place." It then proceeded to hand its spear to the guard next to it, and cracked its knuckles.
I stood there, dropped my pickaxe, raised my hand palm up, and flicked my fingers towards me in the universal symbol of 'come at me bro.'
Now, I had been in plenty of fights before. As I said before, plenty of people would poke fun at me to try and prove they were tougher. Well, there was a reason people did what they did. I was the best. Nobody at any of my old schools could beat me in a fistfight. When I first started to fight, I could barely hold my own, and lost my fair share of fights. But, as time went on. I learned from my mistakes. It eventually got to the point that I wouldn't even need to move for me to take down an opponent. This case was no different. I may have stopped fighting back in high school, but that didn't mean I didn't still practice my moves. Once you start, you never stop; I was no exception.
He rushed at me and I sidestepped, delivering a kick to the back of the knee. He stumbled, but didn't go down. He turned back around and tried to charge at me again. I ducked low and shoved my right fist up into his gut, knocking the air out of his lungs. Taking advantage of his temporary paralysis, I pushed him off and unleashed a flurry of punches to his chest and stomach. Noticing that I was doing no more than winding him, I stopped my barrage of punches and backed away. Feeling the adrenaline pumping through my veins, I decided to end this quickly rather than turn this into a match of who had more stamina. I rushed forward, wind whistling by my ears, at a speed faster than I thought possible of me, quickly closing the distance between us. Once I was within a few feet of him, I jumped up, spun forward, and brought my right heel crashing into his head. I heard something crunch as my heel connected with his head, and I had to assume I just crushed his skull. He staggered slightly, then fell forward onto the cold hard ground, not moving a muscle.
After a moment of tense silence, one of the other dogs started to slowly clap his furry hands together.
"Well done. Puny thing prove point. You stronger than Grunt. Now get to work." As he said this, the guards up in the watchtowers all aimed their crossbows at me. Seeing as how I didn't want to take a chance on being shot, I picked up my pickaxe and walked over to an empty spot in the line of creatures next to the small blue horse with wings I saw back when I first got captured.
I swung my pickaxe over my head and, with a loud clinking noise, brought it back down onto the rock wall of the cavern in front of me. Now, I did not quit. I just chose to delay my escape. I am many things; rash, violent, stubborn, and the list can go on. But I am not stupid. I knew that me going up against 10 guards and at least 7 visible archers would only end in my death. So I would bide my time. Wait for the right time to escape. Sooner or later, a chance would show itself. And when that time came, I'd get out. And, I'd make sure to kill a few guards on my way out. On that list of things I am, vengeful and vindictive were at the very top.
I spent the next hour digging further into the wall. Occasionally I would find something shiny, and I'd drop it on the ground next to me. About every hour, another horse pulling a cart would come by. We were supposed to deposit any gems we had found into the cart. I saw what happened to one of the lizards that tried to hide one of the gems. It was dragged back out of line and was then stomped on, spit upon, and beaten. Rather than risk it, I decided to toss the gems into the cart whenever it came by.
After the fourth cart trip, I heard someone whisper, "Hey." I looked around for the owner of the voice and only the saw the horse next to me. I looked at it for a second before it opened its mouth and I heard another "Hey."
I was dumbstruck. Talking bipedal dogs were one thing, but having a small blue horse actually talk to me was another. It opened its mouth once more and it said "Hey, can talk or are you mute?"
"Uh- yeah. Yeah I can talk. I just wasn't expecting a tiny horse to talk."
"For your information, I am a pony, not a horse. And what do you mean you weren't expecting me to talk? Surely you've seen a pony before."
"Um, I have seen a pony before, but it's never talked. And I didn't think ponies had wings."
"Well of course ponies have wings. Well, at least pegasi ponies do. Unicorns have a horn, and earth ponies don't have either."
"Woah. Pegasi? Unicorns? Jeez, I never thought they existed. Give me a second, this is a bit much. I was raised to believe neither unicorns or pegasi existed. But then here you are, living proof that it isn't true."
One of the guards growled at me and shouted, "Hey! Get back to work! No talking!"
I turned to the guard and glared back at him. He cowered briefly before shrinking back to the others, and I had to assume that my crimson irises were what caused him to back off. Score one for the death glare. After my internal cheer, I turned back to the pony beside me and started speaking to her again. "Sorry about that. Now where are my manners, my name is Ja-" I paused. I couldn't use my old name. That was when I was back on Earth, before that old woman duped us into this game of hers. If I was to play this game, I would need a new name. I thought about it briefly. "Blaze. My name is Blaze. What's yours?"
She stared at me for a second. "You started to say something else. What was it?"
"Nothing. Just an old name from before. Just call me Blaze."
She continued to stare at me for a second. If it weren't such a serious glare, I might have found it adorable. Eventually, she stopped glaring at me and spoke up. "Swift Gale. My name I mean. I'm Swift Gale."
We both turned back to the wall and continued mining, but a couple minutes later Swift Gale spoke up again.
"So I saw you fight that guard. That was pretty cool."
"Thanks. You can expect to see more of that sooner or later. No stupid mongrels are going to be keeping me down here."
"Then why haven't you left yet? Surely you could've escaped."
I stopped swinging to look at her. "I may be many things, but I'm not stupid. There are at least ten guards on the ground and as far as I can see there are seven archers up in the towers, so-"
"Twelve."
"Excuse me?"
"I said twelve. There are twelve archers. I can see them all from here." She then proceeded to point out the other five I had missed. I was amazed that she could see easily in the darkness.
"How exactly can you see them? I can barely make out any shapes in the darkness from where I am."
"Pegasi have enhanced eyesight." She said while pointing at her eyes. "We need them to be able to see our way through heavy thunderheads."
I paused to consider this briefly. This mare had the eyesight of a hawk. Surely that could come in handy some time down the road. I thought about it some more until I finally came to a conclusion.
"Hey Swift Gale, mind if I ask you something?"
She looked at me briefly, only pausing mid-swing for a second before continuing and motioning me to continue.
"How long have you been in here?"
"About a month. Why?"
"Well, I was wondering if you wanted to come with me when I bust out of here. You seem pretty resourceful, and that enhanced eyesight of yours is pretty handy. I'm going to escape here some time anyway, so why not come with me? Also, I have no clue where anything is. So what better way to escape, than with a tour guide." I said while grinning at her.
She continued swinging her pickaxe, but I could see she was internally debating whether or not to take me up on my offer. She casually glanced over, and asked me, "And just what makes you so sure you're going to escape from here? You said yourself that there were too many guards."
"True, but I never said when I would be escaping. I only need to wait for something to happen. Eventually, guards will get lazy and leave an opening. Or, something could happen to distract the guards. When the chance presents itself, I'll take it whether you're with me or not."
She continued to swing her pickaxe, not even focusing on striking the wall. Eventually, she made up her mind and turned to me. "Okay, I'm in. But if I go with you, I need you to take me to Canterlot before we go anywhere else. You do know where Canterlot is, right?"
I just continued smiling at her. "Not a clue."
She sighed. "Well it's lucky for you that I do. I guess we're both going to need each other's help if we want to get out of this alive. Oh, and before I forget to ask. What's with your hair? Did you put an enchantment on it to make it do that?"
I looked up at my hair, which was still in its fiery state. "Nope, that's natural. I don't know how to explain it, but my best guess is that it does that in dark areas."
"Your best guess? Hasn't it ever done that before?"
"Nope, today's the first I've seen it like this."
I noticed a few guards were starting to get closer to us, and I whispered, "Some guards are coming. Just pretend like you're working for now. And trust me, I'll get us out of here. Just gotta wait for anything to happen."
And so it went for the next two days. The same boring routine of wake up, follow the dog, mine for ores, get a small ration of bread and water, mine some more, follow the dog back, and sleep. Occasionally I got to chat with Swift Gale, and we would talk about anything.
She talked a bit about her foalhood, and how she was the top flyer in her class back in Manehattan. She didn't really tell me much, but she did tell me that she got her cutie mark, which I found out was a special mark that appears on a pony's flank when they find their special talent, while she was bored over one weekend. She told me that she found one of her father's old training swords and training dummy up in their attic and decided to try it out. She slashed at the dummy for a while, even going as far as to add a few aerial flips. Afterwards, she confronted her dad about it and asked for him to teach her. Long story short, she ended up winning against him and gained her cutie mark. Though she admits he probably went easy on her since she was a beginner. Other than that, I barely knew anything about her.
Sometimes, while we were digging for gems, I would ask her a few questions of my own. After asking her these questions, I found out that we were currently in a mine under a small town on the edge of a country called Gem Fido. She also told me that the city of Canterlot, which is where Swift Gale wanted to go, was the capitol of Equestria, the country that was just across the border from Gem Fido. And residing in Canterlot, were two princesses that she said could move the sun and the moon respectively. Normally, I'd have called her out on it. But seeing as how I was now somehow in a land populated with mythical creatures, there was a small part of me deep in my mind that actually believed it was possible.
We were just biding our time, waiting for the right moment to present itself. As it turns out, we only had to wait three days before the opportunity to escape showed itself. And you better believe we took it.
Author's Note
Sorry to leave it here on somewhat of a cliffhanger. But I felt like if I stopped here, I could focus the entire next chapter on the escape. Maybe make it longer than it originally was intended to be. Anyways, rate, comment, enjoy. And remember, be as harsh as necessary in the reviews.
I woke up to the same white landscape I saw after first agreeing to the, for lack of a better term, contract. Once more, floating nothingness surrounded me. And let me tell you, it was boring. You ever spend time alone on a weekend with anything to do, yet you do none of it because it all seems somewhat pointless? Yeah, that's the kind of bored I was.
So while I floated in white, I thought back to the events of the past. I had accepted the deal of that old woman. I woke up in a field with a new body, which somehow came with creepy red eyes and flaming hair. I was then captured and put to work in a mine by talking dogs. After that, I got to talk with a pony -never thought I'd say that- and learned that I was in a land called Equestria. Now I'm just waiting for something to happen so I can escape.
I must've been really zoned out, because next thing I knew there was a slight tap on my right shoulder. I looked up to see the same fire woman from before standing right in front of me. After acknowledging her presence, she backed up a little before clearing her throat.
"Hello Jack, or maybe I should call you Blaze now? I see you've been busy... being captured." She said with a noticeable smirk on her face.
All I could do was glare at her. "Yeah, well it's not like I had any choice. You might be immortal, but I'm not. I can still die by an arrow to the head. Besides, I'm just waiting for a chance to escape."
"Uh huh, sure you are. While I may appreciate the fact that you're not stupid, I don't appreciate my champion doing absolutely nothing but mine gems for those filthy mongrels."
"Well what am I supposed to do? It's not like they give me much of a choice with all the guards they have posted. If you want me to do something, then give me a hand here."
She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose with her index and middle fingers. "Fine. You want help, I'll give you help. But I expect some gratitude after this is done. Not many gods would help their piece so easily. I just need you to do something- anything. I swear, Poseidon is laughing at me whenever I turn my back."
"No complaints here, so long as I can escape that stupid hole in the ground."
She snapped her fingers and I looked around expectantly. When I noticed nothing had happened, I looked back to her. "Hey, what gives. I thought you said you were going to help me."
"I did say that, and I already have. You don't see anything because everything here is in your head. In short, nothing has changed physically. In fact, the only way anything for anything to change is if you wish it so. Though that doesn't mean you can give yourself something in here and expect it to follow you into the real world. Though on the upside, everything will change the same next time you come back here."
"Well if nothing changes in here, then what did you give me?"
She giggled- no kidding, the goddess of fire actually giggled - and put her hand to her mouth in an 'oh-so-ladylike' fashion. "Oh nothing much. Just a small increase to your speed and reflexes. Nothing too drastic, but you shouldn't need to worry about arrows hitting you if you're smart. Oh, and none of that super speed nonsense. The last time someone tried that, we had Argus scrape him off the wall he ran into." She turned around and walked a few paces before she stopped and faced me again. "Oh, and I gave you a couple other things. But I'll leave the surprise for when you wake up."
And with that a door materialized in front of her and she walked through it. This left me with some time before I would wake up. If I remembered correctly, I had about five minutes before I'd be forcibly removed from this... white room of nothingness. Yeah, I need to fix that.
'She said that this was all in my head, so maybe if I imagine something in here it might appear. It was worth a shot I guess.' I thought hard and imagined a writing desk like the one I had back home, and no sooner had the thought popped into my mind did an actual writing desk appear before me. 'Oh that is so cool.'
After that, I thought of a couch, a widescreen TV, a PS3 with a couple games and controllers, and a little kitchen area in case I ever did get hungry in my head. Call me materialistic or childish, but it felt good to have some stuff from back home in my imaginary living quarters.
'Though now that I think about it, I should probably be waking up soon. And there goes all the furniture. Guess it really is time to wake up.'
~3~
I woke up in my oh so familiar cage, but I noticed something was off. I couldn't really put my finger on it, but it somehow felt as if... I had woken up weird. I didn't let that distract me for long though. With a quick shake of my head, I looked around my temporary prison and my eyes lit up at the sight of a gift wrapped box in the center of the cage. It even had white wrapping paper tied with a red bow.
I hastily made my way over to it and unceremoniously ripped it open. What was inside left my jaw dangling about a foot below the ground. I sifted through the box and pulled out a pure white cloak with red flames along the bottom and around the hood, and a pair of cool looking claw gauntlets.
I studied the claws for a bit. They were really well made, that much I could tell. They had black fabric along where my wrists and forearms would go, and I could tell that I would have to slip them on kind of like gloves. Then again, what kind of gauntlets would they be if I didn't slip them on. Around where my wrists would be there were more red sashes like the one on my waist. And finally, they ended with five sharp ivory claws. The tops of which were actually bone white, while the bottoms were translucent, and would no doubt allow whoever looked open them a view of my fingers inside. All of this was connected to the actual gauntlet itself, which was a dull orange color and contained several black lines going around the palm areas.
After studying them for a while, I decided to try them on. I'd hate to find out that they didn't fit. I grabbed one by the black fabric and tugged it onto my left hand. My hand slid comfortably past the fabric and into the actual gauntlet, where each of my fingers had a tiny bit of space left between them and the tips. I then repeated the same process for the right one and brought my hands out in front of me to examine them. All in all, not bad. I flexed my fingers to see how fluidly I could move them and found them to be surprisingly dextrous.
Before I could finish my examination, I noticed a faint glow coming from my palms. I turned my hands towards me and found a small light on each palm, growing brighter with every second. It started off dull orange just like the rest of my palm, but then grew into a bright orange, then yellow. After it turned yellow, the rest of my palm turned bright orange and I saw yellow lines snaking their way up my arms. Now, normally I'd be freaked out about this. Weird yellow lines that somehow start appearing on my body plus a glowing gauntlet, yeah that would scare almost anyone. But the thing was, it didn't hurt. I've learned from experience that unless it's painful, you can probably leave it alone... Maybe not the smartest way of wording it, but I didn't really feel like I had to do anything.
Eventually the lines stopped at my shoulders, and I could see the finished product on my arms. At first glance, they were randomly crossing my arms, but on closer inspection I saw them making up symbols along my arms. Neither side had the same symbols, but they were definitely there. Strange symbols to see on my arms, but I wasn't complaining. If anything, they were rather glowy scars.
I don't know how long I stared at the lines on my arms, but eventually I stopped and looked over to the other item from the box. I picked up the cloak by the hood and felt along the material. It was very soft to the touch. How I could feel anything from in the gauntlets I don't know, but it was rather convenient. The cloak was soft on the inside, yet the outside was as hard as a rock. It weighed next to nothing, which confused me. How could something as hard as a rock weigh practically nothing? It went against all laws of physics. Still, I would worry about that later. I donned the cloak and put the hood on my head. I couldn't even describe the feeling. It was warm, yet cool at the same time. It just felt... right.
I pulled the hood back and considered my options. 'The goddess said that she would help me in escaping. While I appreciate the cool claws and cloak, that doesn't really help me scape from here.'
Out of nowhere, I heard a tiny voice in the back of my head. burn the bars
"Burn the bars? How the hell am I supposed to burn anything without fire?" I stopped my one sided conversation to look at my now lit hair. I then slowly lowered my eyes to my gauntlets, and the still yellow glow in the center. I edged my way over to the side of the cage with the "door" and once more looked at my hands. Then, I grabbed hold of the bars.
The reaction was almost instant. The second I wrapped my fingers around the bars, the spots where I grabbed turned a violent orange and I could hear sizzling noises coming from them. A few second later, and the bars had quite literally turned to mush. Red hot molten mush mind you, but still mush. I moved over a little and melted the next few bars. Man, did it feel good to literally melt through steel. By the time I finished with my second set of bars, I had made a space large enough for me to walk through. I did so, and silently stretched, hearing each of my vertebrae pop with a satisfying crack.
After my impromptu jailbreak, I looked down at my hand to see the same yellow glow coming from the center. "Note to self: no handshakes or face palms with these things on." But on the subject of these gauntlets, they were really powerful. And the heat needed to melt what I assumed to be steel would have to be pretty high. It made me wonder how my hands weren't already molten slushies themselves, let alone why I didn't feel hot at all.
Once more, I pushed the thought to the back of my mind. There would be plenty of time to wonder about these things later, after I had broken out. So I set off down the dark tunnel in a random direction, hoping that it would lead somewhere productive.
~3~
Bored. So. Bored. I'd been traveling down the tunnel for what felt like forever. There were no signs of any adjacent pathways, and no physical signs of anything traversing this particular tunnel. I was just beginning to give up hope and turn around when I heard the faint sound of snoring. I slowly made my way forward until I came upon a wooden door. There was a torch set in the wall just to the side of it, but other than that, it was just a door. I didn't see a handle on it, so I assumed it was a push door. I assumed correctly, as I pushed with my shoulder and it slowly gave way. Once inside, I quietly shut the door and looked around.
There were sleeping dogs everywhere. Okay, I may have exaggerated. In reality, there were really only like ten of them. Still, I couldn't be too careful and I had to assume there would be more of them nearby.
I must've been in the barracks or something close to that, so I decided to follow the advice of a wise dead man, and let the sleeping dogs lay there. All I could hope for was to get through without waking any of them up. Some of them looked like they could eat iron for breakfast and not feel it. So I began to tip toe past the sleeping guards, and I had nearly made it past them all when I heard one of them growl, "You're mine now."
I quickly spun towards the voice and got ready to fight, but stopped shortly after seeing who had spoken. It was a guard dog that was slowly chewing on his pillow, and I had to try hard not to snicker at the sight. The fool thought his pillow was his lunch. After making sure that none of the other guards had woken up, I made my way to another door and slowly pushed it open. When I made it through, I froze up. There was another dog standing there staring at me, fully awake.
I slowly brought my hand up and waved at him. "Uh, hi."
His eyes widened in realization- god how dumb can you be. I'm clearly not another dog- and he sucked in a breath, ready to call out for reinforcements. Without thinking, I shot my hand forward and clasped onto his still open mouth in an attempt to silence him. In my haste though, I forgot that I was still wearing my gauntlets. The ones with the weird fire powers.
Oh god. I had to watch as his eyes widened even more in fear and pain, as his mouth was slowly melted from his face. Shortly after, I let go and stumbled back before landing on my ass. All I could do was watch as the dog tried to scream in pain. Unfortunately for him though, the lower half of his jaw had been completely melted off, tongue and all. Some of his throat had even been caught, and absolutely no sound was coming out. I just stared at the mangled mutt as he silently screamed in pain. I knew he was dead, and I'm pretty sure he knew it too. While most of his jaw had been cauterized by the flames, his throat wasn't so lucky. There was blood flowing out in tiny streams, and there was no doubt he'd die of blood loss before he could get the proper attention needed.
This wasn't my first time seeing blood, but it was my first time seeing someone die right before my eyes. And by my hand no less. He was in for a very long and painful death. He looked towards me, his eyes mentally begging for me to do something. I couldn't think of anything else. I had no medical training, and if I barged back in the barracks for help, I'd just be captured and/or killed because of what I did. No, it was either let him die, or finish the job. I was not looking forward to what I had to do.
I stood up on my still shaking legs, and made my way towards him. I raised my right hand up and brought it level with his eyes. He understood what I was going to do, and he shut his eyes, resigned to his fate. My hand shook as I prepared for what I was about to do. I mentally argued with myself for a few seconds, before I steeled my nerve. I was doing him a kindness and giving him a quick death. It was the least I could do after what I had done.
I took a deep breath, brought my hand back... and launched it forward. My clawed hands pierced through his eyes and into his brain, shutting it down and stopping it from sending out the signals necessary to acknowledge the pain. He was dead within a second, and his body slumped to the ground as soon as I pulled my blood soaked claws out of his face. The sight of the body was enough to make me sick, and I dry heaved against the wall of the tunnel.
It was another five minutes before I stood back up. I had to kill him. He was going to alert the other guards and I would be captured again. They were the villains here, not me. I just did what I had to do to free myself. All these thoughts bounced around in my head, but only two echoed the loudest. I had killed him. And I needed to escape.
Once more, I headed down the long dark tunnel, and once more I found myself coming upon a door. I pushed it open the same as the last two, and I found the room to be filled with cages. The cages were all filled with what I could assume were the slaves. At the moment, all I wanted to do was leave, but I had a promise to keep to a certain blue pegasus. I walked past multiple cages, some holding more ponies and some holding things of other forms and sizes. After about the twentieth cage, I finally found her.
I crouched down and tapped the cage with the the back of my right index finger, and she stirred in her sleep slightly. I tapped the bars again, this time a bit harder, and she started to shift. Soon, she opened her eyes and saw me crouching in front of the cage. She rushed up to the bars and started to verbally assault my ears.
"How did you escape? How'd you get past the guards? Are we escaping now? What's your plan to get me out?"
I sighed. "I can't answer all your questions. But yes, we are getting out of here. Now back away from the bars. I still don't know how to control this."
She eyed me curiously, but did as I asked. I then grabbed hold of the bars and melted them down to paste. After that I motioned her to get out of the cage with my right hand, and held up my left hand to signal that she should be quiet. Once more, she did as I asked. I crouched down once more and whispered, "Look, we need to get out now. I can't free everyone here. When we get back to this 'Canterlot' you can get the law to help. Right now, we need to get out. Okay?"
She silently nodded her head and she motioned for me to follow her. She led me further back past the cages and to a tunnel with a small speck of light in the distance. We looked towards each other, nodded, and started jogging- in her case, she trotted- down the tunnel towards the light. At our increased pace, it only took us a minute to reach the light. I looked to the right, and found a door just like the rest, but this one had light coming from around the edges. Without hesitating, I pushed it open to reveal a small field of grass. But none of this mattered to me at the moment. I looked up at the clear blue sky above us and took in a deep breath of clean surface air. It felt nice.
I turned towards Swift Gale and spoke up, "So how far away is Canterlot?"
She pranced in place and stretched her legs before turning to me. "Only a half a day's walk. See that large mountain not too far from here?" She said as she pointed straight ahead of her. I turned to where she was pointing, and indeed there was a large mountain there. There even seemed to be some sort of city built along the side.
"Yeah. I take it that's Canterlot?"
"You would be correct. And the border is only a mile away. Once we make it past there, we're home free. No more dogs to keep us here, and bright sunny skies lay ahead."
I could practically see the enthusiasm dripping from her as she said that. "Well okay then. We may as well start out now. The sooner we cross the border, the better."
And with that, we set out for what would be the Equestrian border, and the safety it provided.
Author's Note
Oh jeez, it's been nearly four months. So sorry about the real long wait. Pretty much all my fault though. I ended up scrapping this chapter about three times because I felt it needed another approach. I finally settled on this one after months of internal debates. But yeah, whatever I wrote just didn't feel right.
If any of this bothers you, then sorry. But I'm a perfectionist. And I try to do anything to the best of any ability, be it my own or others'.
Also, I felt really good writing this chapter. I was missing a few parts throughout it, but once I started writing it just seemed to all flow and snap together, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. In fact, I could probably write more if I wanted to. But that would leave me with a shorter next chapter. Don't worry, now that I got this out, I'll be trying harder to get chapters out sooner. Once again though, sorry for the extremely long wait.
Also, NewVegasNut. I would've sent this to you, but I felt that:
a) I did a good job
