Raven slowly opened the door, turning pale, her ears flopping down. What looked like it was once a nice table in the living room was snapped in half, a blood pool dried into the hard wood floor just below. The couch behind also had some spatter on it. This was all that was visible right away. ~~~~~~~~ Asmo chuckled lightly. "Who wants casserole?!~"
"How do you think they're doing In there?" Star was sitting on the ground,making doodles in the dirt with a knife she got from her bag.
"You gonna be okay?" Nightshade asked. She was starting to have her doubts about this being the right course of action. "You can leave now if you want to. I won't make you stay." ************************************************************************************************ Several of Racket's guards sampled Asmo's 'casserole.' They wouldn't be a problem later. Cricket shoved the bodies into the walk-in pantry, then headed up the stairs to Racket's room. She hummed a lullaby to keep him asleep, and waited for Asmo to come up and deal with him.
"Maybe... m-maybe you're right. I'm a big girl now. Gotta face it to move on." She took a deep breath. "I can walk you through what happened. If you want." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Asmo walked up to the bedroom. He whispered, "Hey, so, we're kinda being watched."
Nightshade nodded. "Please. Tell me what happened." *********************************************************** Cricket raised an eyebrow. "Where and who?"
"Well... first he came in through the front door." She shook a little bit opening it further and walking in. There was a toppled over bookshelf off to the side, and some broken family photos scattered around. "The table. He threw my mom on top so hard it broke... everything. Then he cut her open..." She teared up as she pointed to a doorway to the kitchen. "I was standing right there, coming back with a snack. So horrified I couldn't *squee!*ing move." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Asmo shrugged. "Some pony with a hood. Caught him next to some dead guard guy outside, then he ran somewhere when he saw me."
Nightshade listened quietly, examining the damage. The pony responsible was long dead, so the only real purpose of Raven's story was to give her closure. ************************************************************************* Cricket nodded. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Let him play with Racket's goons if wants to. Now, if you would, kindly deal with this piece of *squee!*."
"Then my dad came in. Pulled me away and went hoof-to-hoof with him. He was guard, so he got some good blows in, but..." She pointed to a massive stain in the corner by the window. "He..." She choked. "He ripped out... everything. Then he was about to come for me..." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Sure, if you don't want to." Asmo switched to his true form, opened his mouth wide, and sank his razor sharp teeth straight into Racket's skull, tearing out a huge chunk.
"I want to fight something!" Star had started brutally stabbing the dirt ground beneath her. Poor dirt.
Something seemed off. Nightshade had trained with and fought beside Bat Ponies her whole life. They were tough. Extraordinarily tough. There was a good reason that Bats were considered perfect warriors. No ordinary could pony could do something like that to a Guard-trained Bat. "And then Maya came in. I think that's enough, Raven." ********************************************************************************************************* "Good," Cricket said quietly, "Now let's get out of here before..." "Oh my Celestia..." One of Racket's maids had walked in just in time to see her employer's brains leaking out onto his pillow. "GUARDS! HELP!" "Well *squee!*." Cricket knocked the mare out cold with a brutal kick just as the alarm began to sound. "Let's go."
"Alright..." Raven dropped to her flanks and look down. "...I wanna blow it up." ~~~~~~~~~~ "Let's go." Azrael rushed forward towards the house, frying a guard with a powerful lightning bolt as he approached, charring his flesh. Asmo snickered. "I think Az is coming."
In spite of herself, Nightshade grinned as she produced a small metal orb. "I was hoping you'd say that." Raven was certain to recognize the orb. It was the exact same one that Winter had tried to destroy Azrael with. A miniaturized tactical nuclear device, capable of vaporizing a fortified bunker in an instant. Using it on a small house was overkill to the extreme. "Let's get out of here," Nightshade said, rolling the bomb into the corner and tossing the detonator to the emotionally unstable teenager. "Make sure we're at least five hundred feet away before you press that thing." **************************************************************************************************************************** Cricket dodged a few guards and crashed through the window, reverting to her Changeling form as she did. She landed heavily in front of Az, and leapt back to her hooves. "It's done! Burn everything! No witnesses!"
Raven caught and held the detonator in her wing. She stood up, a serious look in her eyes. "Tell the mayor Hollow Shades is getting a new pond." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Just then, the hooded pony Asmo described leapt from the roof, driving a small blade extending from his wrist into the neck of a guard who had been creeping on the group. This managed to startle Azrael. Asmo leapt out the window afterwards, staring at the hooded pony. "Who the *squee!* are you?"
"Tell him yourself," Nightshade said. "You're not allowed to be afraid of this town anymore. You're stronger than that. Now... prove it!" ******************************************************************************************* Cricket's horn glowed, and a concentrated beam of energy burned a hole through the chest of yet another guard. "I would ask the same question, but we might not live long enough to hear the answer!" When the alarm went off, it had notified set off smaller alarms in every establishment run by Racket's gang. Every two bit thug and heavy-hitting enforcer on the now-deceased mobster's payroll was on the way to the compound.
"Got it." After making sure they were both far enough away, Raven squeezed the detonator, not even glancing back as the bomb did its thing. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Grr... Let's kill every one of these guys." Asmo opened up eyes all over the property and conjured many tentacles, just waiting for somepony to get too close. The hooded pony finally spoke, in a heavy Spanish accent, "Agreed, kill thief." He yanked his blade from the guard's neck, retracting it back into his strange hoof decoration. Azrael looked around. "Where is the pop star?"
She teleported right in front of the group just in time to blast a beam of energy at a guards head,vaporizing his neck and head."RIGHT HERE *squee!*!" Her insane smile disappeared as she looked at the hooded pony. "Who the *squee!* is that?"
"A good question," Azrael responded. "We should figure that out later. Right now, we're about to all be surrounded by ponies I don't like. So let's finish them." He growled those last two words, launching a lightning bolt at the house, a fire quickly spreading.
"Really? A fire? Please,your being too kind." She walked into the fiery house. A few seconds later she tossed an unconscious maid out of the house who landed right in front of Azreal. Shortly after she tossed the maid out the house blew up. And Star came back out without a scratch.
