A soul to spare

“Y-you're dead,” I managed to utter after a moment. My mind was still refusing to acknowledge what I was seeing, I knew that the pony in front of me was dead, there was no way he could still be alive. I wanted to crawl away from him, to get up and run, but I couldn't. My body refused to obey me.

“My dear subject, I may have been gone for a while but that does not mean that i'm dead.” He grinned in a way that sent shivers down my spine. It was the same grin he always wore when he did his experiments. I found a new strength as I realized something. The pony that did all of this to me was now standing right infront of me… there was only one thing on my mind.

Revenge.

I lunged forward, teeth bared and claws ready to tear that pony to pieces. I had felt relief when I woke up for the first time and realized that he must have been dead based on how much time had passed, lost to the streams of time. But nothing feels as good as real revenge.

Strangely enough, he did not move, he only smirked as my claws were now inches from his face. I lashed out and… I went straight through him, crashing into the ground behind him.

“So eager, so ferocious.” He still wore his usual grin. “Looks like the dragon soul I put in you really has worked wonders.”

“W-what are you?” I stammered as I got back up, my revenge was so close and I could not touch it. It infuriated me to no end.

“My dear experiment, save your energy. None of this is real… or I guess it would be more correct to say that, it is just in your head.” My mind went back to the house that we had entered and I realized.

“The card…”

“Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!” He cheered. “A simple spell to allow us to communicate without anyone interrupting. Oh you have no idea how long I have waited for this moment 217.”

“My name is Jake,” I spat at him, my rage still burning strong.

“Oh but it's not, surely you remember that. Your real name…” His horn glowed for a second and a shining blue orb about the size of a small baseball appeared before him. “I took your real name… A simple enough curse for those who know how. Such a simple thing, but so much power in a name… do you want it back,” he held it out towards me, taunting me with it. “I'll return your real name and so much more if you do as I say.” My rage started overflowing, there was no way that I would do anything that this monster would have me do.

“Never! The only thing that is going to happen now that I know that you are alive, is that I am going to track you down and kill you!” But he just laughed at my threats and shook his head at me.

“I still have use for you 217,” his gaze hardened. “I did not go through all that trouble of creating you only to let it all go to waste. Do you think that you really have any choice in the matter?” His horn glowed again and a picture of my beloved Annie Smith appeared in the air between us. “Such a lovely mare… did you know that she never made it home from that little nightly talk the two of you had?” My blood went cold as I realized what he meant.

“You…”

“Indeed, I have her in my possession. And unless you want me to do to her what I did to you, then you will do exactly as I say.”

“H-how do I know that this is real? You are supposed to be dead… you should be dead, maybe this is just a strange dream.” I wanted to fool myself into believing that it was all a dream, but deep down I knew that I was simply lying to myself.

Suddenly I was lifted into the air by a strong magical grip. His eyes glowing with a dark light as he used his magic.

“Do you think this to be a dream?!” He roared at me, his voice changed, it sounded deeper. “Do you want to me remind you to what I did to you? How I forced you to kill the experiments that I no longer needed.” I struggled in his grip, desperate to get free. But no matter how much I struggled it mattered not. “How I cut you open, time after time. Do you mean to say that you had forgotten about our little sessions?” I had forgotten, or maybe I had just made myself forget. But with every word, images flashed in my mind, showing me the terrors that I had forgotten.

“P-please stop.” I begged him, but he just smirked and continued.

“Have you forgotten how I made your kin hate you? How I made her fear you?” It felt as if my heart stopped for a moment.

“I… n-no, I… I came to Equestria alone.” He looked shocked for a moment, before he bursted out in laughter.

“Y-you actually… you actually don't remember?” he dropped me down to the ground as he continued to laugh. “Y-you did not come alone no. When I brought you here for something to experiment on, something else followed. Your sister…”

“Charlie…” I remembered everything. She was the figure that had been there along with me in the cage… she was the one from my dreams.

My earlier anger was completely gone, all of it replaced by sorrow.

“Now… on the letter you will find the coordinates to a location… be there within two days and I will return your marefriend.” I looked up to him with misty eyes.

“W-what about Charlie?” If he were alive then surely… maybe there was a chance that I could see her again too.

“You have two days…” His horn lit up and the world around us began to crumble. “Tell the Princess on the other hand… and they will die.” I reached out towards him as the ground underneath me crumbled away, sending me spiraling down into the endless abyss below…

*********************

“Holy tartarus!” I heard Captain Dash curse as I jolted awake and immediately sat up. Maybe a little too fast, because holy hell did my head hurt.

“Stay down,” Melandra said as she put a hoof to my chest and forced me back down against the floor.

“W-why?” I groaned out as she had been more than a little rough with handling me. My head was hurting, the fact that I almost slammed it back against the floor did not help. I knew what had happened… now I just needed to decide if I should tell them.

“You were hit by some strange magic! Hours have passed since you fell unconscious.” She told me. I took the moment to look around and I could see Cleo sleeping on the nearby couch. Had it really been that long? It had felt like such a short time when I actually did talk to him.

“D-do you know what kind of magic it was?” I asked as I looked up at Melandra. She was keeping her gaze on me as if she was looking for something.

“...I do. It took a while to figure out because it was some really old magic. It was a mind link spell… but you already knew that, right Jake?” And she was already onto me… I still had to figure out how Melandra did what she did. Perhaps she used her dragon magic to tell if I was hiding something… or perhaps I was just really shitty at hiding it.

“...” I hesitated. My original thought had been to go alone… He had Granny Smith and my sister after all. I knew that it was a optimistic thought at the very best, but I liked to cling to that sliver of hope. “Yeah… I knew,” I finally said. If there was anyone that could help me in that situation, then it would be them.

And so I told them everything that had happened in the dream. If you could call it that. I told them about the stallion that had done all of this to me… and his threats if I did not meet his demands. I told them everything… except the part about my sister.

“What do you think?” Melandra said as she turned to Razor Dash.

“I don't like this one bit… but I don't see if we have any choice in the matter. Going to the Princess would not even be an option now, since it would mean that they would take Jake away… when it's obvious that this pony is the one responsible for framing him.” He was practically yelling towards the end.

“You know that it is a trap right?” Melandra asked as she turned back to me. Of course I knew that it was a trap, it basically had it written all over it. But as cliche as it was, I did not care. He wanted me, and I had no problem walking straight into his trap if it meant giving me a chance for revenge.

“Of course… but it also means that I finally have a chance to end this once in for all.” I said in a low tone. I had dreamed about revenge for so long, and I would do anything to get it.

“...We do need to save her anyway, it’s not like we could just sit back and let someone get away with foal-napping either, right?” Cleo chipped in, it appeared that she had awoken sometime during the talk.

“I am fine with going alone if needed… but I would also be glad if you would join me on this!” I said as I held my hoof out.

“Of course mate, you don't even have to ask!” Captain Dash said with a confident grin as he put his hoof down on top of my hand. “Let's go get justice!”

“You are my master, it's not like I could say no.” Cleo said with a smirk. “But of course I would want to help you! Let's go get your marefriend back!” She put her paw on top of Razor Dash's hoof.

Melandra was last, and she gave me a look before she spoke. “Let's do it!” She said before putting her hoof onto the pile. I suspected that she had much more that she wanted to say. I remembered whose soul I had inside of me after all. It had belonged to a friend of hers… I suspected that she wanted revenge as much as I did.

“So… where do we start?”

*********************

The scroll had given described the location of a small cave at the outskirts of Canterlot of all places. With it being so close, it was easy to get out of the city and down to where it was supposed to have been. Razor Dash was a little suspicious of it being so close to the capital, and I had to agree with him.

“There is nothing here!” I cried out in frustration as we had arrived at where the scroll had said that we needed to go. But instead of a cave, or anything even close to resembling it. We just got a wall of rock.

“That… does seem a bit counterproductive does it not?” Cleo said as she walked around the area. “I mean… why go through all that trouble if-” She was cut off as an entire section of the stone wall disappeared and a small barrage of arrows shot straight at her.

Only to be blocked as Melandra jumped in front of her, taking the brunt of the blow, several arrows sticking into her left wing and side.

“H-hey, are you okay?” I jumped to my feet immediately, silently cursing myself for not having been able to act fast enough.

“W-what happened?” Cleo stammered out as she watched the blood drip down from Melandra`s side. “I… I did not sense any form of magic!”

“Neither did I!” Melandra grunted out as she grabbed one of the arrows with her mouth, not hesitating with pulling it out with a single yank. “I think these were meant for you Jake…” She said as she held one of them up. The tip of the arrow did not look like any sort of metal that I knew, it was pure black and the edges looked jagged. “Black dragon scales… sharp enough to even pierce a silver dragons scales.” She paused as she pulled out yet another arrow. “And coated in a strong sleeping poison…” She tried to flap her wing a few times, only for it to flop around. “I will be fine… but it doesn't look like I will be able to fly any more. Damned poison knocked out my wing.”

“We should at least get you some kind of medical help or-” Razor dash was cut off as Melandra shone in a bright light for a moment. When the light fades, all the injuries were gone, along with the blood that had just coated her fur. “-Something…”

“Can you magic the poison away too?” I asked her.

“If it had been a normal poison then yes, I would have been. But this is a copper dragons poison… thankfully it seemed that it belonged to a young dragon, or even I would have been knocked out cold in an instant.” Melandra said as she shook her head.

“Are you sure? You don't look so good.” I told her, she was actually beginning to look slightly pale and I was worried for her.

“I said I was fine!” She snapped at me. “Let's move on!” And with that she took lead and walked into the opening in the mountainside. I shared a look with Razor and Cleo we followed after her. She was a tough lady, if she said that she would be fine then it was probably the truth. But the poison had weakened her, that much was obvious.

As I entered the cave after her, I noticed that it only went in a few meters before stopping abruptly. Melandra stood at the end of it, and motioned us all closer. She was standing above a small purple sign that looked like it had been painted on the cave floor.

“W-” I was immediately cut off as she put a hoof over my mouth. She waved Razor and Cleo over as she dragged me behind the mark, hiding behind a large rock. Just as Cleo and Razor had joined us, the mark started to light up. It shimmered for a few moments before a strange pegasus appeared in a cloud of smoke.

“Master say get body…” He groaned as he walked forwards in a sluggish motion. When I looked closer at him I felt as if I would be sick fromwhat I saw. His whole body was covered in stitches, and it did not take long for the stench to reach me either. It smelled like decay… like rotted meat.

“W-what is that?” I whispered to Melandra who had not taken her eyes off the pegasus.

“Trouble…” she whispered back before the pegasus spoke up again.

“Body gone… Master will not be happy about this.” When he turned around, Cleo made a surprised squeaking sound as she saw his face, and with good reason too. If his body looked bad, his face was even worse. Most of the fur around his face was missing, along with one of his eyes.

Unfortunately, the moment Cleo had made the sound, its head had snapped in our direction. Only hesitating for a moment before letting out an ungodly screech and lunging towards us. Moving faster than anything that looked like a zombie should have been able to.

“Jake frost breath!” Melandra shouted, shaking my out of the daze the scream had thrown me into. I wasted no time before taking a deep breath alongside Melandra before the both of us, unleashed a torrent of icy cold upon the charging pegasus.

The icy winds filled the entire cave in front of us as we kept up the attack. I really did not think that I was doing much, I knew how powerful my frost breath was after all. Which only made it more impressive to see first hand, how powerful Melandra actually was.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and glanced to the side to see that Melandra had stopped her attack, and probably wanted to to do the same thing. I closed my mouth, before a coughing fit made me double over and clutch my chest. I had used my frost breath a lot, but never to that intensity.

As the icy cloud settled I saw how close the pegasus had actually gotten. He was only a few hoof lengths away from our hiding spot. His hoof stretched out towards us, and his mouth open. That was not normal pony teeth, those teeth looked like they belonged to some kind of unspoken horror with how they looked and were arranged in his mouth.

“W-what was that?” Cleo asked as she was positively shaking. The look on her face proving how terrified she was.

“That… is something illegal!” Melandra growled as she walked forward stopping in front of the frozen pegasus. “Necromancy…”

“N-necromancy?” I looked down at her as she was inspecting that...thing. “You mean as in a living dead?” Melandra hummed for a moment before shaking her head.

“Not exactly… but that would not be wrong with calling it that either. Dead flesh, sewn together and filled with the soul of a living. Think of it as a flesh golem.” I heard a heaving sound and something wet hitting the floor and turned around to see that Cleo had thrown up.

“I.. I'm sorry,” she sniffed as she averted her gaze from the zombie. “I just… the magic that thing emanates, makes me sick…”

“The sight of something like that would anyone sick.” Razor Dash commented as he shook his head. “What do we do with it?” A sharp crack filled the cavern as Melandra had stomped through the pegasus, only leaving frozen chunks of him left scattered around the floor.

“That! Is what we do with that thing. It is beyond any form of saving anyway… best to put it out of its misery!” I had to agree with her. Whatever that thing was, it was clearly not a pony anymore.

“Still… couldn't you have done something else?” Razor Dash asked.

“And what exactly would you have me do?” Melandra snapped at him. “That thing still had a living soul inside of it. A soul that was left to suffer and witness the horrors that its body now committed without having any power to stop it… I did it a favor.” Melandra said as she walked over to the purple mark.

“Still…” I could hear Razor mutter something to himself as he walked over to where Melandra stood.

“So… what now?” I asked as I helped Cleo up and wiped her mouth. It still had some chunks of whatever she had thrown up on it.

“Now we take the fight to him!” Melandra said as she waved us over. “This is a two way teleportation rune… and if I am not wrong it is set on a timer. There is no way that thing could have used magic to activate it.” As soon as she said that I hurried over to where she stood, helping Cleo along the way as she was still not completely fine. She still looked a little sick and she kept glancing at the chunks of the pegasus that littered the cave floor.

“Let's give him hell!” I said just as the mark began glowing once more, flickering a few times before we vanished in a puff of smoke.