Catpone Cerberus

@Lucid_Nightlight Would you be okay with a slightly darker/more serious detour in the RP. The relationship between Ruby and Quasi has kinda caught into a loop because there hasn't been anything forcing Ruby to really think about it and the amount of personal time it would take for her to realize from just spending time with him doesn't seem plausible due to constant happening or someone coming to interrupt them. On the same note, Ruby is kinda in this power loop with every attack being stronger thus making her stronger due to all threats being lethal otherwise. So, while working I got a idea for potential where her story could go, not going to detail yet since I'm asking for interest at this point, but the basic summary. Darkstalker 2.0 would actually manage to capture her (I have idea for that) and actually find a way to "tab into" her fear (Which is being totally helpless) and basically torment her until the rest manage to deal with Darkstalker. Quasi would also have a change to show his true colors to her (or more like prove them to Ruby) as there would be some partial mind control involved and for reasons Quasi would have control over her actions for month or two. It will take some stretching of imagination, because at this point with where the RPs have led Ruby, the only real way to "unlock" her fear is with help of forced immortality (only a temporary one though, not gonna make Ruby into a literal god ) but I already have an idea how to explain it, and considering we already have had Animus magic (which is basically wish magic) and now what? third reincarnation of almost indestructible evil dragon, that explanation is actually pretty grounded.

"That's again if there is anyone who would care." Jenna remarked as she was starting to leave the room, they came into the school to go to the roof, so they should probably start heading there "There's a third option, that being, there is no logical explanation, this place isn't exactly normal and natural."

"Not really, even if they do something news worthy, it isn't news until it is already happening." Jenna pointed out "And I appreciate the assurance, but we both know there isn't much either of us can do to stop them if they find us." "We can only fight to flee." she finished eating, she had been eating quickly because she wanted to go back to the hotel, the cameras around them felt suddenly lot more threatening.

@Starforce "Just that if something weird happens I should inform them." Frail responded, she would give the letter for Sparkly to read, but there wouldn't be anything Frail didn't mention, it was just written in a lot more....fancy way, with unnecessarily many words, for example, instead of 'we don't care at the moment' like Frail had translated it, it said something in the terms of 'Since there doesn't seem to be any trouble caused by her presence, and since you have taken to help her, we will not take any action regarding her at this moment.' Simply put, in overly fancy language it said that there had not been any known events to cause princess duplication or portals to other worlds, but that Twilight will be informed so that she can look into such when she has time, and that since Sparkly isn't a threat and there's more pressing things to worry about, they were allowed to proceed with helping her to become part of things without any rulers getting involved yet. Frail moved on to other letters after she gave the fancy one to Sparkly "Can't really help you getting to work for princesses, it's not really something you just start doing." "You could maybe enroll to Twilight's friendship school, though they may have an age limit I'm not sure, or if your magic keeps improving as fast as it does, you could be fit for Celestia's school for gifted unicorns." "And Luna you will probably meet in your dreams eventually."

@Lucid_Nightlight "*Either he's trying to scare us by letting so much information leak, or he in fact is not smart.*" Ruby remarked "*And I'm not concerned about his mind reading, his type of wannabe gods are the exact thing I protected my mind against*" Blocking Quasi was just a side effect, not that she minded the peace of knowing that even he can't see into her head, but he was not the reason she did it, and while shielding her mind had its limits, it was not the only thing she did, she also did what was basically encryption for her mind, so even if you could brute force through the protections, all you would find is nonsense. "Only war that will ever come is a defensive one, at which point we will of course make the attacker regret their actions." this was a statement to really anyone who heard it, less she had to repeat it in the future, the better. "Get that weapon to someone to look at, figure out what it is." there was clearly something going on with it, so they needed to know what.

@Starforce "Any work you enjoy is important work." Frail stated, she would have smiled, but she was reading the mail so her expression was more that of a concentration "I personally would suggest finding your passion and making business around it, there's very few things you can't make some money out of, not that money is the most important thing of course, but it does make things easier." she seemed to have lot of letters, though most of them she just glanced through and put to the side, some she threw into a metal bucket some distance away. "Speaking of important." she pulled out a rolled letter with very official looking stamp, as she opened and read it she spoke "I don't remember if I mentioned it, but I asked from the castle if sudden appearances of princess clones was something to be concerned about, and it seems they have replied, in short no, as long as you don't pretend to be the princess, they don't care at the moment." she said it very nonchalantly "Though you may get a visit from Twilight someday, for research purposes, but don't worry, it's all voluntary." she smiled

@Starforce "Anypony interested in technology can freely study it, besides, it's not like we have no technology." Frail pointed out, they had electricity, as Sparkly certainly could see considering there was a fridge only meter or few from her, and lights, they just didn't use that much of it since magic was more convenient in many cases "There's also those who prefer more traditional way of life, like the Apple Family, who don't use even magic." she started to go through the mail that was next to her "That's true freedom as I see it, the ability to choose to use or not use something, like I for example would never use molds in my work, even if that would make things more than ten times faster."

@Lucid_Nightlight The dragon family calmed down as the attacker went down, but they were now more wary than before in case there was more, Cinder didn't seem any more or less on guard than before. "*He wants us to attack, let's not, we'll need to focus on defenses, if he wants a war, he can come and get it, he is strongest at his own land, so if he wants to fight, he has to come here.*" "*And when he does, I'll meet him face to face, even if I can't damage him, I am the most likely to survive his power, I can play with him while you figure out a way to get rid of that waste of air permanently.*" Darkstalker's clones had made it clear he was creature of fear, so Ruby was the unmovable object to his unstoppable force, and honestly, they would have probably made great allies if Darkstalker wasn't so overly power hungry. She addressed the crowds "Return to enjoying your time, things are under control." she then cleaned her claws from the Nightwings blood, by licking them clean. "*He could probably be suffocated, my kind is adapted to live in the volcanic ashes of the Homelands, so if there was a way to put us two in a space with toxic and low oxygen air, I would easily outlast him.*" sure even she had her limits, but they were lot higher than most species due to the air of her homeland.

"Either option really only raises questions." Jenna mentioned "First one, which is more likely from the two in my opinion since there are backup systems for water and some of the power is things like wind power, raises questions about the timeline, how long exactly has it been? those things can't go on forever." there was also the question of what exactly happened, since them being left on would imply the same as the school's state had implied, whatever happened was a surprise "The second option brings the question, why send the power and water here, it's clear it's not used around here, there was no light outside and the water seems like it hasn't moved in years. "Though it's probably true we're not entirely alone either, I doubt the things we saw were the only existing inhabitants of this place."

"For now yes, we'll have to wait if any information comes up, then it will be easier to know what's the best course of action." she scratched the table nervously with her fingers as she thought about it "We also should keep up with the news, just in case they do something else this public."

@Blitz Boom "The casino doesn't really interest me, even less with the fools throwing away their money having been replaced with the silent stare of a dead pony I never met." Ruby stated rather coldly, the only reason they were here was Spicy "I am curious though, of your plans going forward, did you have a plan of action for the case that Marley would end up returning to his past? And in lesser amount, to whatever extend it is any of my business, are you planning to...proceed, regarding the owner of this place now that the previously mentioned obstacle is gone." She wasn't interested out of natural curiosity, and rather, she only cared to the extend it affected her, or more specifically, their business. ------------------------------------------------------- "And it is better that way." Scarecrow said as kind of a continuation to Lyriel's last statement "It matters not if I have no ill intent, what is left of my mind is unpredictable, and truly, less are aware of how to get here, less likely one with hostile mind will learn of it." "If I ever am to threaten this sanctuary of calm now that I'm aware of it's location, you have my permission to do all in your power to bury me to the ground so deep I may never rise again." "But I promise to you, as long as sanity holds on to me, I will do my best to keep anyone with ill will away from this place." he didn't know what the limits of this places defenses were, but since nothing less of wiping him out of existence could truly defeat him, he felt the obligation to protect this place. "Though I am curious, you say mostly animals, is there others beyond myself you have showed your home to?" ---------------------------------------------------- Sheska got out of the way when the hospital staff arrived, letting them do their job in peace, though she broke her silence to inform them in a professional and rather detailed manner about the injuries and what exactly she had done while they did their thing, this was because it would help them to avoid wasting time by closely examining the victims or repeating things already done. When it came to medical knowledge, she was no less skilled than the doctors, in fact, considering the advancement of their world, Sheska probably knew more than any doctor here, but since she had no equipment, she had to leave it to the doctors. In her own world, something like this would have been as simple as taking care a small cut probably was here, there was a reason why every weapon and soldier there was capable of separating their victims into several pieces, cuts, puncture wounds and other such injuries were pretty much irrelevant if help was fast enough, even someone like her who had to scavenge for equipment had access to tools and medicine that would seem like miracles here Sheska did not care for thank you's, simply nodding as response, nor did she feel pride, she was a medic and a healer, it was her obligation to help, and she cared not for fame or glory, she either helped or failed, and even in challenging situations there was no pride of success, only relief, her pride came from elsewhere. She would then make her way away from the spot, her work was done, and as she headed towards her brother who she spotted approaching, she cleaned herself with her magic. If nothing came up before it, she would explain the situation to Trox and Onache after asking if they found anything. Unfortunately there wasn't much Chega and Sear could conclude from what was left, at best they could assume was that it was a pony or a changeling, or some other pony like species who had disguised themselves as a caretaker and either was from, had visited, or knew someone from where bamboo was more common, not really that helpful besides the fact that it showed that this was not random, and rather something planned, though the victims could still have been random, more information would probably come to light if they survived. This was really all they could do at this point, so they alerted a guard to what they had found if there was any around, no doubt they would be around at this point? if there wasn't, they'd wait until there was or something happened, and if they found a guard and everything went fine, they too would head back toward the crowd's location.

@Lucid_Nightlight "*That's because I'm violent, not unhinged*" Ruby remarked, it was a joke, but it was also true, there was a difference between those who collected scales for sake of it and those like Ruby who did it because they were useful, sure she collected bones as trophies but as she saw it, it was different, because at least her trophies didn't require skinning, since they tented to be things like horns and claws, which both grew outside the body. She kinda just watched for a moment as thing went down, she didn't know if she should be flattered or insulted that the nightwing entirely ignored her existence, depended really if it was because it didn't see her as a threat, or if it was because it saw her as too big of a challenge. She without warning thrusted her claws towards the nightwing's throat, her goal being to stab through it and make the attacker drown in her own blood. She wasn't the only one ready to fight though, in the spot where Cinder, Vix and the three dragonesses were was now mostly purple and green glow of magic with Vix's and Cinder's less dark magic glowing faintly through as the group of five had all activated their magic ready to make some more dragon-goo if anyone threatened them. Though if Ruby's first surprise attack failed, Cinder would separate from the group and start shooting magical crystal-like projectiles at the nightwing, it probably didn't do anything if it managed to survive Ruby, but it sure was annoying.

@Lucid_Nightlight "Nah!" Cinder simply shouted in response, life was too short for decency. Ruby was...disappointed about Quasi's response, she wasn't trying to get a reaction out of him, this was her style and she just genuinely asked for his opinion, not that it would have changed anything, but still, she was also slightly proud of her creation, mainly because she hadn't made clothes before and she actually liked what she had created, if nothing else, could have asked who's head she had ripped off for the headwear, not that she remembered who it was, but some acknowledgement of effort would have been nice. She was quite literally shining when she entered the throne room, not because she was especially happy or anything, she was her usual self, but because of the gem-dust in her clothing, it was actually hard to see her expression from distance due to it, which Ruby didn't mind. She was positively surprised about the shortness of the marriage speak, no nonsense, just getting right to the point, that's how she liked it, though she wasn't fan of the morality stuffed into her part, she didn't 'defeat a great evil' she 'ripped a self-important wannabe god into pieces'. She also would move her head for the nose-touch so that it wasn't one-sided. Even if she would have had the anatomy to do what was defined as a 'kiss', she would still prefer something like this because honestly the idea of tasting each other's tongues was very weird concept to her. Vix and his dragon family had arrived as promised, they were sitting near the door with Charis sitting on top of Danthe and Vix sitting on Enduur's head, and surprisingly, Cinder was actually with them rather than annoying Ember who was close to where ever Arrow was.

@Starforce "For us letting the princesses make the decisions isn't really a problem, though then again, from sounds of it, your leaders are less...pleasant." Frail mentioned "My worry would be more the rest of the world, if we lose what we are for technology, we may not survive the next attack." "I also think some limits on knowledge is good, for example, Dark magic, it is in the best interest of everypony everywhere to make sure that just anypony can't learn that."

@Lucid_Nightlight Ruby didn't argue because Quasi's comment didn't counter anything about her statement relating to corruption, it didn't really matter if there was good in her or not, corruptive magic couldn't blacken her heart when it was already pitch black and covered in several layers of ice and stone, so to speak. It wasn't quite as black and white as the relationship being one sided, yes, marriage had no meaning to Ruby, and she wasn't exactly in deep love or anything, but she was different species from very different culture, lacking something normal to one didn't mean there was nothing. Case and point, she was here, not only tolerating pretty much anything and everything from Quasi, but she actively shared things with him, be it stuff, information or her privacy, and made efforts to try to do things he preferred, like this whole marriage thing. Coming from a land where almost the only times when meetings didn't end up in a fight were when it was time for offspring, and even then it was done as quickly as possible like a chore before separating again, Ruby clearly had some kind of preference for Quasi over others. Different kinds of relationships weren't unheard of in their land however, though they were rarely between male and female, and rather between the same sex, this was partly due to males being seen as inferior by pretty much whole population, creating a separation between the two sides, that was also why every female individual of Ruby's kind they had met called Quasi just 'male' instead of his name. Cinder just gave a sly grin to Quasi's comment, before starting to head off since she had seen what she wanted to, but to make sure Quasi left her mind, she started thinking uncomfortably graphic thoughts involving them three, she had no shame it seemed. Ruby went to her stuff and dug around a bit "Don't mind Cinder, she's very odd, but she's useful." "And yes, I am aware of what she thinks about me, she was quite honest regarding that." she took out something wrapped into a hide, and opened it, it was her wedding clothing, she put them on. To nobody's surprise, the 'dress' was made of dragon scales, it was a combination of a dress and a cape, the shape was dress like, but it didn't really wrap around Ruby anywhere, allowing her full movement and ease to take it of if necessary, even in a wedding dress, she would be ready to fight. The scales used for it were covered in a layer of gold and silver, creating a quite pretty pattern, and in the metal there was mixed in crushed gems, giving the 'dress' a colorful shine when in light. The headwear was even more of her style, a combination of a crown and a helmet, it was the top half of a dragon's skull, that was bit bigger than Ruby's, it was decorated with claws and teeth of dragons, and scales had been added to places to make it look more like clothing and less like pile of bones. Everything was covered in the same silver and gold mixed with crushed gems, and in each eye-socket, there was embedded a big, shiny gem, matching in color to Ruby's amber eyes. "So, what do you think?"

@Starforce "I've learned to not assume others agree with me." Frail stated "Technology isn't without its downsides, let's take for example communication since you mentioned it, if we were to create a long range instant communication that doesn't require leaving one's home, face to face communication will lessen here too." she folded the new paper she had been reading "Even if we found a way to protect nature against our growing need for resources, I'd still say no if I was asked, because...well, ponies." "We are herd animals, and it really shows, many problems in the past has been the result of everypony following each other so to speak, while the solution has come from few individuals going against the flow." "I can't imagine what would become of us if we go overboard with technology that makes our lives more effortless." "What would happen to those like myself with unique talents if machines could mass-produce similar products with half the cost and no effort?"

@Lucid_Nightlight "Can't stop caring if I never cared as you define it." Ruby pointed out "The thing about corruption is that it's emotional, so because I never had any emotions tied to this, I cannot be corrupted, and since my will to bring freedom to our citizens is ultimately rooted to my selfish want to have freedom myself, that goal won't change." "The short and simple is, power doesn't corrupt me, because I'm already corrupted, I'm already a bloodthirsty, hateful and uncaring creature, you can't really go beyond that." Cinder's thoughts didn't have much information relating to the situation, while she knew what exactly Ruby had done, that being, absorbed the different kinds of magics from the various, now broken items around her, she didn't know what the end result would be, so beyond that, she too was simply observing the situation. Though there was other thing strongly present in her mind that Quasi may find slightly non-pleasant, that being, Cinder was highly attracted to Ruby, though it was not love, but rather, lust. "The wedding, of course, almost forgot, what time is it? Should I put the wedding accessories on?"

@Starforce "We have dealt with various diseases too." Frail pointed out "And while all that sounds technologically impressive, it all seem rather...pointless if I may say so." "I personally don't desire fake life, space travel or planet wide communication, especially not enough to justify suffering and death." "Again, this is entirely my own personal opinion, but if I have to choose between current world and technological wonderland at price of well-being of all creatures and nature itself, I'd choose the current." she wasn't in any way judgmental, just stating her opinion in a mature and calm way "And I understand your fondness of all that stuff, I too would feel the same if I was suddenly transported somewhere without magic, I myself just don't believe in the good of advancement for sake of advancement."

@Lucid_Nightlight Ruby didn't respond at first, in fact, for few moments there was no reaction at all, but after moments passed and Ruby let out a sigh similar to sigh that one would let when relaxing after extreme physical activity, she turned to look at Quasi, for a moment it almost looked like her eyes were on fire, but when they came to view, everything was perfectly normal "Oh, good morning, I simply...eliminated few weaknesses, a little experiment if you will." close to her was one of the books that were given by the elder, it was open from close to end of the book, though any attempt to read it wouldn't succeed as it seemed to have some kind of enchantment that made the text into unreadable nonsense "I skipped a bit forward in my research you see." she still twitched a bit, and let out another groan "I now understand why the so called villains are so into magic, power feels great." Cinder stayed in the hallway, Ruby had told her to get out, so she stayed out, but she was looking inside, curious as she was.

@Starforce "More I hear about your home, less I like it." Frail stated, no point lying about it, she knew one shouldn't generalize a whole species, but humans sounded worse than even the worst stereotypes in Equestria "The closest things I can think of are Storm king, Sombra and Starlight before redemption." "And from those Storm King was really the only one who used War." "And probably the only creature we ponies have actually killed, and even then he kinda did it to himself."

@Lucid_Nightlight Some time after Cinder and Ruby entered Ruby's room, Cinder came out and left the castle, returning after some hours with bag full of stuff, and for anyone that asked what she was carrying with her, she showed a piece of paper written by Ruby that basically said 'Queens personal business, don't worry about it.', be it in more formal language with heavy implication of hostility towards anyone who didn't listen. Other than that nothing really happened during the night, Ember simply slept and Vix and company stayed in their cave. One could assume Ruby was still in her room in the morning as nobody would have seen her since the evening, or well, Cinder had, but she was hanging around in the hallway leading to Ruby's room, so she couldn't be asked about it before one had already decided to go there. When Quasi would eventually make his way there, Cinder would greet him with a nod, though wouldn't say anything, mainly because suddenly the floor would shake, causing her to loose her balance a bit, cutting short any thought she may have had to say out loud. It didn't last long. but the shaking was clearly coming from Ruby's room, when it stopped, Cinder looked towards the room and said quietly in surprised tone "She actually did it" Any attempts to knock on the doors wouldn't bring response, but neither door was actually sealed this time, so one could just walk in. If Quasi decided to go in, he would find Ruby in her room, standing in some kind of symbol scratched on the floor, surrounded by smaller different symbols with various magical looking items in/on them, one in each symbol, most of them such that he probably didn't recognize them, but one of them he probably did, a horn sized ring with piece of animus paper in it. All the items looked worn and damaged, and Ruby herself was twitching and letting out small groans of pain, though based on her expression, she was very satisfied about something.

@Lucid_Nightlight Ruby broke the silence when everyone went quiet, as she let out an annoyed groan hearing Darkstalker's name, she was not scared of him, and did not respect whatever name he had made for himself, she just felt annoyed at him coming back yet again, to her he was at this point like an insect that you can't kill but that comes buzz next to your ear when you try to sleep. And while she didn't take part in the conversation, her expressions told her opinions well, as she grew more fed up looking as more information was said, she was not worried, not concerned, just..tired, couldn't she get few moments without the world itself throwing things at her? "We are not invaders." Ruby finally stated "We are not the world police, until there's a provable direct threat towards our nation, there won't be a war." "The rebellion will be dealt with, it doesn't matter how many supplies they get, there's only so many rebels." "We don't know what kind of individual this Darkstalker is, maybe there's a diplomatic option, besides, he's already been killed three or four times, what's one more on the record" she then addressed Quasi "*You do that, there's something I need to do myself.*" "I'll be in my room if there's an emergency, if there isn't, see you in the morning." she would then start walking away, there would be some time to speak to her still if needed. As she turned away, she looked towards the roof "Ember lookalike hiding on the roof, come see me in my room." and from the roof came Cinder's voice "Aright" as she suddenly appeared there, while her form speaking with Ember suddenly disappeared, leaving Ember confused for a moment, Cinder then left the area before anyone could say anything to her Vix made his leave quietly during the conversation, it was getting late and there was nothing more for him here.

@Starforce Frail poured some tea for Sparkly, the good thing about being an unicorn was that you didn't need to move much to be able to do thing in different parts of the room. She looked as Sparkly showed, though for the technological pictures it was clear most of it went over her head even with explanations, and her only comment regarding them was that there existed toys that were vaguely shaped like planes or rockets, as those were aerodynamic shapes and the concept of lift was well know even if most didn't know the exact scientific explanation for it, she also mentioned that there may be somepony somewhere to understand rockets as the most basic idea seems to be similar to some fireworks. For nations she commented on some similarities, like for example 'Saddle Arabia' being close in name to 'Saudi Arabia', though she admitted she had no idea where that was or what kind of place it was, since the only reason she knew it existed was because Equestria had visitors from there at some point. For the human form, Frail commented that the general anatomical shape seemed similar to the various bipedal creatures from Equestria and beyond, but that she had never seen anything exactly like that, mainly pointing at the lack of any kind of fur or scales, and depending on just how detailed Sparkly made the drawing, she would also mention the differences in certain anatomical details, which was in no way uncomfortable thing to mention to her, since she only knew creatures to whom lack of clothes was the norm, though she didn't go in too much detail, as that would have gone to the uncomfortable area.

"It's relative'" Jenna stated, turning off the light, she had gotten used to the darkness at this point, not that a single light in a random shower would help much anyway, besides, they didn't know how alone they really were here, and she didn't want to bring attention to them. "But it is less dark than it should." she next walked to nearest faucet and opened it, water came out, but it was metallic and stale in both look and smell, like water that has been sitting in place in the pipes for who knows how long, she closed the tab. "There's power and water, which is odd, since I doubt there's any power plants or water facilities with people in them."

"I mean, the best thing would be not be spotted in the first place." Jenna pointed out in casual manner, she looked at the TV again, the news had moved on talking about other aviation accidents in history and comparing them to the new one, she started to wonder about what exactly did happen in there, what were the potential reasons for destroying a village. "I have a bad feeling about this."