Caring Sparkle (Under Revision)

“It’s about time you two got here,” Marcus moved out from the flipped table he had been using as cover, “You know the Council hates waiting.”

“It isn’t my fault that we ran into a bit of trouble. Maybe next time the Council will let me use my weapons instead of this shitty pistol they confiscated from a drug addict,” Tyler threw the pistol to Marcus with a chuckle. “Kristan, can you help Twilight clean up? I’m sure she doesn’t want that color stained into her coat.”

Kristan peeked out from the bookcase she had been lying behind. “Holy fuck. What happened to you?” Kristan ran over to Twilight and ran her fingers through Twilight’s mane. “Good, it hasn’t dried yet. I’ll get you cleaned up.”

“Thank you. If I stay like this much longer, I’ll puke,” Twilight followed Kristan into the nearby bathroom. As the door shut behind her, she could hear Marcus and Tyler continue their conversation.

Kristan flipped a nearby light switch, making the overhead lights flicker to life. “That’s quite a bit of blood. Would you mind telling me what Tyler did?”

Twilight could feel a headache starting to form due to the flickering lights. “Why do you think Tyler did this?”

“Oh please. I can’t begin to tell you how many times he’s made a mess of things. Not to mention he’s more accident prone than a hyper cat, high off meth, in a bathtub full of water,” Kristan turned on the sink, running her hand under the water till it was warm enough.

Twilight didn’t understand what meth was, but the mental depiction of a cat being thrown into a tub of water would have been quite comical if blood hadn’t have been splattered across her mane. “It… it was an accident. He just ran straight for me. I had nowhere to run. I just….. reacted,” Twilight fought the urge to cry. It was obvious she was losing due to the tears that were now running down her face.

“I killed someone….” Twilight’s emotions were becoming unstable as her heart felt like it had just sunk deep into her chest. “I took his life! I had no other choice but to attack, but, I didn’t mean to kill him!” The tears were now running freely like a rushing waterfall.

Without skipping a beat, Kristen slapped Twilight to snap her out of it. “Sorry if I hurt you. You need to get over that. I don’t know how it is in your world, but thousands of people die every day in our world. If you don’t fight for your life, someone will take it from you without giving it a second thought. I don’t like to kill anyone. And neither does Marcus or Tyler. But we have to do it. If you plan on lasting longer than 3 days here, you best toughen up and accept the idea of killing someone.”

Before Twilight could say anything back, Kristan poured a bucket of warm water across her head before scrubbing soap into her mane.

Even with everything that had happened recently, a bath felt amazing to Twilight. Blood and soap began to run down her mane, revealing the natural, light-purple, color of her coat.

Twilight held the spot where Kristan had hit her. Even though it hurt, Twilight couldn’t help but feel the caring emotion that Kristan had put into that slap. “Thank you. I guess I have a lot to learn if I’m to ever return back home.”

Kristan poured a final bucket of water onto Twilight, washing out the last of the blood. “We all have a lot to learn Twilight. None of us are perfect, but, we work with what we know and we adapt as we go.”

Twilight sent a purge of magic through her coat, collecting the remaining water into a ball before releasing it into the sink. “I feel tons better. I needed that.”

“Oh, I know what you mean. I love a good shower.” Kristan finished washing her hands and dried them along her pants. “Well, I think we should get back to the boys. With how clumsy they are, they might end up bringing down the whole buildin--” Kristan was interrupted as shots rang from outside the door.

Kristan was only able to grab her rifle before an explosion sent debris collapsing onto both her and Twilight.

Kristan’s vision was suddenly flooded with a bright purple light.

*************************************

[Moments before the explosion went off]

Marcus made a quick examination of the pistol Tyler had thrown to him. “This is a piece of shit. I don’t see how you would even be able to hit anything. The sights are bent, the spring in the magazine is rusted, and to put the icing on the cake, theres a crack in the receiver. If you did anything else with this, it wouldn’t have been pretty”

“Hey, I made it work even though it was a shitty weapon. If the Council would have given me enough time to grab my own equipment, I wouldn’t have used it.” Tyler smiled as Marcus lifted a large duffel bag from behind the desk he used as cover. “Did you seriously grab some of my stuff for me?”

“Of course. Even I know it’s best to use your own stuff. The equipment they issue us sucks,” Marcus dropped the pistol and reached into the duffel bag, pulling out a M-500 shotgun. “I also grabbed some of my stuff of course.” A big grin began to form across Marcus’s face.

“Ah, I see you found a replacement spring for your shottie?” Tyler began to empty the bag of its contents.

Marcus always knew a good weapon when he saw it. In the bag, Marcus had packed a bullet proof vest, a Fighting Load Carrier vest, four M33 fragmentation grenades, Tyler’s favorite boot knife, an M4 with a bipod deployable grip, and, Tyler’s personal favorite, a full-tang tanto sword.

“Marcus, you are the best,” Tyler put on all of his gear, making sure everything felt right. “This gear brings back both good and bad memories.”

“Maybe this will help. I know you really liked it,” Marcus reached into his cargo pocket and pulled out a black beret before tossing it to Tyler.

Tyler caught the beret and slid it onto his head. “Still a perfect fit. Thanks man.”

“Anytime brother,” Security troops ran into the room, securing every possible corner and doorway. “Looks like our reinforcements decided to finally show up,” Marcus gave the hand signal for all clear.

Almost as if he had just taken someone hostage, every security officer in the room instantly focused their weapons on Marcus. “What the fuck….. What is the meaning of this!”

Marcus went to lift his shotgun before Tyler placed a hand on the barrel of it, holding it down. “Marcus, just calm down for a second. Something doesn’t feel right. Look at their eyes,”

Marcus focused on the eyes of the closest guard, a young male with brown hair who couldn’t be any older than 20. There was no possible way….

Instead of a normal human eye, the young guard had an eye Marcus could only describe as a cat’s eye after another cat had walked into it’s territory. The pupil was pointed on both sides. It felt as though the boy had been staring blindly at the two men.

“This isn’t right. Some of these people have massive wounds that should make it unable for them to move. Much less be alive,” Tyler indicated as he pointed to a few guards with missing limbs and gaping wounds.

A wispy, deep voice brought their attention to the hallway Tyler and Twilight had come from. “It’s been quite amusing watching the bunch of you fight your way through up to this point,” A man in a dark, priest-like, robe walked out from the hallway. Across his chest, Marcus could make out a symbol that appeared to be a crescent moon.

“Who are you? What do you want?” Marcus was getting annoyed. What were the security personnel doing with this guy?

“You don’t need to worry about that. Just know that, if you had just kept your nose out of other people’s business and followed the path with everyone else, this could have been avoided. Take them! And make sure that unicorn is killed in the process!” The priest ordered the guards.

Two guards reached for them before gunshots echoed through the entire room. Following the gunshots, meat flew from where the two guard’s heads used to be. A guard, on the second floor walkway, aimed an RPG at the bathroom the girls had gone into while the other guards focused their weapons on Marcus and Tyler.

“Shit!” Tyler, quickly slinging his rifle, grabbed Marcus and leapt over the nearby security desk before the rocket erupted in a ball of fire against the entrance to the bathroom. Sending the entire room crumbling in on itself.

“Marcus! Give me cover fire!” Tyler pulled the pin on two of his grenades before hurling them out into the crowd.

As the grenades went off, Tyler used the smoke as cover and ran over to the remains of the bathroom. Marcus, using the rifle he had before, opened fire, hitting and killing many guards.

Tyler noticed some of the rubble move. A purple orb, pushing away the remaining debris, emerged from the destroyed bathroom. Inside, Kristan could be seen staring at the remains of what should have killed her. “What the fuck is going on!?”

Twilight stood in the center of the orb, looking just as confused as Kristan. Tyler finally realized that Twilight must have used her magic. “Kristan! Twilight! These guards aren’t who they appear to be! Shoot them on sight!” Tyler slid into the cover of a chunk of wall before tossing another grenade into the crowd, sending bodies flying in a mess of blood and meat.

“Tyler, I swear if I get in trouble for this, I will kill you!” Kristan yelled as she knelt behind a remaining chunk of the wall and opened fire into the crowd.

The guard’s numbers quickly started dying down as the group fought back. One of the guards made a mad dash for Twilight, swinging a sharp machete. Twilight hesitated, not wanting to cause more death. Across the room, Twilight could hear Marcus yell, “Twilight, help us fight! If you’re friends from home were here, wouldn’t you fight to protect them!”.

The words hit a nerve for Twilight. Hardening her heart, Twilight used her magic to send a wave of energy towards the enemy, now feet from her. The energy shredded through flesh and bone, leaving nothing but shreds of bloody meat across the ground.

“Fuck yeah! That was some awesome shit!” Kristan impaled her knife into the throat of a guard that had ran past the corner. With a swift jerk, the knife easily tore through the flesh. The guard collapsed to the floor, gargling and choking on his own blood.

Tyler, empty on ammo, pulled out his tanto and thrusted the cold steel through the gut of a nearby guard. Using the body as a shield, Tyler grabbed the guard’s weapon and began to fire at the four guards that had been following the other.

A loud gunshot rang louder than any of the others as Marcus closed  the gap between himself and the remaining guards, firing shell after shell into anyone who opposed him. Three rounds impacted his right shoulder, making him stagger to the floor.

Kristan, receiving cover fire from Tyler and Twilight, ran to Marcus and kneeled beside him as she shot two more guards with her sidearm. “Get up! You’ll be fine!” Kristan grabbed Marcus by the back of his shirt and dragged him behind the cover he had previously been using while Marcus used his shotgun to repel anyone who got close.

A guard, in the middle of the last handful of them, raised an RPG onto his shoulder before firing a rocket in the direction of Twilight. The rocket traveled a few feet before being stopped in mid air by a purple light. Twilight crushed the rocket under tons of pressure, igniting an explosion that killed the last of the guards in a bloody mist.

Not a single guard was left standing. The priest, that they had seen earlier, had disappeared sometime in the middle of battle.

Twilight and Tyler ran, quickly, over to where Kristan and Marcus now rested. “How bad are you hit?” Tyler knelt next to Marcus seeing where the padded armor had done it’s job.

“I’m fine. Just a few bruises.” Marcus got up off the ground, brushing the dust off himself.

“Tyler…. What the fuck just happened! Why did we just kill every civil guard in the entire damn complex!” Kristan was furious. She didn’t like killing her own people.

“I don’t know. They weren’t acting normal. But I will find out.” Tyler grabbed his blade and darted into a mad sprint towards the Council’s quarters.

“Tyler, wait up!” Twilight took off after him, Kristan and Marcus following close behind.