After listening to some of the theme music from his League of Legends folder he felt a little better, not by much though, he was getting hungry. Nothing in sight though. Maybe he should’ve spent less time asking about Illicita and asking about breakfast...His stomach adds a loud, grumbling complaint to the conversation.

Stuck in the room further, he sighs dejectedly, checking to see if he had any game apps on it that he could play without thumbs. No dice. Huffing, he shuffled back out from under the bed, looking around the room.

Thinking that he might maybe make something from those bottled things around the room, he begins to search for something with a label, instead of just being brightly colored and covered in dust.

“Why is everything here so dirty?”

Cole whipped the dust off the bottles, squinting at each. No labels, so whoever left them either memorized each one, or it didn’t matter.

“Might as well have some fun with this.”

Cole just began adding chemicals, noting their reactions- or rather, lack thereof -in small amounts, not wanting to accidently make something either highly acidic or explosive. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to happen.

“That was boring, not even bubbling, only color change, oh well, it’s better than nothing I suppose, now, what the hell did I make?”

Taking an experimental whiff, it smelled like berries and... alcohol?

“Is this stuff liquor? Boring...”

Cole set it down, disappointment all over his face. Looking around, there was nothing but Summer’s bag and a whole lotta books he couldn’t read.

Sighing and putting his head on his hooves, he laid down on the bed, like large, bat-winged puppy.

Three hours. Three hours of waiting! She still wasn’t back, and neither was Illicita.

“What could’ve happened to them?”

Cole was now getting worried, Summer was his only friend, without her he’d be screwed, literally and metaphorically. And, he was really hungry.

Finally, a tap-tap-tap on the door caught his attention.

“Summer?!”

Cole was acting like a child waiting for their parents to get home. The door swung slowly open, revealing a dejected, somber-looking Summer. The light from the window had faded more than two hours previous, and it was evident from the sound on the roof it was raining, but the sight of her mane, plastered in tangled clumps down her back and shoulder really drove it home.

Her face was dour, her expression grim. She looked like nothing had gone right and that nothing could go right. To put it succinctly, she looked depressed.

“S-Summer?”

Cole got off the bed and approached her, her only response being to sigh, deeply and sadly.

“Y-You okay?”

“I failed, alright? I couldn’t find her. And so many ponies wouldn’t even- wouldn’t even talk to me, and I don’t understand why... I’m such a failure...”

“You’re not a failure Summer, come here.”

Cole wrapped his forehooves around her and brought her in for a much needed hug. She embraced him tightly, her wet fur squishing with moisture. She sniffled and sobbed as tried explaining what she did, but he couldn’t tell what it was through her weeping.

“Summer, I know what happened to Illicita, some mares told me earlier.”

“Some mares? How did they get in!? You’re alright, aren’t you?”

“I was eavesdropping when I heard mention something about spirit hunters, the two mares found the door slightly ajar, and one did try something, but I got rid of them. What we need to worry about right now is Illicita.”

Summer gasped at this, looking horrified at the mention of spirit-hunters.

“Uhm, you remember what I said about demons being bound to things being a tormenting existence of their essence unspooling?”

“They stuck her into something like that didn’t they?”

“I- I don’t know. But what I was getting at, is that demons slowly lose their power if they stay on the mortal plane too long. So, as I said before, she doesn’t have a time limit, but if she’s around too long or if her bond to me is severed, she’d unspool completely, and be erased.”

“Shit, we gotta save her, pain in the ass or not I’m not going to sit here waiting for her to die! Summer, you up for some more investigating?”

“I didn’t get to the worst part.”

She paused, looking utterly upset.

“Are you in danger too?”

“No... but they’re likely trying to forcibly pull her apart, to power an amulet or something.”

“Can we find them before they can? Even she doesn’t deserve that...”

Summer shuffled on her hooves worriedly.

“I- Idunno. I sincerely hope so, she’s really my only friend, other than you.”

Summer looked ready to cry again, before looking up to Cole with hope in her eyes.

“Can you please help? I- I can tell you what to look for, and your arcano-location would be essential to finding her.”

Cole paused for a moment, to figure out what the term she meant was.

“Two things, first, I don’t know what arcano-location is, but if you tell me what it is I’ll be happy to help. Second, here.”

Cole hugged her, she looked like she needed it. She slumped into his embrace, and inhaled deeply.

“Arcano-Location is something that Nightwings can do. Similar to a bat’s echolocation, but with magic. By sending out pulses of low-strength, high-frequency magic, Nightwings can find magically resonant materials in the...”

Summer’s muffled voice continued to ramble, but Cole found his eyes crossing after about six minutes of it, and it was getting difficult to stay awake. As fascinating as it was, it was just so dry.

“Summer, c-could you just tell me in a simpler way? As nice as it is hugging you, I want to know how I can help Illicita.”

“O- Oh, sorry. I- I just got, you know... carried away.”

She pulled back a bit and reached into a saddlebag. Pulling out a book, she shuffled down to the floor, and opened the tome. Inside were numerous diagrams, with very little text.

“Not much is known about exactly how a Nightwing does it, but the common theory is that it’s like an exaggerated yawn. I- I don’t think it’s right. It is noted from, ah, autopsies, that they have a second set of vocal cords, connected to their Thaumic glands. Specifically, their thaumic glands are located in their throat, and are noticeably smaller than most race’s, likely because they only need to use a small amount of... I’m rambling again, aren’t I?”

She finished her statement by brushing her mane out of her face, and Cole saw that she had put on glasses at some point. They made her look even more adorable, if that was possible.

“A-anyways, You should be able to do it like a word, sort of, if you can just figure out how to use the other set of vocal cords.”

Cole began humming, trying to find the note or whatever, but couldn’t get it. Closing his eyes in frustration, he stomped his hoof and growled. Then, he hiccuped. Like a burst of light in all directions, a sparkling field of stars overlay his vision. Little points of light lay over most everything, a brilliant mesh of them formed around in Summer.

“What -*hic*- was tha-*hic*-at?”

Cole hiccuped repeatedly, each one bringing a change to the starfield. As Summer moved in position, the starfield was blinked away and replaced, superimposed over her each time he hiccupped.

“I- I’m not sure. It sounded like a hiccup, but more... squeaky?”

Cole tried to squeak at a higher pitch, sounding like a chipmunk. The starfield brightened, and he realized that the glowing network was Summer’s nerves... and that glowing ball near the top, with the brilliant point of her horn a shining beacon of orangey-red.

“Co -*hic* ol!”

Cole began to lightly poke her where the lights were, tracing a few of the lines, she looked like she was in Tron, only on the inside, instead of the outside. And the lines were messier.

She backed up a bit, pulling back from his poking. The hiccups now sounded more like quiet squeaks, but her ears had started folding back. Maybe it was irritating her.

“Sorry, you started glowing and it looks pretty awesome.”

“Wait, glowing? As in, you could see my thaumic glands and the connections?”

“Yeah, you started glowing a pretty gold.”

Summer quirked an eyebrow, looking pretty confused.

“Gold? That doesn’t match any thaumic frequencies I know of...”

“Well that’s what color you seem to be glowing, what does that mean exactly?”

“I- I have no idea.”

Summer pulled out her journal, leafing through pages rapidly, stopping at some sort of diagram of a hexagon with some lines it, each of the outer vertices holding a bubble with color in it, and then a group of six more inside with more colors, and two more inside that with yet more.

“That looks really complicated.”

“It’s just a diagram of an arcanite gem, with the magical layout over it.”

She shrugged off the comment and kept searching through a list on the other side, a bunch of short words showing that they were names of some kind.

Mumbling to herself, the mare looked really troubled.

“I took extensive notes, but I can’t find ‘gold’ under any of the aura connections! There’s yellow, tangerine, orange, chartreuse, red, burgundy, maroon, purple, mulberry, scarlet, pale orange, autumn yellow, but no gold!”

Summer looked like she was panicking, flipping back and forth through about four pages, mostly on the one with the diagram. She was breathing a little more heavily, and her eyes were going small.

“Now that you mention it it was more yellow, the glowing threw me off, sorry.”

“Yellow? As in yellow-orange, bright yellow, yellow-green, pure yellow, butter yellow, pale yellow, yellow-red, although that’d be orange, ye-”

“Imagine looking into the sun or a really bright light. So, fiery orangish yellow, like if you were on fire. Does th-wait, forget that, lets go find Illicita, I can do that now right?”

Summer looked up, blinked and looked back down, then back to Cole.

“I- I’m so sorry!”

“Don’t apologize, I got off topic, but what do I do now?”

Summer looked around.

“Can you see a large, glowing orb? Probably a dark maroon, with tinges of light blue?”

Looking around, he couldn’t see a large one... but he could see a smaller one. Or maybe just a large one, but further away, like real stars. Squinting did nothing to bring it into focus, and it shifted slightly as he squeaked, although the squeaks were starting to sound more like ‘clicks’.

“Yeah, but it’s pretty small and...moving? No, just wavering. Like a... candle flame, maybe?”

Cole pointed to it, through a wall. Summer looked in that direction, before answering slowly.

“I think we should head outside to find her. It’s after sunset, so it shouldn’t be too dark.”

“Yay, I can go outside without being blinded!”

“Yeah, so let’s go!”

Summer packed up her bag quickly, taking as little time as possible as she put everything away. Her bags, in spite of receiving a lot more than their apparent volume, remained saggy.

“Yay, I’m being useful!”

Cole reached out a wing and draped it over her back as they ran, holding her closer. Stepping into the night, he took a moment to inhale deeply. Looking around, the moon had not yet come out, and there was only a few torches around for light, but it was more than enough. With a gentle click, the starfield returned to his vision.

Walking around, however, showed that the points of light stayed static to his eyes, forcing him to renew his sight every few steps. And if he held the view too long, it faded away.

As they rounded corners and raced down streets, avoiding other ponies as they went. Eventually, they came across another inn, this one bearing a name of some sort and the image of an earth pony slumped over a table.

Inside, according to Cole’s magical sight, was the dark sphere of red the color of old blood and swirlings of midnight black, a thin shell of light blue. The two main colors swirled together, refusing to mix. It sat where the second floor would be, more or less.

“She’s upstairs, let’s go!”

As Cole ran to the door, he didn’t take notice of Summer’s cry of ‘wait!’ from behind him, instead slamming the door open. Or, at least, trying to. The latch was still shut, and Summer calmly opened it with her magic, and opened the door for him.

His jaw was in pain where he’d hit the door, and his nose was bleeding slightly. She patted his nose lightly with a piece of cloth and helped him stand up. Stepping into the building, the two ponies saw that the main area was largely deserted, minus a pair of ponies at the bar.

One of them, the mare actually sitting at the bar, turned around. She had on a long coat, like something out of a western, or maybe a noir flick.

“So... the demon-fucker and the abomination arrived. Looks like I win the pot, tonight.”

Her voice was raspy, and sounded like she smoked. a vicious-looking burn scar went up the right side of her face, a simple black eyepatch covering the damaged socket. Pale, yellowed bone showed in some spots, and it looked like the mare was half dead.

She took a pull from the mug she was holding in one hoof, and kept speaking.

“Didja really think we wouldn’t hear about’cha? Fuckin’ morons, I think I’ll wipe you both out. I hate the fuckin’ empire! You shits’re the reason my family fuckin’ starved!”

“We aren’t from the em-”

The burnt mare threw the heavy drinking stein, the metal almost pancaking as it hit the stone floor of the drinking area. She growled and spat out.

“Yeah, fucking, right. You fuckin’ agents t5hink we’re all so fuckin’ gullible, dont’cha? Well, fuck that!”

“I lied so I wouldn’t get raped while Summer was out! Why would a Nightwing work for the Solar Empire? We can’t see in the daylight!”

“Oh, what a clever cover story, the big, bad demon-fucker is skeered of getting raped. Whatever, I’m sick of hearing your fuckin’ whining.”

Sneering the word ‘skeered’ in obvious contemptuos mockerey,the mare stood back on her rear legs, and drew her forehooves up in what looked like a pose from a kung-fu movie of some sort.

“Summer, a little help?!”

Cole started to back up, sure he could fight, but he never learned how to in this body, how would it translate over?

The crispy-looking mare suddenly did a front-flip (how the hell did she do that with hooves?!) and did something like a spinning-top move, and kicked Cole across the face about three times before physics could catch up and throw him to the ground, several yards to one side.

“What the fuck lady!?”

Cole stood up, poking his face, it stung a little. Meanwhile, a glowing orange nimbus had surrounded a furious-looking Summer Solace, her eyes gone behind sheets of white light. Her teeth were grinding against one another, and her stance looked like she was pissed.

“Oh, it. Is. On!”

“It’s okay, I’m durable, don’t over do it.”

Colt is promptly ignored by Summer, who screamed in anger, a bolt of sizzling energy arcing towards the mare in the coat. Unfortunately, the target of the spell easily dodged it, the blast splashing outwards and blowing apart a table.

Chunks of wood and flaming splinters rained down.

“You fucking bitch! You’re gonna pay for that!”

The bartender apparently did not have a sense of self-preservation, and a couple of flying barstools and a table coming after them made him duck at last. Afterwards, Summer promptly began to charge her horn once more, the mare in the coat charging towards her. The scarred mare reached Summer about the time that Summer let loose the blast. The shot blew off her hat, and the scarred mare then drove a vicious hoof-strike across Summer’s jaw, with a resounding ‘crack’.

Summer fell to the floor, sprawling out as she clutched her mouth.

“Summer!”

Cole ran over to her and tried to kick the other mare in the ribcage, the mare deftly grabbing both his legs in her own hooves and flipping him like a pancake. As he hit the ground, back-first, she brought up a hoof, over Cole’s head. He only barely rolled out of the way as the mare’s hoof put a deep hole in the packed earth floor of the bar.

“You bitch!”

Cole backed up from her, and caught a quick glance of Summer, who was slowly standing up behind the mare in the coat. Her jaw was hanging funny, and blood spilled from it, but the look in her normally adorable and sweet eyes was pure murder.

So was the garrote spell suddenly around the mare in the coat’s neck. The mare immediately began thrashing and pulling against the orange wire, failing to do so with the blunt ends of her hooves, as the garrote pulled higher and higher.

“Holy shit!”

Cole’s exclamation was lost in the terrified thrashing and gurgling of the strangling mare, blood hissing as the strand of magic literally burned through her throat.

“You will never... touch my stallion... Ever... again... You. Fucking. Cunt!”

Summer shouted the words with a burst of magic, gasping around her obviously-broken jaw, as the magical wire suddenly pulled taut, and the head of the earth pony fell to the floor just a moment after her body. Summer sank to the floor after that, weeping visibly and sobbing around the break in her mandible, one hoof coming up to cradle her mangled lip.

“I did not see that coming.”

Cole walked over to her and hugged her, trying to comfort her, even through the shock. the orangey mare just leaned against him, her horn lighting weakly, sparks drifting lazily to her jaw. There, they slowly pulled it back into place with a ‘crack!’, making her and Cole both wince, the bone apparently set. Her mouth was still bleeding, though.

“I- I k-k-killed her... Oh gods, I k-killed her...”

“Shhh.”

Cole just tried to keep her quiet, her jaw was still in pain as he hugged her. She just sobbed, her tears and blood pouring into his coat and sticking his jacket to him.

Author's Note

So... yeah. Comment if you feel like it, or want to, well, comment on something.

Constructive criticism is always welcome.

Music link is now fixed, as well!