Catpone Cerberus

"I got paid well before I left, after all, can't act rich without being rich." Jenna assured "My ally moved my money to save place before I left, same thing they did with your money. " "Besides, not all hotels cost an arm and a leg to get a room, and it isn't the busiest tourist-time yet, so there should be room."

After some time of silence, Jenna spoke again, and though her voice was still a bit uneven from crying, she sounded like she was feeling better "Thank you....it feels good to be able to let things out." this of course didn't magically cure the effect from her past experiences, but even a small step was a step.

@Blitz Boom Ruby nodded "Early enough to feed myself, I'm not huge fan of fish but food is food." it was mostly the smell she didn't like, but the taste was also rather boring. "Didn't want to wake you up and get hit with a lighting bolt." she was joking, but there was some truth behind it too, because at least she got really annoyed if someone woke her up without reason, so she saw it as safe bet to assume everyone were like that. The young male after waking up both physically and mentally, started again watching Ruby, though he really tried to not show any fear, unsuccessfully, but the attempt was there. Ruby then said something to him, which made him tense up as he started sniffing around, he seemed to find a scent he was looking for and faced where Ruby had slept, Ruby then spoke more to him and he turned thoughtful while seeming conflicted. Ruby's tone was surprisingly friendly when she addressed her brother, the usual things were still strongly apparent, but she sounded lot less threatening. "You should probably get him something to eat, he is staring to realize I have no interest in hurting him, but I don't think he'll accept food from someone who looks like our mother quite yet, I wouldn't." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nada nodded as response to Ziggy's question while chuckling at Fah'lina's reaction "Don't be so offended Fah'lina, adorable fits you, besides, you could use this as your new hunting strategy, no creature will suspect a cute fluffy ball to eat them." she would have liked to pet her but she figured Fah'lina would try to eat her hoof if she did "But to return to my previous point, I know there most likely isn't one simple thing to stop all attacks, but there doesn't seem to be anything at all, like nobody has even tried, why isn't there a wall or something." bit odd for creatures that controlled weather to not have anything to stop anything coming from the forest. ----------------------------------- While Lyriel made her way to the door, Scarecrow walked around the barrier to a spot where he somewhat saw the residence from between the trees and such, while the fog followed him. It would take few moments before the sound of hoofsteps coming to the door could be heard and a blue unicorn mare opened the door, her horn was damaged and she had various blue, and red, wound-like marks on her body, she had a friendly smile on her face, and her tone matched that friendliness "Hi." behind her was another unicorn, a blue stallion, these two were clearly twins. The stallion didn't have markings or a broken horn, but one of his ears was missing a piece, and unlike his sister, he seemed less friendly, he wasn't hostile by any means, but he was impassive, deadpan, and his tone only amplified his lack of emotion, though there was a formal-style of friendliness mixed in, like from someone in customer service. "What brings a dryad on my door? Is there something we can help you and your undead travel companion with?" Meanwhile the 'bird' would have a interesting thing to fitness, as during Lyriel's interaction with the ponies, the fog started going inside Scarecrow and soon a head of a light blue mare came through his chest with only effect to his chest being a layer of ice getting formed. The mare rose her head enough to face Scarecrow and started taunting him, but after he seemingly ignored her she started complaining how boring he was. Her voice had a echo and didn't seem to have a obvious source, just coming from the general direction of the mare.

@Lucid_Nightlight "If we fought to the death, it wouldn't have taken this long." "When you're evolved to kill you're always disadvantaged when you're not allowed to do so." "Blocking your magic would probably given more realistic results since I couldn't use most of my abilities due to them being lethal." Ruby said, it was foolish to judge someone's capability to kill after a fight where killing was not allowed. "And no, I haven't gotten targeted by any 'stare' but assuming you're talking about that yellow one that's part of the friendship-princess's group, I have seen it in action, and it's nothing else than a mind-control trick to activate one's fear response."

@Illiad Easle Ædriga didn't really get the whole message behind what Postmark said, but she guessed it somewhat based on what she knew and the emotions that Postmark showed, something about ponies wanting friends while also not wanting friends, so the logical conclusion was that some ponies want friends and some don't, which was what she had assumed in the first place.She didn't get what she being a dragon had anything to do with it, but she didn't think it was fatal information. She would nod while attempting to smile. She made her way to Ætheron when he returned, she understood the first question, even though the word 'ready' was still unknown to her, but the latter didn't fully register, not that it necessarily mattered, as her reaction to the word city would probably say it all, as she looked at the door they had came from with clear discomfort, she didn't really want to go back there, even though she knew that they had to to get back to the forest.

@Lucid_Nightlight The net would be quite a fast one or Arrow would need control it a bit to actually catch Ruby, since she wasn't stupid enough to stop at any point, but assuming it was the case, Ruby would not give up, she would struggle, dig down, anything to get out, and if all that was impossible, she would not give up, she would start pulling and pushing the net until either it or she broke, it didn't matter if her scales started to bend, if her bones started to break, she didn't care even if she started to bleed, and whole time she would stare Arrow down, not saying a word other than declining any potential offer for them to end the fight with her as anything else than the winner. It was either victory or death, that how she had lived her life, and that's how she would end it, she would not let any lesser being make her feel inferior, not anymore. If the net worked like a normal net, things would continue the same.

Jenna didn't say anything, but her trauma was less about her blaming herself, since she knew she didn't have full control, and was more about the experience itself, not that it necessarily mattered, since the end result would most likely be the same regardless. It was also why she had got uncomfortable momentarily when they were talking about Oliver angering Jenna, the idea of her ever losing her calm with him caused her to think about the possibility of...it, happening again. This would take a while, both Jenna crying and the ground moving, and though she had broken her tough act before, this went beyond that, being lot more intense and lot more ugly so to speak, after all, there was lot of accumulated emotion considering this was the first time she had said things out loud. Oliver wouldn't get answers if he tried to ask anything, but assuming he would continue comforting Jenna, after a while, a quite a long while, she would start calming down, crying turning into sobbing, then sniffing and so on, though she still wouldn't move or speak for a moment after that. The ground also would calm down as she did.

Jenna just nodded and opened one of the maps she had bought, she had gotten both a normal map and a tourist map and was now looking at the latter. "There's a hotel where we can stop for the day to plan our next move." she looked around and at the map to figure out where they were "It's this way." she started walking, the map was a good disguise by itself since they looked like tourists looking for something.

@Lucid_Nightlight Arrow was now on Ruby's turf, a forest, the exact terrain where Ruby had spent most of her almost 200 year long life, and sure, pepper may hide his scent, but there was nothing else that smelled like pepper in a forest, not that Ruby needed to smell Arrow, since she knew exactly where he was without even risking of being seen. She moved silently both up in the trees and down on the ground, sometimes going in the middle, and would now and then pop out from somewhere to attack Arrow before disappearing back into the woods. She was wondering about how long Arrow was going to keep this up though, they had a mission to do, and even if she didn't care about it outside getting the chance to kill and the pay she was going to get, she really didn't care for this type of meaningless waste of time.

@Blitz Boom Ruby's brother had no reason to wake up so Ruby would arrive an hour or so later to the still sleeping pair, she had conflicting feelings about the whole situation, there was part of her that enjoyed the peace, but she was also admittedly addicted to danger to certain extend, and she felt rather unpleasant for not having any perceived threats around her, as it made her feel like there was something she wasn't noticing. When Leviathan would wake up an hour and a half later, she would find Ruby sitting outside the cave looking at the two smaller dragons, while her half-brother was still asleep, though he would wake up the moment the first words were uttered, and seemed bit confused as he looked around before remembering where he was. If Leviathan took a good look of Ruby, there would be something different about her, it would probably be hard to put a finger on what it was, and it would disappear after Ruby realized she was being observed. The young male also had some conflicting feelings, he was still scared of Ruby, but he also woke up, without a scratch, so maybe his mother's lookalike really didn't want to kill him? -------------------------------------------------- Nada just nodded, she too preferred that they took a shower first so she had no reason to argue. "It tried to come through the door but didn't succeed, so we got scared at worst." "How is it that ponies still after all this time get attacked by all kinds of freaky things? why hasn't anyone figured how to prevent it?" she didn't understand too much about money but she could only assume that the constant destruction was expensive. "Are you two aright? Besides that nasty experience and Fah'lina's new look that is?" ---------------------------------------------------- "You will still be at the mercy of the two unicorns, they haven't shown any signs of hostility, so I'm not saying you're necessarily in danger, but I don't know anything about them for sure other than their looks, so you shouldn't let your guard down until you can make the judgement about them yourself." there had to be a reason why they were living in the middle of the forest rather than in town, so it may be they have ill intent., but then again, as sadistic as their tormentor were, it didn't seem that Lyriel getting killed was a outcome it wanted. If nothing more happened or was said, Scarecrow would stay quiet for rest of the travel, and they would know when they reached their destination when a faint light could be seen from the forest, and a sound of Scarecrow hitting something that itself didn't make sound was heard, they were at the barrier, and Scarecrow would show it's location by standing up to his hind legs and leaning against it. The barrier would also stop the 'bird' from going through, and if it tried to find a way around, it would find that not only did it go around the place, it also went quite high up before ending in a round-dome like roof. Lyriel shouldn't have any problems getting through though, in fact, she wouldn't be able to tell that there was something there even if she tried to. Few moments after after they arrived, a weird mist would start gathering around the barrier, clearly unable to get through as evidenced by how it ended around where the barrier was, and the plants under it would start collecting ice on their surface, indicating a radical temperature drop caused by said mist. It would start gathering more around Scarecrow, (and Lyriel if she was still outside the barrier, though the coldness of it would probably drive Lyriel inside the barrier pretty quickly) but he obviously didn't care. If Lyriel decided to leave Scarecrow and head to the door, she would find a small residence made inside a tree with a door and few windows, none of which let Lyriel to see inside, only letting out light and two moving shapes showing that there was someone inside.

@Lucid_Nightlight Ruby of course would attempt to dodge what was thrown at her, some of them hit, but pain only fueled her to fight more, what didn't kill you, gave you even more reason to kill it, even if she wasn't allowed to kill. For the first time she would use her wings, but not to fly, as instead she created a burst of air that sent the fire from the ground to every direction, and put it out from under her, she didn't want to cause a big fire, yet at least, she had treasure to collect first. So, if she couldn't catch Arrow when he attacked, or force him to attack her from other ways, there was other ways to deal with him. (her next actions depend on the terrain) If there was a forest nearby, she would chase Arrow until she was close enough to it to get in and disappear, and Arrow would find that as big and bright colored Ruby was, she knew how to hide, and she wouldn't come out until Arrow either called it quits or he got close enough to her for her to attack him before disappearing again. If there wasn't any forest, Ruby would take more offensive route, making unpredictable movements and attacks until she either got Arrow or Arrow got tired, after all, using magic also took stamina, and with arrow using both physical and magical attacks, he would get tired faster than Ruby, even when ignoring the fact that Ruby just had better stamina than ponies did. When it came to the magical ponies, if they didn't disappear after the fire, she would kinda just ignore them, they were made of magic, so there wasn't anything she could do to get rid of them, so she didn't bother with them.

"I'll see if they have any maps and try to see if I'm forgetting anything I need." Jenna explained before diverging from Oliver to look for the maps, and after finding what she was looking for, she would also grab a small notebook and some pens, among some other random office supplies before getting back to Oliver.

"The details are bit hazy, I have tried to suppress it out of my memory so long." Jenna started, still hesitating to talk about it, but Oliver was right "You're the only one who I have ever told about it, even my parents don't know the whole truth, for reasons you'll probably understand later." "It was when my powers had just started to show themselves and I didn't yet fully understand them, something happened, I remember a person and being very scared of them..." the ground started moving as she spoke, reflecting her emotional state "...next thing I remember was feeling them...in the same way I feel anything I take control of and...." she looked unwell "...living tissue acts...differently." something was crushed behind the corner, though it was probably not good to point that out at the moment. "They never figured out what happened, I wasn't blamed, obviously,how could a normal little girl do something like that? I didn't talk for a while and they never asked about it after I started talking again, probably assumed I had suppressed it." it was obvious she remembered more than she had said out loud, but there wouldn't be much time to think about it before Jenna broke into tears. The whole time the ground started moving more actively, but luckily the movement seemed to be contained inside the yard so it would't alert any outsiders.

@Lucid_Nightlight Arrow's hits would succeed every time even if he teleported close to Ruby, after all, it wasn't like she was just standing in one place, she too was moving, and regardless of her size, she was quick, and maybe surprisingly to Arrow, she hadn't used her wings even once. What came to the comment, Ruby seemingly didn't even acknowledge it, sure she could break his leg, or neck which she preferred, but injured or dead pony would be even more useless than healthy one. If Arrow continued to manage to dodge her hits, Ruby would indeed just stand in place, but not before lighting the ground on fire under herself, leaving Arrow only two places to attack, in front of her, or on top of her, both of which would end in him getting hit by something, in front of her, she would obviously be prepared to hit him the moment he appeared, and on top of her...well, if he managed to somehow avoid the sharp spines sticking upwards from her neck and back, he would be thrown off pretty quickly, how far depended on where he was. This may seem like unfair tactic, and it might be, but in her eyes, if Arrow could bring in weapons, she would also be allowed hers to even the battlefield, it wasn't like she was trying to burn him, it was his own fault if he went into the flames. The kitten had somehow made it's way next to Quasi, and was seemingly rooting for Ruby, or it just liked the action, hard to tell.

@Illiad Easle Ædriga thought about the comment regarding there being many friends around here, remembering that Ætheron said something similar, but she broke out of it quickly as she was taken bit by surprise when Postmark extended her hoof, getting slightly startled for a second before realizing there was no danger, as her instincts weren't still used to someone having good intentions. If her startle didn't cause Postmark to lower her hoof, Ædriga would also extend her leg, though instead of bumping or shaking her hoof, she kinda just touched it, as she was not familiar with bumps and shakes, and physical contact was a sign of trust for her since you get close enough to be attacked without being attacked. When she touched the hoof, she said "Friends." with careful half-asking tone, was it really this easy? If instead Postmark did lower her hoof, Ædriga would still raise her leg and say the same thing, the only difference was that her tone would be full on question.

@Lucid_Nightlight As strong Arrow may be, he wouldn't be able to do much by punching Ruby from under her, since that's where the strongest of her scales were, and with her scales being harder than steel, even if it would hurt a bit for Ruby, it would hurt his hoof lot more, since it was not too different from hitting a brick wall or something similar. He would also need to be quick, since Ruby would spot him second after he appeared, and thus he would have only seconds before Ruby dropped her whole weight on him. This was a losing fight for Arrow, sure he would most likely be able to hit Ruby now and then, and maybe even hurt her a bit, but she could take lot of beating, having been hit by dragons lot larger than her, while Arrow probably wouldn't be able to take more than few good hits from Ruby due to the relative weakness of a ponies' bodies. Arrow would also most likely hurt himself a bit every time he struck Ruby due to the hardness of her scales. This fight wasn't going to have a clear winner, sure just due to the fact that Ruby refused to lose, she would declare herself winner no matter what, but this would most likely be quite a even fight since neither was allowed to kill each other, Arrow was clearly a powerful pony, but Ruby wasn't just talk either, she had taken down dragons bigger than her, both local and her own kind, without getting any real injuries, and while Arrow had magic on his side, Ruby was great at adapting her fighting style and would eventually find the one to overcome the teleportation if the fight didn't end sooner.

@Illiad Easle It was probably visible from Ædriga's face when she tried to process what had been said to her, it was a lot to take in so it took her some time until she could run it in her head enough times to pick the words she understood, but if she wasn't interrupted, she would figure out the question that was asked, though answering it was more complicated "I from not here, where I from...there no ponys, Centaurs, griffons...only dragons, dragons no friends."

"It's not about that." Jenna said "I-" "There's something I don't want to think about and I worry it will pop into my head if i'm not purposefully finding something else to think about." her tone indicated that whatever she was talking about wasn't a pleasant memory.

"We'll have to see about that if we ever manage to settle down without someone trying to hunt us down." Jenna concluded, looking around to see if they could get a map of the city from somewhere so that they could figure out where's what. She spotted a small general store and steered Oliver towards it "If you need something now is a good time to buy it." she also wanted to change the topic to something less dragon related now that there was lot more people around.

@Blitz Boom Ruby just grunted at Leviathan's comment about strength, she wasn't going to explain it, but things weren't as literal as Leviathan might have thought, because when Ruby talked about not killing them, it didn't mean that she was weak because she didn't do it, but instead it was the reason why she didn't do it that she deemed to be weak, but because even she didn't yet know fully what exactly it was, she hadn't brought it up in that way. If nothing interrupted them, Ruby would fall asleep eventually, but like previously, there was clearly something bothering her even in her sleep. She would sleep for some hours if nothing woke her up, which could happen very easily since she always slept 'one eye open' for any possible dangers, and the younger male would sleep even past that, though at the point when Ruby would wake up naturally he too would wake up if something sudden happened, as he had gotten past the point of total exhaustion and was just tired, though it would still take some time until he had rested away the fatigue from travel. If Leviathan was still sleeping when Ruby woke up, she would leave the cave quietly and get herself something to eat, fish to be exact, since she still wasn't in the shape to chase prey. ---------------------------------------------- Nada waited for about half and hour after the ruckus stopped until she popped her head out of the water again and quickly checked for damages, luckily there was none, she would then scan the room for Agni and ask if he was aright after spotting him. She attempted to relax after that but she couldn't drift to sleep anymore so she kinda just laid there staring at nothing and listening until Ziggy and Fah'lina returned. When they arrived, Nada was more shocked about the smell than the ooze, as evidenced by her lowering her muzzle underwater to stop herself from smelling it "Did whatever was outside produce that slime?" "What even was it? It sounded like a frog but I don't think frogs try to kick down doors." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scarecrow's only reaction to the acorns was slight surprise due to him not being prepared, but it too quickly faded as he realized what was going on, he wasn't really bothered, after all, he probably wouldn't have even noticed them if few of them hadn't happened to go past his eyes since he barely felt anything. "Unfortunately I don't know much about combating ghosts, since this one is the only one I have ever even seen...as far as I remember at least, but you should be fine inside the barrier since like me, she doesn't seem to be able to pass it." he explained, he would of course try to protect Lyriel if he had to, but he had no idea if he could do anything to a ghost since they lacked physical form. "And don't worry about offending me, you cannot say anything that would be more offensive towards me than my own thoughts, but to answer your question, I don't know for certain, because as stated, I have seen only one besides myself, but, the stories ponies tell each other always seem to have undead as something to fear, usually taking the form of angry ghosts and mindless flesh eating walking corpses, and though they are just most likely just stories, stories tend to come from some level of truth." "So I'd say that is better to assume that answer is yes, since you can always apologize if you misjudge someone as worse than they are, but assuming someone to be good when they are not can lead to injuries or worse."

@Illiad Easle Ædriga seemed a bit relieved when they got into the building, because though it wasn't exactly quiet and scentless, it was lot easier to handle and thus allowed her to think straight again. She missed most of the interaction between Ætheron and the other creatures as it still took a moment for her to calm her instincts enough to get her surroundings. She looked at the pegasus when she realized she had been talked to, her wariness was obvious but she didn't fear pony since it was clear that Ætheron trusted these two. It took her few seconds to understand what had been said, or well, she didn't necessarily fully understand all the words, but she recognized it to be a greeting and introduction "Hi." she answered, rising her leg to imitate the wave, the way she did it indicated that she was unsure if she was supposed to do it or not, but had decided to give it a try "Postmark you name?" she wanted to make sure because though 'Postmark' was where name was supposed to be based on what she had learned, she was still learning.

@Lucid_Nightlight Ruby didn't attack, she wasn't that predictable, nor that stupid. Instead she created a huge cloud of black smoke, enough to hide her whole body, sure it wouldn't stay around for long since they were outside, but it lasted just long enough for her to quietly move behind Arrow before trying to grab him, she didn't necessarily expect it to be this easy, it would be very disappointing if it was, but someone had to do the first move. Assuming Arrow managed to avoid the first 'attack', he would find that Ruby hadn't been lying about herself, she was quite a lot faster and more agile than the local dragons, and she was using lot more brain along the brawn that a stereotypical dragon. He would also find that same tricks wouldn't work against her more than once or twice, and if he for example teleported a lot, Ruby would start predicting where he was going to end up, and more he teleported, more accurate her predictions were. This showed one of the reasons why Ruby was a dangerous opponent, adaptation, it would take some trial and error some times, but she would always figure out the weakness in her enemies' strategy, was it a pattern, an overlooked flaw or any other type of weakness, if she wasn't killed, she would win. Speaking of which, last thing Arrow would find out was that there was only one way this battle was going to end, his defeat, no matter if it was through Ruby managing to grab him and stopping him from continuing, from him giving up, or because Quasi came to intervene, Ruby would not admit defeat in any situation, because like said, she either died or she won. Quasi in other hand, assuming he was watching, would probably notice Ruby's movement and how she looked more like a predator playing with its prey before the killing blow rather than a dragon fighting an enemy. Not that it really was far from the truth, because Ruby was playing, being forced to use only one type of attack as her other attacks would be too lethal, and ponies were prey to her.