Advent of Victory

We had arrived at the station a few minutes before the train, which gave me time to admire it as it pulled in. I hadn’t taken the time to admire it before, but the actual train yard was very large; far larger than the one booth I had thought it to be previously. Several tracks lay empty in anticipation for the train to arrive and deposit its cargo while other cars, which appeared to be for passengers, sat waiting to be connected to the engine. A whistle blaring farther down the track brought me from my observations and back to the sight of the steam engine slowing to a stop in one of the empty lanes.

The massive steam engine pulled dozens of boxcars into the stop at Rubyton, and allowed at least a hundred ponies to exit before we were allowed to board. The ponies getting off the train took a look at the destruction of the town before forming into groups and heading off to help. Several crates were offloaded from one of the front cars as well as several tons of steel from one of the other cars as well. Those carrying supplies were unhooked from the front engine after it pulled them into a stop and moved out once more to connect with the passenger cars.

Once the passenger cars were in place the train moved once more to the terminal where we had been waiting for nearly an hour. Seeing these ponies work with machinery really brought back a feeling of nostalgia for me, which I bitterly suppressed. I had been down that line of thought before and it only ended with me feeling depressed and pitying myself. I was only going to think about the future from now on, and finding a way to get out of the terrible situation I was in.

The train pulled to a stop once more in front of us, and several of the ponies that had also been waiting along with us picked up their luggage in anticipation of boarding. The only things that we had were already strapped to us so we continued to laze about as the conductor took his sweet time to open the doors for passage. The ponies crowding around the doors stood there for ten minutes before the doors finally opened and they filled in excitedly. It seemed that more than one pony was leaving the town after the devastation that it had seen, but if the ponies coming off the train were anything to go by then plenty were moving in to fill their places.

Once all of the ponies clambering to get onto the train were out of the way I slowly made my way to stand. My side was still aching and it was the worst whenever I was getting up or sitting down, but the pain wasn’t unbearable. They had only kept me on morphine for the first couple of days, and luckily it seemed that I hadn’t become addicted to the stuff even though it was the most fantastic drug I have ever been on. My weight shifting caused the many bits I had in my bag to jingle slightly, but since I had taken the time to stack them and tie them up earlier it wasn’t very audible.

We calmly walked to the pony that was standing near the door and Deciduous flashed him our tickets. He directed us to the back of the train where the personal cars were, and Deciduous thanked him before he started ushering us to the back. We arrived at a very large and very pink care near the end of the train before we climbed into the private car that we had.

Deciduous had explained to me earlier that he went ahead and got us our own car since he thought that I was going to be far more incapacitated then I apparently was. The car itself was overly large and had both its own bathroom and dining sections. It dwarfed the small room we had been staying at in town, easily being three times as large, and was full furnished with very expensive looking furniture.

It had two couches that sat opposite each other with a really nice coffee table in between them, which held a chessboard on it. There was a fully stocked bar against the opposite wall that had numerous amounts of alcohol, which I would no doubt get wasted on during our little excursion. Checking the bathroom told me that it was indeed fully furnished with both a giant bathtub and a separate glass paneled shower. A big king sized bed sat against the back wall near the end of the car, which I called for myself by tossing my bags onto.

I hopped up onto the bed and began to stretch out once more as I admired the plush feel of the mattress. Lying there I felt so light I could imagine that I was actually on a cloud just floating about in the breeze. Did they make beds out of clouds in Equestria? They had to right since Rainbow Dash lived in a cloud house meaning that she wouldn’t be able to have actual furniture. Unless they had cloud furniture or something.

“Hey Scarlet, what do pegasi use for tables in their houses?” I asked as my curiosity started to get the best of me.

“Do you mean like in a cloud house or something?” she replied as she laid out on one of the couches.

“Yea, because like if you had normal tables or something it would fall through the floor right?”

“Well most pegasi I know get all of their furniture enchanted so it can be on clouds. Some unicorns will do that for you for free, but there is a real business in it. Other than that you can just make a table out of cloud if you really wanted. Apparently, there are some unicorns out there that can make clouds act like solid objects but not lose any of their softness,” she answered as she stared off into space. “Why do you ask?”

“Because this bed is so awesome,” I replied as I popped my back. I had never really been able to pop my back very well back on Earth, but with this body it was all too easy.

“If you two girls are done gabbing I would like to go over our plan,” Deciduous interrupted as he sat on the other couch and tossed his bags aside.

I huffed and rolled onto my side to stare at him. He pulled out a book from his saddlebags and set it on the table in front of him before he too sat back in the couch. We all sat there in silence for a while before I finally decided to break it.

“The plan is pretty simple isn’t it? We take the train to Las Pegasus and then drop you off at your folk’s place. Scarlet goes back to her guild, whatever that is, and I go off to do something else.” I laid there a few minutes longer before it struck me that I really needed to think of something to do after we arrived at the city.

Scarlet hummed to herself for a few seconds before saying, “Yea what Vixen said sounds like a good plan.”

“So that’s it we just get to Las Pegasus and go our separate ways?” Deciduous asked incredulously.

“I guess so,” I said before reaching out and grabbing a pillow. I pulled it under my head and began to drift off. “I’m kinda tired so I think I will be taking a nap, wake me if something interesting happens.” As I started to drift off the train car lurched forwards as the engine rumbled to life and started to pull us along the tracks.

I took another sip of my drink as I thought over what my next move would be. I was currently sitting opposite Scarlet as we played a particularly difficult game of chess. I had actually been pretty surprised when she asked if I wanted to play a game; chess just didn’t seem like something that she would be interested in. After being absolutely trounced in the first game I started to take the games seriously and now we were tied up at three to three.

We had decided to break out the scotch after the fourth game, which had been an endeavor in and of itself. I knew that I had lost a good amount of dexterity after being turned into a creature with no opposable thumbs and then even more when my forelimbs had become permanently numb, but I didn’t think that picking up a glass would be so damn difficult. Plenty of the no doubt expensive booze had been spilled on the floor, but after several attempts I had finally managed a system to drink it without incident. Ever seen a raccoon hold something with its paws? Yea, it kinda looked a lot like that.

I set the now empty glass back on the table and motioned for Scarlet to fill it while I looked back over the board. She was heavily favoring her knights, which was something that I usually tended to do. I had taken her first by sacrificing a bishop, which would normally been seen as a mistake, and the second by threatening her queen. However, she had then used that queen to take my only remaining bishop and a rook before I had forced her back.

All of her pieces were off of her back line save for the king, which was the only opening that I had in order to take this game. She had just moved her queen into line with her bishop to prevent me from taking it unless I wanted to sacrifice my already dwindling pieces. Deciding that it was now or never I pushed my queen forwards across the board to her second line and took out a pawn. Her king wasn’t in check, but she was going to need to do something about it soon.

“Attacking with your Queen huh,” she said with a smile. “I think I will do the same,” she moved her queen from its safe position behind her bishop to my back line. “Check.”

The move was actually a pretty good one if it hadn’t been exactly what I was hoping for. By putting me in check she alleviated the pressure that I might have had on my queen, and just maybe meant that she had forgotten about it. Using a castle I saved my king from pressure and put my rook in the way of her queen. My knight was poised to take her queen if she so much as dared to take my rook, which would no doubt force her out.

“Alright,” she said as she moved her queen back to its previous position, “I guess I will try something else.”

I smiled as my plan came to fruition and shot my rook across the board all the way to her backline, a hole that I had been trying to make all game. “Checkmate.”

She stared down at the board for a minute with her mouth agape, trying to find an error I had made that would lead to her escape, but there was none. She picked up her drink and downed it before she knocked over her king with her other hoof. “Good game,” she said after finishing her scotch. “You know I didn’t really peg you as a chess player.”

She put down the shot-glass and refilled both of our drinks before sitting back on the couch. I arched an eyebrow and sat back myself. “To be honest I didn’t take you for one either, no offense,” I quickly added.

“None taken, I know I come off as kind of a brute sometimes but I love the game. A friend of mine taught me to play a long time ago, and I just immediately fell in love with it. It helps me work out my problems you know?” She took a light sip from her drink.

“Yea I know what you mean. I used to play all the time with some of my friends, but we all stopped playing for some reason or another. Now a days when I want to clear my mind and just think I turn to painting.” I clumsily picked up my own glass and took a shallow drink. “So what is this guild thing that you are going to in Las Pegasus?” I asked.

I knew the concept of guilds from the brief amount I had been taught about medieval culture back in highschool, but never really knew anything about what one actually does or how hers operates. Equestria has to be the strangest place that I have ever been, and that is discounting that everyone is a colorful equine. The culture seems to be some bizarre mix of the eighteenth century and the twenty-first. I am sure that any history nut that found themselves here would have a field day.

“Just your basic monster hunter’s guild. We aren’t really that big but the guild leader has a lot of pull with some of the aristocracy, and he knows everyone from everywhere. The headquarters is in Las Pegasus, and they have housing there for all of the members and it’s also where we hold all guild meetings. You also have to head back there if you want to pick up any missions, which is why I need to head back since my last one ended up being kind of a bust.” She laughed and finished her drink.

“Sorry about that by the way. I didn’t know at the time that you were actually hunting the thing.” She waved off my apology as it left my mouth.

“Don’t worry about it. After seeing the snake in action I know that there is no way I could have taken it on my own. Did you see what my bombs were doing to it? Absolutely nothing, yea I would have been pretty screwed if I tried to fight it solo but luckily I had The Blue Flame on my side.”

“The what?” I asked before I finished my own drink.

“Yea, that is what the ponies were calling you back in town. I had thrown in my two bits for Vicious Vixen, but they had shot that down immediately. I guess they didn’t want their town hero to be known as vicious,” she said with a laugh. She picked up the bottle once again and poured herself a drink before offering me more, which I declined.

“They have titled me now.” I sighed and stretched out on the couch. The train continued to rumble along the tracks below, but the ride was incredibly smooth. I had never actually ridden on a train before so I had nothing to compare it to, but it had been a really enjoyable ride so far.

“Ponies like to give things titles; it is just the way we are. The Blue Flame is actually pretty cool if you ask me, but I could understand if you wouldn’t like it. Having a title isn’t that bad actually, it definitely helps to increase your cred which is pretty big in my line of work.” She sat back once more and sipped her drink for a moment before gasping. “You should totally join my guild.”

I could just imagine a chat window opening in front of my face with the words ‘Scarlet has invited you to join her guild’ written in a nice font. The only question was do I accept or decline. True, I didn’t really have any aspirations for the future, and having someone vouch for me would be an easy way of getting into a seemingly prestigious monster-hunting guild, but did I really want to do that. I was supposed to be figuring out a way of winning this whole game that I was now thrust into, so would becoming some kind of monster hunter aide in that goal.

“I don’t know I never really thought about being a monster hunter actually. What do you really do outside of fighting big baddies and getting paid?” I reclined back on the couch and listened to her speak as I stared at the ceiling.

“Well first of all it isn’t always about fighting monsters. The name seems to imply that, but we also do some other kind of jobs. Being a monster hunter is pretty much just like being a mercenary that specializes in one thing. Other than that you pretty much just travel around the world doing whatever job you get before coming back to the base or back home for a rest before you set off again. The life isn’t for everyone, but it is certainly exciting and you get to see a lot of places,” she finished as she opted to do away with her glass and started drinking straight from the bottle.

So it was essentially just mercenary work, which was a concept that I was pretty familiar with. I would get to travel all around the world, and seeing as how I was completely new to this world that sounded like something I would like to do. I would be constantly fighting against monsters and the like, which would mean that I would constantly be getting stronger, and that could only help me for this game in the long run. I had to admit that running around the world hunting down monsters and getting paid for it actually seemed like an awesome job that I immediately wanted to do.

“I will think about it,” I said noncommittally. The train car darkened for a minute as we entered a tunnel and the sunlight that had been streaming in through the windows was cut out. Luckily, there were electric light on the inside of the train cars that allowed us to see in the darkness of the tunnel.

“You really should,” she agreed as she took another swig from the bottle.

“What is the name of your guild by the way?” I asked.

“Crow’s Legion,” she declared proudly. Just then all the lights in the car went out bathing us in darkness. We just sat there in silence for a few moments as the train continued to rumble along the rails.

“Well that is a cool name, what does it mean?” The darkness continued to surround us, but it didn’t really bother me too much.

“Well, Black Crow is the leader of the guild so it kind of comes from that,” she replied through the blackness, and I could hear the liquid inside the scotch bottle swish back and forth as she took another drink.

The lights in the cars turned back on a moment later suddenly, and caused me to suddenly close my eyes shut as they had been adjusting to the darkness just seconds before. A scream in one of the neighboring cars pulled my attention away from my own bleary vision and to the excitement going on not too far away.

“Well that sounded ominous,” I said as I lazily rolled off the couch and onto my feet. Scarlet also stood from where she was sitting although she did so much more shakily then I did.

“I guess we should check it out,” she said as she slowly walked to the door that separated our car from the connecting hallways beyond. Scarlet was a nice change of pace from Deciduous, if he had been in the car with me he no doubt would have been off racing towards the trouble as soon as we heard the scream.

I slowly walked behind her as she opened the car door and walked out into the narrow hallways that ran along the length of the passenger cars. We walked for a while before coming to a door that a lot of ponies were crowding around including a familiar green earth pony stallion.

“What is going on?” I asked as we neared, and caused Deciduous to look back at us.

“I don’t know I just got here, and I can’t see anything from here,” he grumbled.

I looked over the crowd for a while before deciding that if I came all this way I might as well see what all of the fuss was about. Using my size I began to edge the nosy ponies out of the way and cleared a path for us to walk along. “Out of the way, important persons coming through. You, mare in the pink, move along there is nothing to see here.” If you act like you know what you are doing and show off your confidence you would be surprised at how much you could get away with.

We finally pushed past all of the ponies crowding around and into the train car that everything was going on in. It was a private car that looked exactly like the one we had been staying in for the past few hours; it even had the exact same furniture. The only remarkable difference was the dead stallion on the floor with a knife in his back, and the crying mare talking to the two ponies in the corner.

The mare looked positively distraught at the death of whoever this poor guy was, and the two ponies that I were either royal guards or some kind of police officers wore stoic expressionless faces. Deciduous looked downright sorrowful at the apparent murder that had taken place on the train we were on. Scarlet on the other hand only looked marginally pensive, but was no doubt upset that this had occurred. I however, was as giddy as a schoolgirl at the events that were apparently unfolding on this train ride that just got way more interesting.