The air was thick with smoke, and the ring of ammunition ricocheting off the barricade filled the air. They were pinned down, the volume of shots making any hope of returning fire impossible - not that some of them didn't try; Arthur's eyes filled with water as he gazed down at what remained of Hipfire. They were alone now, no hope of rescue, the shouting from the other barricades had long since died down. He knew what he had to do.
Reaching into a nearby saddle bay, down past the layers of ammunition that would no doubt now go towards causing more pain and suffering, he grabbed on to three small objects and passed one to each of his colleagues. They looked at each other, their faces filled with grim resolve. Whatever happened, they knew they could not let 'them' take them, not in one piece.
Arthur took one last deep breath, and pulled the pin.
In the half light of an eternal dusk, all was still. A body lay on the blackened earth; a wheezing rattle filled the air with every short breath it took. Slowly, the scene began to change, the wheezing became more rapid and more labored and the body became animated - fidgeting as if to throw off sheets that were not there. After a moment, the movement stopped, however the rapid breathing remained.
Arthur's throat felt like it was on fire; each breath he took caused a sharp pain to run through his body causing alarm bells to ring in his head. Slowly, his brain began to recall something about fires and smoke being the major killer of people in their sleep.
With a new sense of urgency, Arthur pushed himself to get out of bed. However, he felt something was different. The surface his hand pressed against felt coarse and gave more resistance than he was used to. Slowly, his eyes opened and he turned around, his mouth wide open.
"How...?" he rasped as he gazed on at the world around him. From the blackened earth to the thick smog filling the sky, it was all black.
"W-where am I?"
Rising clumsily to his feet, he felt a sharp pain and looked down. 'Great' he thought. 'I'm stuck in a blackened wasteland and I'm in my pajamas.'
Minutes passed with Arthur constantly looking around, his gaze never focusing on one point for long. The wasteland went for as far as the horizon; the only breaks in the flat and featureless landscape were silhouettes of mountains to the south and a strange tall structure that could only be man made to the north.
A strange loud gurgling noise filled the air and Arthur looked down at his stomach and cringed. He looked back towards the north and set one foot forwards, letting out a gasp and gritting his teeth. Slowly, he began his journey.
Step after step, pain filled his mind, but all he could do was hug his sides; grit his teeth and bear it. For what must have been hours he had been walking, he feet were scratched and bleeding, his thin clothes drenched with sweat and he was covered in dirt. Despite this, the building had not seemed to have moved even an inch. But still he trod on.
After what must had been a couple of hours of walking - although it was impossible to tell the time - Arthur collapsed. As he lay there, the sun weakly beating down on him through the smog, he began to cough until he was forced to sit up to retch. What he produced was a large lump of black mucous. The retching continued for several minutes as more and more pitch black mucous was expelled from his body. As he lay back down after his coughing fit, his breath now flowing slightly easier as if someone had released a catch on his lungs, a twinkle of light caught his eye. It was in the dirt not far from where he was. He gathered his breath for a moment, strength returning to his limbs and crawled over towards it.
There in the dirt was a small metal object, Arthur gripped what was above the surface of the dirty and lightly pulled. It was a orange medallion with eight edges on a small chain, as if it was meant to be some kind of key chain. On both faces was the same image of three red apples. He handled it for a minute, it felt far cooler than the dirt it had lied in. He looked at it for a second, cupped between his hands, letting it's coolness wash over him, before putting it into his pocket and moving to stand up.
As he stood up, he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder, moving his hand to massage the pain away he made contact with an object stuck into him. Gritting his teeth, he pulled it free and saw that it was a small metal object with a very sharp tip at one end and feathers at the other end. A dart. Holding onto the dart, he began to walk forwards, but tripped over as his legs stopped obeying him.
Quickly, he tried to get up again, but his arms went limp and he collapsed face first into the dirt. As the world went dark, the last thing he could remember was the sound of footsteps.
Four ponies, two stallions and two mares, walked through the wilderness side by side. They had been following a fresh set of tracks for the last hour or so.
"Looks like he's slowing down, Sir." Said one of the mares, the smallest of the group. She was an earth pony with a dirty yellow coat.
One of the stallions, also an earth pony, with a dark blue coat, nodded. "Thanks Eagle. Phoenix, do you reckon you can scout ahead, if he's slowing down even more than he was already going, he can't be too far ahead."
"Alright, Sir." The second mare, an orange Pegasus took to the air, causing dust to swirl around the remaining three before zooming on ahead.
"Sharpshot, get ready to take this creature out if we need to, don't want too much hassle today. We need to get to Facility by night fall."
The second stallion, a large red unicorn took a blow pipe out of his saddle bag and held it in-front of him using his magic. "Ready, Sir."
The three ponies only followed the tracks for a couple of minutes before Phoenix returned.
"It's still going, Sir, but only moving at a slow shuffle, it's probably only about 10 minutes ahead."
The first stallion nodded. "What's it look like?"
"Biped, Sir."
"Dragon?"
"Nah, too fleshy and pink for that. Not sure what it is, but it looks worn down and weak. Probably won't last beyond the day if we don't get to it."
The first stallion, stopped walking, as did the group, and put his hoof to his face.
"Alright this is what we do, we're going to gallop to get to it quickly. Sharpshot you're going to knock him out and we will take it with us."
"Sir, we're going to struggle to reach Facility by night fall as it is, if we have to carry this with us it will slow us down further."
"I know Sharpshot, but we can't just leave this creature, not if it's as weak as Phoenix says. Besides, I've never seen tracks like this, it might be worth a few cards. So we take it alive alright? I'll carry it if I have to."
"Yes, Sir!" the three shouted in unison.
Arthur came to with a mild headache and a face full of dirt. He tried to move his hands in order to push himself up, but found them tied behind his back. They were bound roughly, and as he struggled the rope dug into his wrists. He opened his mouth, but quickly closed it again at the sound of someone speaking.
"How long till we reach the town, Phoenix?" asked a gruff, masculine voice.
"Not long, Sir, probably about an hour or so, we made faster progress in the last hour than I expected." This voice definitely belonged to a female.
"That's good, at least we should make it there before the gates close, I definitely don't want to be stuck out in these parts at 'night'." Said the first voice again.
"Sir, how was the package? You sure you don't want me to take it for the last stretch?" asked a second male.
"It's okay, Sharpshot, the package is lighter than I expected, probably has less muscle density than one of our kind."
Arthur was confused, he was bound and they were talking about muscle density of a package?
"Speaking of lesser muscle density, you reckon you used the right dart?"
"I'm not sure, Sir. I used one of my lighter ones, but on closer inspection he is larger than I expected. Was probably hunched while walking. It might hold or might not."
"Well, there's always one way to find out."
Arthur heard footsteps, and closed his eyes as they got closer.
"Oi, you awake?!"
Arthur kept quiet and kept his eyes close.
"No, Sir, that won't be enough to check to see if he's waking up from the drug."
Arthur heard a second set of foot steps approach and felt himself being picked up.
"You need to do something more like this, Sir."
Slap
Arthur cried out as he was slapped rather sharply on the face.
"So he is awake then? Thanks Sharpshot, would you get some more of the drug? A slightly heavier dose this time."
The second set of footsteps moved away, and Arthur felt himself being lifted again. He flinched on instinct.
"Don't ya worry yourself none, I ain't going to hit you again. Sorry about that, Sharpshot wasn't meaning to hurt you, he just wanted to make sure you're awake."
He was placed roughly on the ground on his rear and the bond restraining his hands was removed..
"Come now, open your eyes, there's no need to pout. I'm sorry he hurt you. You want some water?"
"W-water?" Arthur opened his eyes.
"Ahh, I thought you would respond to that. Here you go." Arthur could only look on in disbelief as a canteen of water was thrust into his hands and he unscrewed the lid and drank deeply. "All done?" Arthur nodded and the 'person' took it back.
Arthur looked wide eyed at the 'hand' that took the canteen back, it was hard and had five less digits than he was used to seeing. It was a hoof. He followed it back up the 'arm' or leg up to it's owner and saw a rather grizzled muzzle looking back at him.
"Y-you're a..." was all he managed to mutter before he fell backwards, still.
"Hey, Sharpshot, doesn't look like we'll need none of your doses."
"Why's that, Sir?"
"The darn creature took one look at me, after taking a drink, and fainted."
"Hah, wonder why that happened?"
"No idea, you'd almost think he never seen a pony before."
Although it was hard to tell with the constant sunlight and the thick smog, the moon was cresting over the horizon as the group of ponies and their package arrived at the outskirts of the town known as Facility. It was a ramshackle town, with piles of refuse here and there. The ponies picked their way through the piles and past series of ramshackle barricades towards the main entrance of the town, a gate in the chain linked fence that surrounded it.
"Halt! Who goes there?" The group came to a halt just beyond the last line of barricades, short of the gate.
"We're hunters!" replied the leader. "We have some goods we want to trade and a creature that might be of interest to you guys. If not; it looks like it at least needs some medical care."
After a moments silence, the voice called out again.
"Alright, you can enter; but you'll have to stay the night. The gate stays close until moon down."
"That's fine with us; we're not keen to be out here with the moon up." The group remained back as the gate rumbled open, it didn't take long. The motor powering the gate didn't seem to be that old and the gate wasn't that big.
As the ponies entered the town the gate closed behind them with a clang and an old pony hobbled over to them; one of his legs was wooden bellow the need and one of his eyes was a pearly white.
"Alright," he growled. "There's an inn down the road and to the left; stores won't be open till moon down, so you better stay there."
"What about the infirmary?"
"Hah, you'd be lucky, we ain't well equipped enough for that."
"You must have something; this creature is pretty damn hurt, and he's coughed up a lot of black stuff."
"Really? Hmm..." The old pony brought a worn hoof to his grizzled face and grumbled to himself for a minute. "How much black stuff?"
"A lot, seriously at points I thought it'd choke on the stuff."
"Alright, alright. I'll take ya to the doctor. If it's been coughing up as much as you say; he needs flux, and soon. Lets just hope he's still awake and has some in stock."
The old pony led the group through the streets of the small town, only stopping to point out the Inn as they passed it. Even before they reached their destination, it was clearly visible. It was after all the only building they had seen with a - crudely painted - medic's sign.
The group stopped at the bottom of a small set of steps leading up to the door.
"Wait here, let me deal with him first, he may not take too kindly to strangers at this time of day."
He hobbled up the steps and knocked on the door. There was no response and the pony turned away to come down the steps as a light lit up the porch and the door opened.
"Iron, what you doing calling at this time of night." The old pony, iron, turned around on the spot to face the disgruntled medic.
"Sorry about the intrusion, Red, but these hunters are in need of your help. It seems they found a wounded creature of sorts out in the wastes; he's coughing up black."
The doctors eye's widened and he quickly pushed Iron out of the way, "What are you guys waiting for?! Hurry up, get him in. Lets just hope you brought him here in time."
