Ch.1 p.3 - Balefire falls

Chapter one, Part three: Balefire falls

A scream erupted violently, echoing around me, likely trapped in a bubble of constant and painful sorrow. The worse was that this scream… it wasn’t mine at all.

My eyes burst open. Palpating my face with clumsy and achy hooves, I found the recollector still in place, and my memories still bobbling in my mind. I could still remember Amethyst but… something was terribly wrong and eerie. I vomited, a sudden numbness invading my hooves and brain.

Was it because I couldn’t remember the events of the past few seconds? That I had fell into unconsciousness? My mouth was furry as if I had napped for far too long. I couldn’t describe the feeling except that it was giving me gags. Bile reached my mouth again and I threw up the last drops of alcohol wrenching in my stomach. My messy and unclear thoughts fought together to get the upper hoof. I looked around me with scared, bloodshot eyes. Admin was standing in the threshold of the door, raised on his hind legs and holding a thin and long gun I had never seen before. The shaft and the butt were made of wood and the mechanism was the one of a bolt-action rifle. Its chamber was glowing blue and the tip of the canon was exhaling fumes, billowing toward the ceiling until they had vanished completely into thin air.

Still lying on the floor, I blinked and turned over my hips.

Balloon was panting, blood dripping from the wound in his left shoulder. A thin spear had pinned him, going from side to side and impaling him again the wall. He was stabilizing himself on his hind legs, trying to move the least possible to spare him pain. The arrow itself was a long and slim rod of metal from which three teeth thrust out, biting in Balloon’s skin avidly, dampening any of his movements.

Rusty passed by Admin’s side, the young stallion still petrified with the gun in his hooves. My mentor galloped to me and held me in his hooves, not even glancing at the agent. Balloon’s coat was reddening with blood, staining and gluing to his pale blue fur turning to violet where the blood was flowing down. I curled in Rusty’s hooves and broke into sobs. His raspy voice that was usually gleeful and slightly perverted was now molded by anger, sadness and hatred.

“Give me a reason not to kill you on the spot,” Rusty croaked at Balloon’s face, torn with pain.

“I’m an agent,” Balloon stated with a maddened giggle. “I’m above the law. Wait that the Ministry learn about that misdeed of yours.”

A bang deafened me, following by the gasps of the witnesses standing behind the threshold of the door. Admin had shot a second arrow in Balloon’s right leg. The agent shivered as a flow of blood streamed down out of his limb. Slowly, a pond formed at his hooves, growing over time.

“Even if I die, such actions will have you terminated.”

“Shut up,” Admin raged, moving forward and lifting his weapon until the tip was pressing on Ballon’s head. “Just shut the fuck up, you sick monster.”

I sought reassurance in Rusty’s shoulder as I had tried to with Amethyst not long ago. He winced, I was reeking alcohol, vomit and fear.

His eyes never leaving Balloon’s, Rusty tried to take away the recollector. I screamed. The pain was unbearable, tearing away my skin, flesh and skull apart as the screws had sunken deep around my head. It cracked and broke apart. Bits of the recollector fell onto the ground and only a shard stayed stuck into my flesh and bones, build in with bloody screws. I needed care. Blood flowed onto my face and fur which had turned reddish instead of its usual beige. Rusty found Balloon’s healing potion and made me dunk its content. I felt less wracked.

“What have you done to her?” Admin eructated with a loud voice.

“Nothing,” he smirked. “I was only performing the preliminaries.”

I shivered at the thought. Admin threw the butt of his weapon in Balloon’s face, knocking him out. A long silence followed as many heads locked down on me through the frame of the open door. Rusty was keeping me awake, giving me gentle taps on the cheek. Admin’s hooves gripped on the rifle, its tip on Balloon’s neck. Finally, Chrome broke through the mass of ponies and entered the room. She was scared as much as I was.

“Why would an agent do that? They are meant to help us!”

I heard many jeers in her back. A nestling that had fallen from the nest, knowing nothing about the real world. I looked at her with my tired, blank and watery eyes, blabbering. Then I hugged Rusty in a shaky embrace.

“Amethyst’s dead,” I whispered next to Rusty’s ears, breaking down in tears. “She’s dead and he wanted me to forget her… But I couldn’t.”

The scared stares changed into angry glares toward the unconscious stallion. Many knew I had a daughter. And even today, family was one of the most sacred pillars of Ponykind civilization. Balloon’s deed was unacceptable and many whispers talked about making him pay. Rusty cleared his throat.

“We should seek help, Chrome go contact the MWT’s local direction and…”

A siren rammed the air, deafening and vibrating. The lights of the warehouse flickered, turning from their common yellowish white to a pale red.

“All the Ministry of Wartime Technology’s crews have to report to the managing team on the ground floor as fast as possible. This is a level one alert. It is not an drill,” a robotic voice alarmed through the speakers spread across the TAD’s basement. “All visitants shall regain their assigned bunker as fast as possible, the Ministry of Wartime Technology declines all responsibilities such as wounds or death once you’ve left the building.”

Panicked voices rose, following by hurried hoofsteps that changed into a charge toward the elevators. Everypony left in a short second leaving only Rusty, Admin, Chrome and I behind… and Balloon of course.

“Level one… alert?” Chrome muttered. “What does it mean?”

Rusty’s face was livid, if not ghoulish. His jaw hung slightly open and fear was easily readable in his eyes. He said nothing for a couple of seconds, gathering his thoughts together, building a tension that gripped our hearts.

“It’s the end,” he simply replied, his lower lip shaking with a sorrow I wouldn’t have expected him to show. “We must find a shelter!”

“Why?” asked Admin.

“The balefire bombs are coming.”

We all stopped and fell into a long, unsettling silence. Balloon, who had awaken, gave us a short laugh.

“Well, we’re all dead then.”

Chrome interjected, unable to believe in Rusty’s assertive words.

“It’s not possible, since when the Zebras have megaspells.”

The fact that Fluttershy had given the megaspell frame to our nemesis wasn’t notorious, but in the Ministry of Wartime Technology, everypony knew about that horrible truth, or at least had heard rumors. Rusty told her. Chrome fell on her side, holding his head between his hooves.

“I must warn my mother, my brother… my friends.”

“They will be fine,” Rusty explained. “Canterlot has many shelters built to stand balefire, they are not stable thought, but it can save you from the first blast.”

Rusty gave a worried look at the shaking red lights.

“We must go,” Rusty ordered.

We ran to the elevators, Rusty sustaining me on his shoulder. I couldn’t trot easily and I often fell, bumping my chin onto the hard floor. The warehouse, plunged into a red atmosphere swamped and warm stressed me. I felt like I was trapped in an oven.

My forehead was still bleeding despite the healing potion. The recollector had dug deep into my flesh and the last remnants of the cursed item was nailed into my skull. Touching it sparked wave of pain that paralyzed me. I needed to go to the hospital. All my thoughts were blurred, giving me a hard time to gather everything together to know what I was going to do next.

“What about Balloon?” I merely asked when we stepped into the elevator.

“He can rot in Tartarus,” Rusty berated as the door shut before us.

When we stepped outside, the sirens screeched at us, howling into our ears alerts and protection advises.

When we reached it, the ground floor was a hell of shambles. Ponies ran around, screaming and shouting. We passed in front of the reception desk, empty and succeeded in stepping outside, digging our way through the flood of ponies stirring up around.

We all looked at the sky. And at that true moment, I felt my heart falling into pieces.

In Canterlot’s Square of the Ministries, a massive and vast open space in the sprawl of buildings the city had become, we had a great view over the sky. Above us, glued to the steep mountain was the castle of the two Princesses. All was perfectly in sight as at this time of the year the sun at its zenith hid behind the tip of the mountain, casting a large shadow above the palace and the city below.

My eyes riveted on the horizon. I winced as a large flow of bright red then green lights burst out miles away from us. A sudden ignoble green light sparked, engulfing the blue skin in the distance where Cloudsdale was located. I heard ponies breaking into cries and pegasi’s screams. I could see the shockwave in the horizon, chasing away the clouds around where the detonation had flared.

I blinked, losing trust in my eyes. Strips of orange were streaking the sky, coming in our direction after going off at a tangent over the explosion we had witnessed. As many meteors running toward us, they whirled and screamed. At first it was nothing but a dull whiz. But it changed rapidly into a mighty roar. Everypony stopped, looking at that rain of fire hurrying toward our position, ready to spread fire and demise above and among us. Petrified, we stared. I heard Chrome murmuring a whisper to Celestia. Now I could see the missiles, a hundred of spears of metal rocketing to Canterlot. The worst was that it was only the first salvo. Many waves came behind the first row of missiles, one after another. The rectilinear race of the missiles curved as they neared toward Canterlot, only to drop straight down from above our heads. I gulped as the first missiles were mere seconds from us.

I wanted to live.

The mighty roar stopped, chased away by the hundreds of explosions that fire-worked in the sky, blocked by a shiny bubble of yellow and blue. This was undoubtedly Celestia and Luna’s work, may they be blessed! Stopped by the magical protection, the missiles blasted onto its surface in monstrous blazing balls of fire. The rain of rockets never stopped, and strangely none were a megaspell. Only a dozen of seconds separated each of the salvo. Yet, even between those periods of respite the ground never stopped shaking. I had never experienced what an earthquake was before. The ground hummed, cracked and trembled in a tremor that made buildings and roads roar. The explosions thronged on the magical shield spread hellish quakes in Canterlot, gaining in momentum as the bombings kept going on and on. The road below my hooves screeched open, the asphalt cracking under the almighty pressure applied on the city’s protection. The ambient zoom shattered the windows which showered the streets below. I witnessed ponies behind wounded by the sharp edges of the shards. In the distance I saw a building lower, then slide on its side until it disappeared in a massive cloud of dust.

Like the sound of two boats crashing into each other in a massive screech of tearing and bending metal, an overwhelming boom vibrated into the air. Rusty, Admin, Chrome and I shuddered and fell on our knees, trying to protect our ears from the unbearable noise. I peered my eyes at the sky, seeing nothing but a shield that was now entirely gleaming a pale yellow and a mess of explosions and smoke beyond. I hadn’t remarked yet that the sun was now hidden and that the only light bringing a chiaroscuro ambience to Canterlot came from the fire above us itself. I whimpered. It really never fucking stopped.

I heard a crack. Not that exploding crack coming from over our head. No, it was a sound of shattering glass with an eerie twinkle blend with a noisy buzzing, instantly followed by a swift puffing breath. I turned around, seeking for the origin of the humming. The sound repeated, as if a pony was unwinding a record to play it again. I could not hear just one origin. The sound was everywhere, at the same time.

Something caught my attention, a crack. Not on the ground, not on a window, not on a wall or on a cart left on a sideway. It was a crack growing into mid-air as if somepony was shattering an invisible window. One, two… There were too many cracks to be counted.

Even my blackest and scariest nightmare could not stand comparison. As the shield above us flickered to a dull blue light, the cracks opened around us. Widening, I stared inside and only see a shady pink glowing out of them. It grew in size like maws giving onto another dimension and a pink, thick, and sickly cloud slithered out of it. It weaved toward everypony, hungry and eager to swallow us all. This mess of pinkish gaseous slime was alien to me. My mane itched and my eyes ached just from staring at it. The nearest cracks had instantly swallowed a couple of ponies that had come far too close. Curiosity had always been a sin.

Screams…

Screams that slashed through my eardrum like a hot knife in butter. My eyes widened and I stared at the two shadows jerking in the nearest pink cloud. One fell with a muffled thump while the other leaped out of the colored mist.

A knot tied in my stomach, I watched avidly. The pony, a mare, tried to walk away from the cloud. Pink tendrils wrapped around her hindlegs seemingly trying to keep her in. She tried to back away, but her clumsy movements were revoltingly slow and dampened. And I saw her hooves… her skin… her eyes… all this was falling apart, melting like cheese in an oven, sticking to the bubbling asphalt until she broke down and hurtled into a pool of liquefied flesh, pounding organs, and cleaned bones. Time seemed to stop as everypony looked at the mess gurgling on the floor, unaware of the rising howls and screams around us. Cracks multiplied… dozen, hundreds, thousands of them… Everywhere, opening wide and giving birth to that pink cloud. The pinkish haze growled and fattened, getting bigger and bigger as it hovered in the streets, swallowing ponies and buildings alike.

The protection shield had turned yellowish again above me. The barraging of fire was not going to stop. And with a magically corrupted pink cloud eating ponies away, I was lacking options.

“Run,” Admin cried out, pushing me to my hooves and dragging me back to the Ministry of Wartime Technology’s entrance.

A tongue of pink cloud extended to the space I had occupied a second ago while we rushed to the elevators and went back to the TAD’s warehouse. I couldn’t think about anything but that we had trapped ourselves underground. The outside would wait for use to crawl out of our hideout, ready to leap for the kill. Tension built up in my heart.

I sat down on my chair next to my desk while everypony was ransacking a surprisingly empty of life warehouse. Everything had been left in the lurch, terminals were still switched on, the fans whirled around and bags had been dumped open everywhere. I stared at the paperwork dropped over my desk, my breath pushing some sheets over its edge. I had a small figurine of Big Mac, kicking the air against an invisible enemy while holding a revolver in his mouth. Built on a spring, I made its head wobble.

The ground shook, intensifying the back and forth movement of the toy’s head. Dust fell off the ceiling with a rumbling creaking, making me shudder. Chrome had curled up under my desk, whining. She was chewing her own white blue streaked mane. A second shook threw hums in the air. The walls vroomed and a complaint coming from the deepest depths of Tartarus echoed in the basement.

“The elevator!” Admin warned loudly. “Hurry!”

“I know for Luna’s sake. I fucking know,” Rusty replied.

Admin threw away a lot of the junk he’d gathered, sorting out the essential for survival. While Chrome was still busy whimpering, and I dreaming, Admin’s horn flared and a chunks of wood flew in the air, barricading the entrance of the basement, a long hallway leading to the lifts. I looked at the darkness beyond the frame of the door as the light flickered dangerously over our heads. Was it that pink cloud looming behind? The ground gave a violent jerk, tossing us all aside. I fell hard on the broken part of the recollector still riveted to my head and got knocked out.

When I woke up I saw the pink cloud weaving around me, biting my legs. I turned around and glanced at Chrome. She hadn’t moved, her eyes petrified on my unmoving shape. The cloud bit my skin deep… Why did it itch so much? I rolled over, extracting myself from the pink and deadly embrace and looked straight down at my hind legs. My beige fur was melting onto my bare and carbonizing skin. The change had been slower than for the poor pony outside. To my horror, the pink cloud was no radiation. It was something else, fast killing, nearly intelligent, and my talent was useless to face it. The question of my capacity to survive along with my co-workers struck me hard. We had no opportunities to run away. Trapped, we had to wait for a horrible death. Would it hurt to get turned into a puddle of bubbling flesh? Spikes of fear sparked down my backbone up to my neck, sending chills all over my body. I screamed and jumped away from the cloud’s range of action. Safe for the moment, I brushed my hind hooves as much as I could. For my stupor I ended with clumps of liquid fur on me.

Rusty and Admin tried to beat the cloud down, the first with a gun, the second with a wooden chair… to no avail. It was the end, I wanted to close my eyes and melt down slowly, painlessly. What would be the first thing to melt away, my life, or my body’s true integrity? Would I survive as a puddle of splashing meat?

I noticed something that finally gave me a smile. Fans… The warehouse had been hot the whole day. The temperature had been so unbearable with a broken air conditioner had forced us to bring back some fans. The fans scattered in the warehouse were still working, blowing air around and fighting the pink cloud back as it went by. I chuckled and rose up on my hooves.

“Rusty!” I yelled, pointing my hoof at the miraculous machines. “The fans!”

He looked at me perplexedly until a light lit up in his eyes. He grasped my idea and shouted at Admin. They all smiled together. We had found an exit door.

I dragged Chrome with me just before she ended trapped and killed by the pink cloud under my desk. I crawled with difficulty toward Admin and Rusty. Together, they were building up improvised systems, a series of fans, duct-taped with portable batteries. They had already made half a dozen of it. Celestia damned me, those two were fast workers.

Yet, we couldn’t even keep the pink cloud at bay. Admin took three of the portable fan-guns, grabbing them with his telekinesis, and threw an attack on the cloud, protecting Rusty from the crawling pink vapors. The old pony was raging.

“We have not enough hooves to carry them all!” he barked. “Vault, find me something to use more of them… Something!”

His voice burst in my ears, increasing the headache coming from the chunk of metal planted in my temple. I threw up in front of everypony and Admin backed away from me. I couldn’t feel my hind legs. What was that cloud.

“Please Vault, help us!” he screamed.

Regaining my composure I rogued around, seeking for anything. I breached open crates, unveiling a flood of weapons, cartridges and armors. I left it aside seeking for something else. I worked on restlessly for several minutes, the cries of my friends making my heart pump faster; their shouts increasing the stress in my mind. I cracked open a metal box and my eyes filled with glee. I had found saddlebags.

I see you coming… Saddlebags? How could that be helpful?

It was not any kind of saddlebags. They were a Swift Justice Corp.’s masterpiece of Earth Pony technology. An automatized saddlebag. I had never tested it, but I knew what its functioning. They were one of the only items Rusty really valued, even if he called it a fancy piece of hoofcraft. There was only one in the crate, well-protected between small balls of polystyrene. The saddlebag itself was made of aluminum and steel, shining under the flashing light pouring of the ceiling. The side sported nothing but a minuscule symbol, a shield and a sword etched alongside.

I tossed it over myself. It was a strange and heavy saddle. Instead of falling over my stiffs, near of my cutie marks, it was adjusted to sit right behind my shoulders, its far extremity touching the end of my back. A click cracked behind me and turning over, I saw another piece of item had fell out of the crate, an armband made of metal with a strange black ball in the middle. A light was gleaming intermittently from a yellow diode built in it. I strapped the armband on my left hoof. A humming noise popped out of the saddlebag and band. It was a mechanical adjusting process.

“S.J. Corp’s saddlebag model 101 activated, please insert you name,” a mechanic voice asked, coming from the armband.

I hesitated, pinched my lips and gave back my complete name.

“Vault Skin,” I spelled distinctively.

“User Vault Skin encrypted into the database. Welcome worker Vault Skin into the Earth Pony Inventory Management Frame, brought to you by Swift Justice Corporation.”

I jumped into the air, freaked out by an unexpected movement inside the saddlebag. The fear of a monstrous spider hidden within the metallic bag sparked in my mind. I tried to throw the saddlebag away, my panic forcing me to scramble. My fear increased as I become aware that the strange saddlebag had locked itself on me. Its mechanical locks had shut onto my chest. I screamed like a scared foal. Slender arms made of metal snaking out of the bags, clicking and rolling over their joints around me.

I panicked, rolling on my rump to get rid of the mechanical freaks sprouting out of the item… My pupils shrunk to pinpricks. I was afraid of spider.

“You can control them,” Rusty called at me.

Struck by fear, panicking and numb, I glanced at the arms and indeed saw that I could move them by only thinking of it. I couldn’t understand how, though. The pain that was breaking me, running from hooves to the tip of my tail slowly faded, replaced with surprise and awe. I could move those tiny arms around. However, there were a lot and I often messed up moving them around. All I could do was amplifying my headache by trying to move more than once at the same time.

Panting and on the brink of throwing up, I walked back to Admin, Rusty and Chrome. They were trying to push away the cloud with their fans. I looked around and my heart dropped. We were now circled, cornered between two sets of desk.

“Take some fans!” Rusty ordered.

Out of panic, I focused. The mechanical thin arms lifted three of the portable whirling fans, maintained in their tight grasps. I took the last one in my mouth. Chrome whimpered as she saw the pink cloud attack the furniture scattered in the warehouse, turning them into melting chunks as it eroded wood, metal and plastic.

“We’re going to die. We’re trapped here. The elevator is broken.”

She broke into tears.

“No,” Admin berated, spitting out. “There must be a way.”

The worried look Rusty gave him, together with the bloodied lip he was biting in was saying the opposite.

A second earthquake rumbled and sent shakes into our hooves, pushing us over. Building on this sudden failure of our security, the pink cloud moved on and neared dangerously. By instinct, we pointed our fans at the mass of deadly smoke. This action of last resort saved us from a melting death.

I laughed. It wasn’t that gleeful laughter a pony could show during a party. It was a mad laughter. I was picturing us all, a group of lost poor souls waving fans at an unbeatable threat, hoping to survive a mere second more. It was pathetic.

For sure we waved the fans. Our life depended on it. Moving nearly as a living being, tendrils of pink smoke swirled at us, trying to weave between the cracks of our defense. We all worked together as one.

The pink cloud had not swallowed the basement completely. I could still see the ceiling….

A loud zoom throbbed in the air and I saw cracks shaping on the top of us. The ceiling ripped open and fell on the ground in a deafening shriek. The gust of wind it produced forced the pink cloud through our defense system. It bit Admin’s skin and flesh, leaving a long bulging mark on his grey flank. Chrome had been touched too. The fur of her left hoof fall and fuse to the ground. Rusty…

“Rusty!” I screamed. He had fallen on the ground, holding his eyes, red with blood. I trembled, trying to find something else to do.

Everything slowed down and blurred. Panic birthed in my heart, anchoring me in a mindless survival state. My animal instincts dug its place into my mind, chasing away everything but surviving this hell. I heard screams and felt sick. Putting Rusty on my back, I kept waving the fan at the misty pink, eager to fight it back. I turned around, seeking for something of any help in the cracked open crates. The pink cloud had already pierced through many, melting their content into useless puddles. Yet, I managed to find out an untouched one. It contained gas masks. I distributed them and put one onto Rusty face.

With the four fans I carried, three into the mechanical hands from my new saddlebag and one in my mouth, I paved a way toward the surface, using the fallen chunks of the ceiling to go up to the level above us. We headed in a simple storage room. As I stepped in this level, I glanced behind. Chrome and Admin were combatting the cloud too, aware that it did not attack our back. We were all worn out, ready to give up.

Chrome’s white mane was curled and messy, glued to her sweaty pink fur. She, who had been groomed and beautiful when she had arrived, was now a wreck of stress who had put her thoughts on the backburner, trying to think to nothing but survival. I could still see her wincing. Her eyes were red with tears. On his own, Admin was maybe the least traumatized… Or he was hiding it very well. He had that determined stare that he would survive. A look beaming his assurance, that no wounds or black magic that would cut through his grey coat was going to stop him. Lastly, the brown mane of Rusty was falling over his gas mask, hiding his scarred eyes and facial copper fur. I saw a few drop of his blood on my rump.

I was a wreck too, mentally and physically. I wondered why I wasn’t jumping into the pink cloud. It was the easiest way to get away at the moment. I shook my head, casting those suicidal ideas away. I had to focus on the pink cloud, on my fan-guns and, on the immobile body of Rusty and on my two co-workers struggling in my back.

I was breathing hard, unaware the gas mask were useless against the pink cloud.

A thought assaulted me, hitting me in the guts. I turned to see my friends again and the opening leading to the TAD’s warehouse beyond. We had left Balloon behind. Had he suffered? I shivered at the idea of a stallion, shrieking as his skin and flesh was torn apart around the two arrows pinning him to a wall. I had left somepony to die alone down there. I turned my gaze away and with everypony else still alive we continued to fight the cloud with our improvised weapons.

We reached the level’s elevators and broke open the door of the emergency staircase next to them. We had to slam the door in, breaking the fused hinges. I wondered about the real effect of the cloud. Everything seemed to be melting off its location. I was amazed the whole build had not already turned into a cheesy substance, gluing us in forever, condemning us to be fossilized like many long-forgotten creatures. We walked to the next floor, the last one before the surface. I peered a look at this antechamber of pink death.

The underground floor that once displayed hundreds rows of dusty shelves was now a hell of a wreckage, I could only see ponds of metallic liquid. The walls secreted pink ooze and the ceiling was cracking open as if a giant pony was trying to break through bare-hoofed. I breathed in and gasped. I heard the stupor of my two conscious allies. The air reeked with a stench I had a hard time to catch. A mix between a rotten cheese and an old wet sock. We had to go on. We couldn’t stop. I turned back to Admin and Chrome, more shocked than ever.

“Walk,” I ordered.

And we walked up. We even ran up the stairs as if Tartarus had thrown a hunting party at us. And finally, we reached the ground floor. And when we pierced through the door of the emergency staircase, my eyes settled on what I can still relate that it was pure and embodied hell on Equestria.

Ponies…

Ponies everywhere, dead or dying, mute or pleading, all fused and melted to the walls or ground where they had stand and leaned on, searching for a hideout or a place to run away and where to find respite.

We forced back the cloud with our fan-guns… I was turning crazy. It was thick as cotton candy and spongy like a putrefied mushroom. Sometimes I stumbled across a stallion or a mare, or a kid, stuck and awaiting death, clearly still alive. In spite of their silent calls to help, disforming their distorted mouths, I passed by. I had done with pony beggars before… It was as simple as that, wasn’t it?

A tear ran down my cheeks as I couldn’t depart my eyes from theirs. The looks the younger ones gave me was heart breaking. Envious, jealous, mad, crazy, murderous, hating and pleading eyes all around. All together formed walls of eyes I couldn’t cross. I walked pass all this zebras’ hell, tip-toeing between the dying ponies, my eyes half-closed. I wished I had never fallen across such vision.

Chrome sat down in the entrance hall and broke into cries. We were only a few meters from the outside. Admin and I walked back to protect her from the pink cloud as much as we could. Her own fan had rolled away. Dozens of melted and muffled ponies moaned in pain around us.

“Please Chrome, get up,” Admin pleaded.

“I can’t. I just… can’t,” she blurted. “It was just my first day, just that. Why does everything I start end badly?”

She looked at me with revolting eyes. I nudged her with my muzzle, keeping my fan-guns high. It was my turn to supplicate her.

“Please. We all lost something today. I don’t want to leave somepony behind.”

I tried to push her up back on her hooves. She turned her back to any help and stayed in her prostrated position. It was Admin’s turn to try. I looked away. Damn it Vava, focus on the pink cloud. Slain it, kill it, rape it!

“Let’s go Chrome, we will rest later. You’ll have all time to rest when we get out of Canterlot.”

I snickered internally. I had only a few hopes to survive at the moment. Let’s face it, we’ve got burst of logic in such moment. We, ponies, could easily cast away emotion when fear had broken into our heart. ‘Act, don’t think’ was an untold but shared motto at that moment.

It was a miracle I hadn’t broken down into tears like Chrome. Maybe had I dried myself earlier? I wasn’t a warrior. I wasn’t a goddess. I wasn’t even a unicorn or a pegasus. I had to carve my way, bare-hoofed.

Rusty’s coughs called me back to reality. I looked at him with teary eyes, I could see saliva drooling from his open mouth inside his mask. Sometimes convulsion ran through his limbs, only to disappear a few seconds later. Panic was waiting at the threshold of my sanity. I had not to break up. Not now.

“You have friends Chrome?” Admin asked. “You have a mother, a father… a brother? A sister? They want you back… alive.”

Lifting the mask off Chrome’s face, he swept the tear dripping under her eye with the tip of his hoof. I peered an eye at Chrome. She was nodding. Admin smiled and pats her head in return. He was sweating hard from the magical effort of lifting so much heavy items for this long. I was tired too, but glad to see Chrome was putting a hoof on the ground and tensing her muscles to stand up.

Or at least she tried to…

She tried, again, again, and again… A long silent spanned between the three of us. I saw her flank glued to the pinkish ground, melting slowly in the tiles. The image of trying to leave a leather chair I had wet with my sweat a hot day of summer struck me. The impression of having my skin ripped off, stuck onto the leather had kept amusing me for a long. Now I was disgusted. Her flesh was stuck to the ground and she couldn’t even peel it away. The hoof she had use to lift herself had melted quasi-instantly into the tile.

By instinct I checked my hooves and Admin mimicked me with a spark of fear in his eyes. Tears stopped falling off Chrome’s cheeks. She only screamed. It was a shriek that could break glasses, froze souls and shred ponies apart. She glared at us with a pleading stare, the same the dying ponies around us had been giving us. I shoveled down the gag in my throat.

“Don’t leave me,” she whispered.

Admin turned his back to her.

“Don’t leave me,” she whimpered.

Admin tapped on my shoulder, his eyes blank and his will broken by a decision he never wanted to make.

“Let’s go,” he told me with a shake in his voice.

Chrome left her only valid hoof in my direction. I couldn’t get away from her sight. I saw her fur melting bit by bit as the pink cloud licked her flank, climbing upon her.

“Don’t ABANDON ME!” she screamed. “Please!”

Admin smacked my face and I turned away. Still with Rusty on my back, Admin dragged me in the street. Chrome’s call for help resonated in my head, until the deadly mist muffled her forever.

The outside was no better, ponies were scattered everywhere, dead or dying. Carts were melted to the ground and the buildings were falling apart around us. The zoom of crumbling rocks and concrete filled the air.

We ran until we arrived on a terrace standing on a hill above the Canterlot’s suburbs. The shield was still up in the sky and we were near its limit. I couldn’t see the color through the pink mist, though. But at least I could say the bombardment was still going on. The city was still shaking under the assaults of the bombing. Dropping his fan-guns, Admin left to me the duty to protect the three of us. He threw up violently. Wiping the side of his mouth, I saw his lips quiver. I knew what he was going to spit, remorse.

“I…” he started.

A loud screech of metal, earth, and rock roared. Through the cracks forming into the ground under our hooves crept a pink goo. Rusty, Admin, and I got splashed by the substance and the landslide carried us away. We hurtled down the remains of the hill. I ‘epped and went through the pink smog.

My main itched when I regain consciousness. My face hurt while I still hearing the screaming of the city’s inhabitants. Rocks had lashed my mane and skin. I rolled, fell, hurtled, bumped, and jumped over and banged against a hard wall. A clatter followed and a hard piece of metal struck the back of my head. I nearly got knocked out again but a low complaint kept me awake.

Next to me was Admin, his leg mangled and torn apart by the fall. At my hooves dwelled a last fan-gun and Rusty…

“Rusty,” I called, screaming.

He was nowhere to be seen.

“Rusty!”

No response. Thrown out of my common mood, acting only by instinct, I took the fan in my hoof as I caught the pink cloud creeping in our direction. I was covered with corrupted fur. I looked over and saw Admin’s grey coat had nearly all fallen off too, shaved like a dead pig coming out of a griffon slaughterhouse.

I looked behind me at the wall I had crashed in in my fall. My blood splattered a yellowish magic barrier. I had reached the border of Canterlot, and with it, the magic barrier that protected us from the bomb, but also encaged us with a monstrous and deadly monster. I thrust my hoof at the barrier, trying to break through to no avail. It showed resistance, I couldn’t even make it flicker. I was blocked on my way out of this nightmarish city, trapped in a dead hole called Canterlot, the shrine of Equestria only a few hours ago.

“Set me free!” I barked, punching the barrier.

I heard a whizz and turned around, the pink cloud was here. I grasped my fan and waved it around, trying to protect Admin as much as I could. But the pink was far too strong for me. It inevitably made his way closer. I yelled, screamed like a demon blocked between an unbreakable wall and a deadly and indestructible opponent. I was bargaining with death, and I was losing the bet. The pink grew larger, leaving a tiny space between me and him. I was so scared I forgot about Admin. Only my survival mattered now. I howled at the cloud even knowing it couldn’t hear me.

“Come at me, I’m tasty!” I condescended, trying to slay the pink cloud with my humming fan.

I fell on my rump, panting and unable to move. Still tightening my hooves around the fan, I held it between my crossed legs. I cried, closing my eyes and shutting my mouth. Defeated, I slid my back against the magic wall as I did with Amethyst’s desk a few hours earlier. It seemed like a lifetime. The itching bite of the pink monster ran on my skin, eroding my fur and licking my flesh. I sought for a space untouched by the pink cloud, to no avail.

It engulfed me completely. I had been so close to live…

I pressed my back against the magic wall, and I fell back. I suddenly breathed in uncorrupted air and my eyes shot open. The magic shield was gone.

My fervor and will lit up once again and I crawled away for the pink sphere that had swallowed Canterlot. I heard a rumbling quiver. I remembered a river had always been falling from the mountain. The barrier should have formed a temporary dam. Taking my courage into my hooves, still clenched on the fan, I ran as fast as I could. Whatever the cuts, the bruises, the broken bones and the itching mane, I fled. I needed to be free, I needed to run… I wanted to live.

The earth shook around me as I saw the fallout of the constant bombardment Canterlot had been suffering for hours. Chunks of metal lied, scattered in many craters, giving fumes billowing in the surprisingly hot air of the afternoon. I looked at the sky, covered by a thick lid of clouds and…

In the distance I saw a group of red strips slashing through the cloud, and a light shape racing to them. A flash blinded me and I fell on the ground, hiding my burnt eyes from the dull heat of that distant explosion.

Green… The Megaspell lit up the sky ten kilometers from Canterlot. I saw a shockwave coming. And it slapped my face with a loud deafening bang. It took me several minutes to get my spirit’s morsels together, giving me time to have a broad look at the whole horizon.

Far away, the fallouts coming from various explosions shone, weaving away with the wind. Canterlot and Cloudsdale weren’t the only cities that had been wiped out. I quivered. Green and pink… married into a deadly landscape captivated my vision. Canterlot, a city of countless souls reduced to ashes in hours. And around me? A homeland of broken dreams and overwhelming sorrows. Everywhere I looked I saw green, green, and green again. How many bombs had fallen over Equestria? Had we fought back? I didn’t know.  I roared my rage to the sky, until my lungs shut themselves down and left me panting in the dust. I cried, cursing the world, the princesses, the zebras, Amethyst, Rusty, Chrome, Balloon, and Admin. I had survived the Last Day and they hadn't.

I had to get away from that infernal but captivating vision of the destroyed jewel of my homeland. Thus I ran in the rising dark as the sun glowed weaker behind the sky cover, leaving space to the coming night.

I ran away without knowing where I was going.

I let the madness that had built inside me over the course of events take over. I lost the track of time.

Footnote: **Level Up* – Survivor Mare LvL.1*

New Perk: Devil’s Fortune – You survived a barraging bombardment, radioactivity and the notorious pink cloud thanks to strokes of luck, ingenuity, and a pinch of craziness. Life suckers you but somehow you are glad to be alive.

Statistics work strangely with and around you, for your greatest advantage or biggest demise.

Quest Perk Added: Air Blower – You like fans, a lot. You couldn’t really explain that to random ponies, they wouldn’t understand.