5 - Love Me Not
Story by Ashley Natter on SoFurry
Corrupted love
?“Velvet!” Josh Sinclair yelled as he came awake. His voice drowned by the sirens of emergency vehicles that filled the sky, dozens of them working on recovering the wounded and clearing the lanes from the trail of destruction they had left in their wake. Fortunately, no one had yet located their final stand.
He saw the damaged haulers, the signs of combat all around him, three husks of dead nirins, their blood still warm. This was bad, fucking atrocious.
But he couldn’t find trace of Velvet or Love Bite.
He pulled out the small medikit from the damaged skimmer, he took a pair of light painkillers and some of the boosters to keep him going, he couldn’t stop yet.
He limped out of the road, finding a maintenance door that had been cracked open. He took the stairs and came upon a small commercial boulevard overseeing a pair of docking yards, several ponies gasped as they saw him and got out of his way.
And then he heard it, screams.
He was running towards its source, with barely a care for his own wounds. He still caught a glimpse of Velvet being dragged inside the ship, a large Equestrian Cruiser.
Any rational thought would come to the conclusion that assaulting the ship would be suicide, but Sinclair was sneaking through the supply lines long before the rational side of his mind had time to come with any objection.
Years spent working on ships had taught him about its blind spots, places someone could sneak undetected. Josh used the supply lines to get into the ship, using a taser to bring down the lone guard that had stood watch.
He moved through the maintenance ducts of the ship, realizing that it was, thankfully, operating with a minimal crew at the moment.
He found Love Bite on the lower cargo bay, one of the depots had been hastily converted into a prison for the hybrid, there was a single pony standing guard and he took him down silently with a taser strike to his neck.
Sinclair took Love Bite in a tight embrace, overburdened with relief.
“Love Bite,” he kissed her. “Are you alright?”
His hands fell upon her, searching for her wounds. Her body shook as he touched her.
“I thought you were dead,” she looked at him with tears in her eyes. “They were talking about selling me to the changelings!”
“No... I would never let it happen,” he hugged her tightly.
Her hoof came up and caressed his wounded flesh; Sinclair leaned into her touch.
“You’re hurt,” Love Bite shuffled and moved towards him to inspect his wounds.
“I’ll be fine,” he comforted her. “I’ll just need a few weeks of rest after that.”
[i]We’re not safe yet.[/i] He grasped her hooves and moved to stand. “Do you know where they took Velvet?”
She twisted her head and peered down the passageway. “The bridge, I saw them dragging her upstairs.”
“Stay near me,” Josh said. “I’ll go take Velvet and then the three of us will go have a long and deserved rest, right?”
She nodded timidly.
They made quick way through the ship, dodging a couple of guards and easily finding their way to the command bridge. Sinclair braced himself and sucked in a long breath filled with fear and adrenaline.
He checked the ammo on his magnum and sent a silent prayer as he walked into the command bridge. There were only two ponies on the large command room, Velvet cuffed to a chair and Midnight Spell on the captain’s chair readying the ship for launch.
Sinclair trained the gun on the unicorn’s head and walked towards him.
“I have come for Velvet,” he declared firmly.
“You came for the whore?” Midnight chuckled. “She is mine, go find another one for you.”
“Fuck you!” Sinclair squeezed the trigger.
A crash of metal screeched as the bullet was deflected by Midnight’s magical shield, hitting some piece of machinery. Midnight quickly turned his magic towards Josh, pulling the revolver out of his hands.
“Pathetic toys, human,” the unicorn laughed, his magical aura enveloping his whole body. “There’s nothing you can do to hurt a grand sorcerer like me!”
Without a moment of hesitation, Sinclair threw two knives at the unicorn, but with barely any effort he threw them back at the human. Sinclair grunted as the metal pierced his flesh.
“The whore is really worth it?” Midnight laughed it off.
“I’m not leaving her!”
Sinclair felt the magic around his neck, squeezing tightly.
“So be it,” Midnight spoke dispassionately.
Through the pain, Sinclair pounced forward, the taser held firmly in his bloodied hands, reaching for the unicorn’s neck, but was thrown back against the wall with a sickening crunch.
“Let him go,” Love Bite demanded as she walked into the room. “You will let the three of us go. Now!”
Midnight Spell turned to look at the hybrid, keeping his magic tightly wound up around Josh, slowly strangling him with some twisted pleasure.
“Sorry, but I’m not used to receiving orders from aberrations,” he fixed her with his glare.
“I knew you smelled familiar,” Love Bite walked closer. “From the moment Velvet told me about you, I had this gnawing suspicion, but now that we are so close, you reek of it.”
“Get out,” Midnight growled. “I’ll kill this pirate and then you.”
“When did you start?” Love Bite asked, unfazed. “The academy? Studying and training was so hard, so why not make things easier?”
“Shut up, aberration!” Midnight released Josh from his spell and turned all its power against Love Bite, he reached towards the mare with all his rage and… found nothing. Her image vanished into nothing.
Love Bite laughed out loud. “Dark magic made it so easy, didn’t it?”
“Show yourself!” Midnight demanded, in his rage he reached out with his magic, pulling free one of the command chairs and throwing at the source of Love Bite’s voice.
“Did you promise yourself it would be only one time?” The hybrid laughed, images of her flickering all around. “But you kept going back to it, making new excuses…”
Midnight unleashed thunder towards her images, burning out the control stations in his rage.
“You could never admit how much you loved it,” Love Bite whispered in his ear. “How much you loved the power it gives you.”
Midnight turned around focusing his magic towards the hybrid, a cruel spell in his mind… and suddenly there was nothing.
The unicorn fell back as he felt the metal ring around his horn seeping away all of his magic, he screamed in impotent rage and cursed at the three of them.
“I’ll make you pay,” he screamed. “I’ll have you locked away in a laboratory! They will cut you open alive! This filthy pirate will be tried and executed, and when I’m done with Velvet, she will never even remember any of you existed!”
Love Bite raised Josh’s magnum and fired.
“You are not going to hurt anyone,” she wiped the splash of blood from her face.