Charming Masquerade
For Jack and Stu, It was way too early for you to leave us.
Smoke plumed out of the three grand towers that were erected upon the building, the tiles blackened with soot. A blue Pegasus stood on top of the building, wings spread out wide in anticipation. The pegasus raised her front hooves above her head, and dove off the end of the building.
The sensation of flying was not unusual for a Pegasus, they were quite calm in the skies where they were at peace with the world and all that was in it, or so it used to be. Moments after taking to the sky, alarms began to ring within towers scattered between buildings alerting the city guards to look upwards and spot the Pegasus.
“Oh ponyfeathers” The Pegasus muttered to herself as the guards pulled sleek metal barrels off their backs, lifting the hairpin with their magic and aiming at the Pegasus in the sky. A horrendous sound emerged from the iron tubes the guards fired, and shining silver bullets sped towards the Pegasus, she banked right avoiding the two shots as they sailed right through where she was, the third missed completely. Having a narrow escape from the first rounds, the guards fired again, readjusting their aim as more guards became aware of the Pegasus in the sky, drawing their own weapons and taking aim. The area was soon filled with the crackling sound of rounds firing upwards at the Pegasus, who by the edge of things had been successful in avoiding the bullets so far. Looping round to avoid drawing more guards into the situation, had proved to be an huge mistake, as several of them who had before given up the chase, had grouped together in anticipation of the Pegasus’ return. A mechanical sound as loud as thunder caused many of those on the ground to flinch in shock as several guards unleashed hell upon the Pegasus. Breaking all speed and heading into a straight dive she avoided all the rounds bar one. A single shot, that had gone way off aim due to a dodgy design in the barrel, had spun out too early and sunk perfectly to hit the Pegasus in the wing, fracturing it in-half.
Hitting the ground in a backstreet alley, she took a look around to regain her bearings, then shook the dirt off. With her wing out of action she needed to get to one of the safe houses or she was dead meat. The barking of voices from one side left her with no choice but to leap into a full gallop in the other direction. The guards who had been firing at her knew the streets of the city and tracked her down moments after the shot hit. Chasing after the Pegasus, they followed after her, pushing anypony or anything out of the way. She was getting nearer to the place, making a fast dash towards the alley, she’d shaken off a good portion of the guards who were chasing her. Making a dive into a nearby hay bale, she hid until the sound of the guards passed and they continued down the path. She was safe for now. Letting lose a sigh of relief, she headed out of the hay bale to find a scrawny young guard staring at her in shock, not good.
“She’s here! I've got her here!” he began to shout, acting on pure instinct. She turned around and bucked the guard into an apple stand across the street and ran into another alley.
After vaulting over wall and landing on the other side. She then began looking around for what she needed, what she didn't see was a couple of guards that had headed round the block and cut off the alley, weapons prepared to shoot, she turned and saw them standing there with smug grins on their faces. She let out a groan of defeat.
A single guard pulled the blue Pegasus across the stone floor, past the wooden cells towards the end of the block where he pulled her inside and chained her to the wall. Water was all she could remember next. Buckets and buckets or ice cold water was poured over her continuously until her blue coat began dripping, and the paint that covered it formed into the murky water on the floor. A now orange Pegasus stood, drenched with water shaking from the cold. A single unicorn walked into the room, removed his overcoat and proceeded to light a pipe, all the time staring intently at the drenched Pegasus.
“Well, I don’t know about you. But I find today to be a tidal wave of good news” he said, chuckling at his own bad joke. “Oh but I must digress, our profit margins are through the roof this quarter, we’ve seen production rise to an all time highest since we began cracking down on you and your ways. It seems your support is falling apart.” The Pegasus continued to stare at the ground, aggravating the unicorn to an extent. Gesturing towards the guard, another bucket of water was chucked upon the Pegasus, causing her to flinch at the cold only to receive a kick in the chest for her reaction. “ I'm going to tell you this now, ponies are coming to accept that this is the way of life now, nothing you can do is going to change that anytime soon.” The Unicorn glanced over at her wing, the wing itself was folded in the wrong direction, and stood out limply from her body with bone stuck out of the joint, giving it a harsh prod with his hoof caused the Pegasus to recoil in pain and fall onto the floor. “So then, Scoot-a, Scootaball was it? argh, who cares. Do you wish to give up the fight?” pulling herself up from the floor, she moved the hair off her face and growled;
“My name, Is Scootal-”
“ Didn't get that.” The unicorn replied.
“My name, is Scootaloo. And I'm not giving up, not until you all are where you belong.” The unicorn stared long and hard at the Pegasus, took another glance at her wing and let out a small smirk as a devious plan came to his mind.
“Laceration damage around the wing will cause exposure to the area around you, In this kind of environment chances are it’ll be infected.” The smirk turned into a full blown grin towards Scootaloo stared impatiently at the Unicorn. He gestured towards a bell which the guard rang, a few seconds later two Earth ponies entered the room, each wearing a hospital get up. “It looks like the wound upon your wing is getting worse, It think we should treat this in a worst case scenario.” realisation dawned upon Scootaloo as she clenched up and backed away from the approaching ponies, who with the assistance of several guards pulled her down onto an operating table the stretched out the wing for operation.
Screams of fear were all that rung down the corridors as the operation commenced.
