The Walkers

“Blue, you can stop screaming now.”

“Why?” he shouted. “Did we already die? Is that why its pointless to scream?”

“No, it’s because we’re fine.”

“We’re what?” Blue snapped his eyes open and saw that they were slowly drifting to the ground. “Oh yeah. Wings, neato.” D brought them down gently and let go of Blue who landed on the wet ground with a thud. “Great goin’ there pal,” Blue said stiffly as he got back to his feet. “You somehow managed to get rid of that guy. How’ja do it? Is he scared of water or something?”

“No.” D stared up the fall. “I guess he just lost interest in us.”

“Good thing too, I don’t know if we could’ve kept going.”

“Well,” D said as he set Rainbow Dash on the ground. “My hands were sorta’ full. I couldn’t have done much with me carrying you guys.”

“Right, and despite my athletic physique I doubt I could’ve moved Sweet Cheeks over there very far very fast.”

“You know, she’s gonna deck you if you keep callin’ her that.”

“Yeah probably.” Blue grinned.

“You know it,” Rainbow grumbled as she struggled to sit up.

“Woah, woah, take it easy.” D rushed over and helped her into a sitting position. “You took a pretty hard hit to the head.”

“I’m fine,” she groaned and rubbed her jaw.

“I know you’re not. It’s impressive that you even survived one of Steel’s punches.”

“What can I say?” She laughed weakly. “I’ve got a hard head.”

“Regardless, you need to relax for a few more minutes while I finish fixing you up.” He reached behind himself and pulled out a long white feather. “I only had time to fix the immediate damage to your chin. I didn’t get a chance to fix anything else that might’ve been knocked around in that head of your’s.” D wrapped his feather around Rainbow’s forehead twice then pressed his pointer finger against it and it began to glow a soft white. “You should start feeling a lot better here pretty soon.”

“Yeah, I think I’m feeling it,” Dash said as the feather dissolved and fell away. “Thanks a lot.”

“Hey, uh, Little D? Could I get some magic feathers too?” Blue asked. “I think I scratched my hand when you dropped me.”

“My spells are for emergencies, not little scratches.”

“But this is an emergency. I have to maintain my image as a totally hot grease monkey if I ever want my inventions to sell.”

“What?”

“Yeah. I spend a ton of time on my appearance so that I look just hot enough so investors can take me seriously but still maintaining my indoors-all-day-hitting-stuff-with-a-wrench quality.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow but if it’ll stop you from elaborating further I’d be more than happy to patch you up.”

“I would appreciate that.” Blue held out his barely scratched hand and D wrapped it up in a feather. “So, you said that you’re a Walker huh? What’s that?”

“I’m one of four magical beings that were created to spread the word of the Marchers of the Apocalypse.”

“Hmm,” Blue muttered as the feather dissolved off of his hand revealing his mended smooth skin. “Sounds kinda like a cult.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot, but the Marchers are all about keeping balance in the world.”

“Oh, ok. That does sound a little bit less cult-y.”

“Yeah, but they got a pretty bad reputation for bringing about the end of the world.”

“And we’re back to sounding like a cult again.”

“Nah, they were just following their mother’s orders. People only focused on the destruction they caused and totally ignored all the good they stand for.”

“Like what?”

“Well, my Aunt Pestilence stood for disease and sickness, but on the flip side, she’s all about medical practices and making vaccines.”

“That seems pretty counter productive.”

“Well, as much as she loves making her diseases she adores humankind, so she kills off a few when the world starts getting just a little bit too populated and makes up a vaccine to keep the others safe and healthy.”

“I dunno. Sounds like a longer way to do the same thing.”

“I can’t really explain how the others work really well,” D admitted. “My education was focused more on the vitality of death.”

“You don’t say.”

“Yeah, look, I know I’m unloading a lot of stuff on you and it might be pretty hard to believe but it’s all true.”

“I believe you.”

“I understand if you don--” D frowned. “Wait, you do?”

“Dude, I watched you fly through the air and fight a big angry dude with a sword. Then I saw you heal that Rainbow chick with a feather, calmly walk through a burning grass field, then you jumped off a waterfall, then you healed me with a feather, and now we’re here. So what I’m saying is I think I can believe most of the crap you spout out.”

“Oh. Well, okay then. I thought this was going to be some big deal to convince you.”

“Well, it helps when the only two people in the world who can use magic and fly and they’re basically Goddesses. So, you got a bit of credibility there.”

“Wow. If only it was this easy all the time. Usually things go wrong.”

“How wrong?”

“Very.”

“Oooo. Ominous.”

“Yeah. I’ll tell you about it sometime but I think we should get moving.” D walked over to Dash and crouched down to her. “You feelin’ up to it?”

“You know it.” Rainbow leapt to her feet with a smug grin. “It’s gonna take more than a bump on the head to keep me down.”

“You sure about this?”

“You bet. Let’s keep on movin’ and find out where you used to live.”

“Yeah, I’m on board till the end,” Blue chimed in.

“Well, alright then,” D smiled. “I got a pretty strong feeling that we should follow this stream.”

“Alrighty then! Let’s go!”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Johnny B sat upon the crystal throne in the Crystal Kingdom, a crystal scepter in one hand and a crystal goblet in the other filled with Crystal Pepsi. In front of him stood an irate dethroned princess.

“Johnny, I’m giving you to the count of three and I want you off of that throne and I want my crystal regalities back.”

“Really? You lead off with that? No ‘hi Johnny it’s been ages, how’ve you been?’ Nothing? You just storm on into my throne room--”

“It’s mine and Shining’s throne room.”

“My throne room now and don’t get all serious-baby-sitter-y on me missey.”

“You came into my kingdom and immediately started causing trouble Johnny” Cadence seethed.

“Name one thing I did.”

“Where to begin,” Cadence said and began pacing about. “You immediately punched a hole in the side of an apartment building.”

“It was an ugly building,” Johnny argued.

“You then defaced all of the statues in the kingdom by adding...genitals to them,”

“I was adding a bit of ren-ay-sonce flair to them.”

“Then you took all of the baked goods from the bakery and threw them at my castle.”

“I paid for them though.”

“Yeah,” Numb Nuts agreed. “Plus the pigeons like feeding there.”

“Then you came up into my private bathroom while I was showering, locked me the shower, and kept flushing the toilet.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t peek.”

“Then, I find you here, in the throne room using priceless crystal artifacts as common household items.”

“But Cadey, I can explain,” Johnny started as he straightened himself in the throne. “Crystal Pepsi tastes way better in actual crystal,”

“That tears it mister. One.”

“This throne is super comfy. Always wanted one of my one.”

“Two.”

“Plus this scepter is an awesome back scratcher.”

“Three!” Cadence stormed over to Johnny and stared him dead in the eye.

“Oh, what are you going to do to me?” Johnny scoffed.

“This,” she grabbed him by the waist and threw him onto the ground. Then she pulled his shirt up over his head and began tickling him. “This is what you get for messing with my kingdom!”

“Oh, truly,” Johnny roared with laughter. “No leader is as fierce as you! Your sense of punishment is just and fair! Let me go and I’ll return your shiny stuff to you!”

“That’s better.” Cadence got up and helped Johnny off the floor who then handed back the crystal regalities.

“Yeah, I was gettin’ tired of that anyway,” Johnny sniffed boredly. “I think I’m gonna join a Kabuki theater.”

“Why?” Cadence chuckled.

“‘Cuz I got a beautiful singing voice. Also I like to yell.”

“Both are true,” Numb Nuts agreed.

“But before you do that, can you fix up the town. Then maybe you can come back to the palace and we can catch up.”

“It would be nice to pretend to be civilized for a while,” Johnny nodded. “Alright. I’ll go un-wreck up the place.”

“Please do.”

Johnny saluted stiffly. “I’ll be off then Princess Credenza. Johnny! Away!” With that Johnny ran out onto the balcony, leapt off of the railing, and soared over the Crystal Kingdom to join a Kabuki theater, and to a lesser extent, repair what he had damaged.