My Mind Isn't Like Your's

“So you finally took notice after days of battle? I cannot say that I am too surprised when my other parts trying to eat you. So I believe we are at an end to our little match, but we are not done speaking by a long shot,” the Kerbouros said.

Chaotic just shrugged and said, “As long as I don’t have any more meat ripped off me I’m fine. What do you want to speak about?” while he said that the filly came up to his side and sat down. Chaotic did the same.

“I wish to speak about matters concerning this mind of yours. I am technically a part of you, but I wasn’t always a part of you. How I came to be with you is a mystery to even me, however there are many more who are just the same as me.”

“How does that have to anything with me, and getting attacked constantly in my own head? Or an even better point, why do I keep having hallucinations and stuff while I’m awake? I had one just before you pulled me in here.”

“Those would be the ones who do not belong reaching out to you in unorthodox ways. I have tried to reach you a few times, but other, much stronger entities reside here than I. You made each of them afraid by your willingness to fight, but I see that you only do it to get away from them.”

“So it’s safe to say that they are stupid for not knowing that.”

“Yes, but come sit on my back if you wish, but I would like to walk while I converse with you.” Chaotic complied and used his wings, even the injured one, to propel himself onto the giant dogs back while avoiding the spikes. The filly popped up next to him within a second.

When they got situated enough to where they wouldn’t fall, the giant dog began to move. He walked quite a way away before speaking again, “You are certainly strange Mr.….” the dog waited for Chaotic to give his answer.

“Strider, but you can call me Sand if you want,” the filly gave Chaotic a strange look as he rarely said that name. Kerbouros nodded to acknowledge Strider.

“Tell me, why would one of your kind have that name?”

“My first memory is of a desert, I was five at the time so it’s safe to say that I may have lost a bit of memory,” while Strider said that he was watching Kerbouros’ writhing mass of tails.

Kerbouros nodded his right head; the others were still trying to shake away the pain. It appeared though, that he was thinking, as well as taking Strider to a rather large cave. To say Strider wanted to get away was an understatement; if the worse came, he couldn’t die.

Finally the dog spoke after getting a few more steps toward the cave, “If that is true, than whatever happened to you may have caused us to end up here, in your mind that is.”

Strider moved up along the dogs back slightly to sit on the center heads neck when he said, “That’s very possible. What I don’t understand now though is why you were brought into my head.”

“I can tell from being in here for so long, you were insane even without other creatures like me wandering your mind. So it is possible that some form of magic brought us here.”

After that, nothing of any real consequence happened other than them finally getting to the cave. They discussed a few theories, but in the end found that none would make any sense unless they knew what had made Strider end up in a desert.

It was rather funny though when Kerbouros’ other two heads finally began to comprehend what was happening. The moment they noticed Strider sitting in the cave, which was Kerbouros’ den, they attempted to make the shared body lunge. Although it appeared the logical right head had control, because the body did not move, only twitch slightly.

Finally after what felt like hours of talking and walking, Kerbouros said, “Our time is coming to an end here Sand, so I will give you a bit of advice and knowledge. When you awake, you will need to find your equipment; and when you wake up, do it hard.”

After those words were spoken, Strider felt his unconscious consciousness fade. It took what felt like forever to get an idea of what was going on, but eventually he woke up. The only odd thing was a slight pressure on the bed under him that wasn’t his own weight.

Wait one damn minute, a bed? As soon as he thought that, he opened his eyes. He was met with a green pair staring back at him. His reaction was fitting, he screamed and head butted the horned creature right in the nose. It made a feminine sounding yell when it fell off the bed. Shortly after with reflexes only a trained pony could have, Strider rolled off the bed and onto the creature that had previously been on him.

When he looked at it, he recognized the shape shifter race of a changeling beneath him. His recognition was a story that he told to ponies who asked, though it wasn’t a really bad story. More sad than anything, but that was besides the point. The one beneath him was either of high rank in its hive or it was royalty because of the crown on its head.

He still didn’t give two bucks about that and promptly slammed his hoof against her face, which made her head bounce off the floor, which rendered her unconscious. Or at least, that’s what Strider thought it did, but he wasn’t sure because changelings were naturally resilient to physical attacks. Once again he didn’t give a damn though and instead looked around after stepping off the changeling.

It appeared to be a royal chamber and he was sure it was after he saw the picture of Captain Armor and Princess Mi Amore Cadenza on the wall. Great, she was going to rape me while unconscious in the Guard Captain’s bed... I’m surprised that was my first thought, Strider thought. He moved forward towards the door, keeping as quiet as possible. And as soon as he reached to open the door, it slammed into his face.

That hurt like a mother bucker, Strider let out a slight groan of pain while holding his possibly broken nose. He didn’t have much more chance than that before he was hit with a full on tackle from another changeling. Strider fell backwards, sending a jolt of pain through his wing, and promptly slammed his hind hooves into the changeling’s stomach.

As the momentum carried from his hooves hit the changeling, it got sent flying into the top of the tall door frame where it hit its head slightly before falling again. Panic must have been on its mind too much because it never thought to use its wings to keep it safe from the fall. Instead it hit the floor with all the grace of a ton of bricks.

Strider was to his hooves by the time it hit the floor, and when he was sure that it wasn’t getting up, he moved on out the door. Common knowledge told him to be careful, but he flung that out the window when he realized how easy that changeling was to throw off. It was a civilian changeling. No doubt drafted for something, he thought.

So with that theory in mind, he paced his way down towards the barracks that held the armory, and therefore his armor. Not the Royal Night Guard get up though, no, this time, he would be taking his assassin’s gear back out.

On the way there, several times did Strider skirt around a group of changelings that was cocooning a servant or guard. Sad sight, but they would have to wait a while. Strider wasn’t very careful in the way he walked though, and he frequently nearly walked right into the open.

When he got to the barracks, the first thing that entered his mind was, buck me with a steel rod. Changelings were cocooning guards that were on break, or otherwise a Night Guard. He shrugged though, and went for the direct approach. Meaning he called out, “Hey jack wads, why don’t you pick on somepony your own size.”

Three out of forty-five answered the call, the rest assuming that they could handle it. However that was disproved when Strider turned and bucked the first two in the faces that was immediately followed by the third tripping. Strider made sure to step on the two that were still awake, eliciting groans of pain. Five more changelings came at him next, thinking that if they were to hit him from the front and sides it would work.

They were horribly, horribly wrong. As soon as that group reached him, he barreled shoulder first into one of and bucked the second in the side of the head. The third tried to attack after his buck hit, and Strider showed his rather strange flexibility; he twisted his upper body ninety degrees before the rest of his body followed the motion. Once again, his hind hooves connected with the head of the changeling, and he used the recoil of the attack to roll away from the other two.

When he rose back to his hooves, the other two changelings were on the attack again, and they were met with Strider's second shoulder bash at the same time. A few other changelings were beginning to fly over to help subdue Strider.

It was all in vain though, as he systematically put them either on their face, side, belly, or flank. When he was done with his rather tough fight, Strider was panting up a storm trying to catch his breath. The few guards who didn’t have their mouths sealed shut cheered slightly at his victory, it rang on hollow ears though, as Strider stopped giving a damn about that stuff a while back in his life.

Strider worked a bit hard to free one of the day guards that was stuck to a wall, and instructed him to start freeing the others. He did so with haste while Strider went to get his armor. It was in a locked chest, but a quick buck solved that problem. And when he began to pull the magically enchanted trinkets his armor was made up of, a guard that was freed came in.

She didn’t say a word, just helped fit the bands around parts of his body that would be difficult to reach. She was a unicorn so no physical contact was actually needed. The only crappy part was getting the earrings he owned in his ears. He wasn’t allowed to wear any jewelry, magical or not, while he was I prisoner, so the holes had healed up.

While the earrings weren’t magical like the rest of the bands and such, they still added to his intimidation factor. Six were on the left side of his left ear, with a matching number on the right side of his right ear. Other than those, he wore two bands on each leg, one near the hooves and one towards the leg joint. Two bands were on his main body, one just behind his forelegs and the other was just before his member’s sheath. He had shoes on each hooves, all made of a dark metal. His wings had the same dark metal covering them in a flexible form of armor. A simple chain necklace with a dragon pendant hung around his neck. Most noticeably though, was the crown of thorns on his head, which was more of a circlet; it looked like it was natural, and it was, but it was extremely enchanted like the rest of the items on him.

Last to be placed were the weapons he carried. One long serrated edged blade was slanted between his wings. Two serrated daggers were on the inside of his thighs. Another, shorter serrated edged blade was placed at his right side.

After that, one question was asked by the freed guards, “Where is your armor?” Their answer however didn’t come with an actual response.

Strider spoke two words of unknown origin, “Dervas Zetral.” When those two words were spoken, the multiple bands and necklace and crown released armor like fabric across his body, including his face. When his entire body was covered several plates of armor seemed to harden out of nowhere. His face gained a mask that sported two slots for his eyes. Spikes jutted away from his shoulders a couple inches, and a few more spike protrusions were on his hind legs on the knee joint. His shoes created a sort of contraption over the fabric before the armor covered it, the contraption embedded itself into Strider's skin three quarters of the way up his leg; while the shoes themselves developed movable talons.

One of the more noticeable things now, was that below the crown, his eyes had changed into a deep soul piercing red. What was really strange though was that the armor completely ignored the fact that he had weapons strapped to his being, and instead went underneath them.

The guards that watched this had to figure out what happened in exactly seven seconds as that was how long it took for the armor to materialize and for Strider to start moving. In the back of his head Strider heard voices whispering what he had to do. All coming from conclusions drawn in the last few moments, but he still followed them none the less, as they were what he would eventually do anyway.

Before any guard could say a word, the bat pony beat his wings hard enough that it propelled him a couple feet in the air and he continued from there. He made his way directly to where Shining had revealed the wedding would be while he was talking in the dungeon. The voices mused why he had said so much, but eventually they just dropped the thought.

What Strider did not expect was the complete lack of any changelings rampaging through the halls, in fact, nothing was in the halls of the castle. Save for Strider who kept himself close to the high rising ceiling. In the time he was making his way to the room, he was conversing with the little filly that had materialized on his back in a hushed tone.

“So what are you going to do?” the filly asked.

The reply was simple enough, “I’m going to see exactly what I have to do and then act on it. Nothing you haven’t seen me do a hundred times.” The filly gave an OK before going silent again.

A few seconds later she asked “Are you going to be alright?”

“I should be, after all, it’s not my first time dealing with a situation such as this. That is of course, if it is like the other times I’ve done something like this.” She went silent again.

This time the silence lasted for a few more seconds before she said, “Can I watch?”

“You live in my head; I couldn’t stop you if I wanted. Now I have a question for you,” She gave a little noise of acknowledgment before he asked, “You’re absolutely bored aren’t you?” she gave the same confirming noise as the last time. Strider chuckled before he arched his back in a swift movement which threw the filly up slightly.

She squealed rather adorably in fright at the sudden change of altitude, but calmed down when she found Strider’s back still beneath her. After that, he realized he was coming to a door which had three changelings in front of it. They were bickering over something he couldn’t hear, not that he cared much, until he heard, “The princess is unconscious, and her mother doesn’t know. Well not so unconscious now, and I don’t know about you two, but I’m thinking the throne would be a pretty comfy place to sit.”

Strider sighed and thought, Not the first time this kind of thing has happened. It’s to be expected though when a changeling isn’t raised right.

Before they knew he was there, Strider unhooked one of his knives and launched it through the air at the changeling who had spoken. The blade pierced through his chitin hide and into the back of his head. No sooner did the body fall than Strider hit the floor next to said corpse.

The other two stared with shock on their faces as Strider raised a hoof to where his mouth was and gave a small shh. After that he pulled the knife free and took back off through the halls. The changelings were too stunned to move from their place, so they didn’t notice the direction in which he went.

The only difference between the previous flight and the one he was doing was the lack of filly present on his back. It was slightly sad, but if he really wanted somepony to talk to, he could try and find Kerbouros in his head wherever he was. It proved that he didn’t need to as he reached the door he needed rather quickly, which made Strider realize that the Princess had been moved to a different room.

Changelings, they never seem to get the message that being stupid doesn’t help a thing. Tartarus, I did him a favor, because had the Queen found out, he would have been seriously screwed, Strider thought. He didn’t really care though, and he had no reason to, but that didn’t stop him from doing what he knew was right.

Without much more travel though he neared a door that he knew to be the one he needed. Outside the door two Changelings stood, and one knocked on the door. Strider smirked evilly.

Inside the throne room, Queen Chrysalis was going through the last few things she felt she had to. Shining was still standing dumb as a rock at that moment. Six mares were lined up in front of her with a pink Princess cowering behind them. She had taught the pink Princess a lesson after attempting to get near Shining, after all, who knew exactly what could happen.

She was finishing her speech when a knock came at the door. She was rather irked at the changelings beyond the door for interrupting her. She still yelled out, “Enter!” to the changelings. Every set of eyes in the room turned to the door, including the Alicorn cocooned to the ceiling.

When it opened, two bodies slumped to the ground. That was the immediate thing they all noticed; second however, was the gleaming black armor that stood just behind the bodies. The ponies face was covered so well by the armor that no trait was visible but the gleaming red eyes that gazed from the mask.

The Queen didn’t hesitate to let out a blast of magic with a smirk on her face. She let the beam that she hit him with stay active for five seconds before releasing the spell. When the glow dissipated, a blue glow encased the armored pony, who seemed unaffected by the amount of magic that hit him. The force of the spell had pushed him back a few inches, they didn’t notice that though.

Everypony in the room only heard his rather demented laughter. His voice was slightly muffled by the armor, but that did nothing to diminish the fact his laughing was something that only a seriously troubled pony could produce.

When he stopped, the only thing he said was, “Is that really how you answer a door?”