Deep Freeze

8:00 PM. 3 HOURS AFTER BLIZZARD

Red Iron awakes with a start, looking around as he tries to calm his breathing. Surrounded by gray snow, he sighs as he thinks to himself. "Great... Must've been buried by the blizzard." He frees an arm and brings it to his face, removing the mask and goggles he wore. It was bright enough to see his icy prison, but light was fading fast. Red Iron swallowed and collected as much saliva as he could in his mouth, slowly letting it drip from his lips. It slowly dripped into the snow below him. "So I'm facedown under the snow..." He took a deep breath and, with a grunt of exertion, pulled his other arm free. With both arms now at his disposal, he began to claw his way out of the snow he was buried in, taking care not to ingest any. After a few minutes of digging, he pulled himself to the surface and looked around at the expanse of gray around him. It was completely flat, nothing to indicate any activity recently. He pulled his legs free and stood, looking around. "Starnsy!!!" He yelled, in his thick Stalliongrad accent. He listened for a response...

Nothing. The only response he heard was his own echo fading away with every repeat.

"Captain!!!" He yelled, louder this time, hoping for a response, anything but the quiet he heard now.

Still only silence answered him.

"Quill!!! First Response!!!" He yelled as he looked around. "SOMEPONY!!!!" He collapsed to his knees, out of breath for a moment. He stood once more, looking around. The landscape had not changed, still the same gray expanse of snow before him. "I'm alone then... Where are the others...? I have to get back to the castle to..." He took a deep breath and exhaled. "No... I will find squad. I cannot leave them out here like this... Any one of them could be injured, or worse." He slung his LMG back around, thankful that it was strapped to him during that blizzard. As he began to wander, he looked up at the gray sky. Very little light shone through, but if he had to guess, it was going to be dark soon. He squinted his eyes, looking out across the horizon for any landmark. He could not wander forever, he needed somewhere to go.

After looking for what felt like an eternity to him, Red Iron spotted a spire in the distance. From where he stood it looked merely like a black toothpick, jutting out like a splinter against the gray skin of the world. He hefted his LMG, walking towards the spire in the distance, it never seeming to get closer as he journeyed on. However, he remained vigilant in his search for his squadmates, scanning the snow for any signs of life.

As he walked towards the spire in the distance, he thought about one of the many things that ran through his head. Namely, why he had called for Starnsy. He hadn't even meant for that... He guessed maybe, that it was out of instinct. Did he still care for her? He wondered as he trudged through the sickly snow. His mind wandered to that night of June a year ago, Starnsy had fallen into a frozen lake. After jumping in to save her, Red Iron had dragged her back to dry land, and then carried her back to the castle. He had spent the rest of the night thinking. She reminded him of Sweet Dream, his wife. Red Iron sighed as he remembered their journey here, across the seas before they had frozen.

Halfway through their journey, Sweet Dream had fallen into the water, and after being brought back onto their raft, had fallen victim to hypothermia. He quickly dispelled those thoughts as best he could. Sadly, he could not, his mind wandered to memories of the time before the disaster. The day he had first set eyes upon her; how he had spent time with her in the early days of their relationship, she had loved walking with him through the town's central park, he smiled as he remembered her adorable giggle whenever he made her laugh; his mind sifted through the memories again, to when he had proposed to her in the middle of their favorite park, how she nearly fainted and how he couldn't even count how many "Yes's" came out of her mouth that night; he remembered what he would call her all the time: "Moya lyubov." My love. And how she would blush when he did. The dark memories slowly crept back in, and he remembered their frantic packing, and getting on the boat to try and find somewhere that hadn't been taken by the disaster. He let out a pained sigh as he relived it once more: Pulling his wife from the arctic waters, holding her close to keep her warm, watching the life slowly drain from her eyes, and the agonizing hours of the trip afterwards. He quickly stifled these thoughts, pushing them down, suffocating them, drowning them. In his wandering, he had come upon the source of the spire that had been looming in the distance. He watched from a ridge the goings on in this Heat camp he had stumbled upon. He could see nothing through the haze that obscured the camp, he strained his eyes to see more. He felt a presence behind him, and as soon as he began to turn, he was met with a rifle butt to the face. Then darkness came.

He awoke sometime later, groaning and rubbing his aching head. Red looked around the room he was in, it was dark, but thankfully enough light was streaming in for him to see, but only just. He had been stripped of his weapons and body armor, leaving him only in his warm underclothes. "Where..."

"A holding cell." A bored sounding voice interrupted. Red walked towards the source of the voice, emanating from the wall in front of him.

"I didn't think Heat took prisoners." Red replied flatly.

"We don't. You aren't a prisoner. You're a contestant." The voice stated with a small chuckle.

Red was confused to say the least. Contestant... Contestant in what?"

"Why don't I show you? Direct your attention to the front of the cell." With that, a small piece of the cell slid away, letting Red see what was transpiring outside. He could see a circular arena with snow lightly dusting the ground inside. He heard the cheers of the crowd that he had not noticed before. As he watched he saw a stallion, running as fast as he could. He held in his hand a scimitar. Red briefly wondered where one would get something such as that, but this thought was a fleeting one, as he watched what looked to be a laser pierce the stallion's chest, watching him collapse to his knees and look at the hole in his torso, before falling flat on the ground.

The voice spoke up once more. "Hm. Looks like you're next. Hope you survive longer than that last contestant."

Red could hear the disgust in his voice, he knew that if the stallion outside his cell had it his way, he would have killed him already. He heard the sound of soldiers chanting for the next contestant to be released. Iron gritted his teeth as he felt the containment cell he was in begin to move towards the arena, before it sped up and threw him facedown into the middle of the snow dusted arena. He groaned and staggered to his feet. He had noticed before, but it occurred to him that his captors had left all of his winter gear on. "I guess Heat isn't cruel enough to do that..." His thoughts were interrupted by a loud thud against the ground, as well as another following it shortly after. "What the-" He turned around to see what had been making the sounds. There stood a towering metal behemoth, looking down at him. It was apparent however, that this being was not purely mechanical in nature.

He could see the soldier within it, grinning down at him from his position within the mech suit. Snow lightly dusted the surface of the armored suit, the frost on the suit quickly dissipating with every slight movement it took. Red took note of its armaments, for on one arm lied what was very clearly a large blade. On the other, a strange piece of technology; Red could only assume it was what created the laser he had seen earlier from his cell. He pried his eyes away from the Steel behemoth before him to quickly survey his surroundings. Corpses littered the ground, some fresh, others already in the later stages of decomposition. Broken weapons lay strewn about the circular arena, and it was then that Red realized he had no chance of fighting with his bare hands. His thoughts were stolen from him once more as a loud noise what sounded like crackling electricity erupted from the suit's left arm, along with a white hot light in the barrel. The noise stopped abruptly as the laser fired, and Red only narrowly avoiding it by diving out of the way.

There was no time to waste, Red felt along the ground, finding a large, flat chunk of metal with a convenient piece bent out of the center he could use as a handle. As he hefted the piece of metal, he noted its weight, it would be a chore for most stallions to move something such as this. But Red wasn't most stallions, he held it with relative ease in his right hand, the large piece of metal easily covering his right arm and most of his body if held correctly. He quickly turned again to face the imposing metal mech that had already closed the distance between them with a single step, bringing his large blade down on Red, who held up his impromptu shield to block it. To his surprise, the metal held, albeit bending slightly. Red could feel the impact through the shield, leaving his arms sore. Another blow came, denting the shield again and battering Red's arms once more. "I can't keep this up much longer, he'll crush me..." He peeked out over the shield and saw the soldier going through the motions to wind up another blow. As it came down Red dived out of the way again and rolled to his feet. Upon seeing the mech's blade dug into the ground, he quickly ran up and slammed the edge of the shield into the joint that connected the mech's arm and forearm, severing it with surprising ease. He quickly ripped out the blade, taking it for himself to use. "I'm a regular knight of old aren't I..." The soldier within the suit growled, using his left arm to smack Red into the wall of the arena and stand up once more, wires hanging freely from the space where the suit's right arm used to be.

Red gasped for breath on the ground, the impact from slamming into the wall had winded him, and he was certain he heard something break when he hit the wall. Upon trying to stand, his thoughts were confirmed, when he put weight on his left leg, pain shot up it. The impact had broken his left leg and there he stood, leaning on the salvaged blade to support him. His ears perked as he heard the familiar crackling electricity sound. Looking up, he saw the mech charging up the laser on his arm. Red waited for the right moment, and...

The sound died out again and the energy in the barrel ceased for a second. Red dived away again, landing roughly on his left shoulder with a grunt. He had felt the heat from that blast, and the winter gear on one of his legs had been singed away. "Too close..." His left leg still throbbed with pain. He had landed on it as well as he dived away, only serving to intensify the pain. He staggered to his feet, his breath creating small clouds of vapor in front of him. He heard the sound of rapid metal thuds against the ground and looked up again in time to see the left arm of the mech before it sent him skidding across the ground of the snow covered arena. He had definitely heard another snap, the pain took a minute to reach him, but when it did, it hit him in the chest, his ribs had been broken from the blow this time. More rapid metal thuds, and another sound of metal hitting flesh and cloth, and another sickening crunch could be heard in the arena.

The crowd had fallen silent now for a moment, eager to see what was most likely the end. The mech had shattered Red's right shoulder and he could no longer hold his makeshift shield, dropping it to the ground as he collapsed to his knees and rested his weight upon the blade he had taken from it. Time seemed to have slowed down for him, as he looked up and saw the mech, and the arm cannon pointed directly at him, the telltale glow of the energy and the heat emanating from it was almost surreal. He looked around and saw the cheering crowd, eager for blood, the falling snow lightly gathering on the ground and being blown away with the light winds that drifted through the arena.

"So... This is it for me...?"

His breath was slow and labored, his chest rising and falling slightly with each breath he took, the vapor disappearing just as quickly as it had begun when it hit the cold air. He closed his eyes and tilted his head up, flakes of snow landing on his face and melting away instantly. His thoughts wandered to those of his friends he had made in his squad, of the fond memories they shared. He remembered his life before the disaster, how he had met his wife, their marriage, the time they had spent together, and the memories they had made with each other.

"I didn't think it would end like this..."

He slowly opened his eyes and looked up at the gray, cloud-covered sky that once shone blue, and that the rays of the Sun that would dance lightly upon the lush, green grass on a perfect day. Of better times, he thought. He wondered if the world would ever be the same as it had before. Still looking at the sky, he smiled softly.

"Moya lyubov... I'm coming home..."