Death City

I would like to start off by saying that this chapter now focuses on Shadow and Dusk as they encounter the new situation that they be facin’! Also, I would like to take the liberty of also saying that the scene as a whole is on a ship, not a mansion. I’m still looking for names of the ship, so if you would be ever-s-kind as to PM me good names that would fit the ship well. It would be better if the name could be a dark feminine name (Don’t ask why, just follow along. It’ll all make sense in the future, trust me) Now, we shall begin the next chapter.

Chapter 33 – Secrets of a Bloody Life

The hallways of the area had been more than just dark. They held a feeling of sadness and despair to them. The entire area as a whole felt as if it were a mansion, only Shadow knew it hadn’t been that. Every now and then the mansion would tilt to the left and then to the right, indicating that they had been on anything besides land. It had been either air or sea.

As Shadow traveled farther down the twist and turns of the hallways, she found more of what seemed to be “artificial enemies”. Just like her previous encounter, they had been the same mutant creatures. Thy limped towards her the same way, charged the same way, and even collapsed the same way… so much for the enemy being “creative”.

After traveling for a bit farther, Shadow had found a large dining hall in front of her. Smoke and fog sank to the bottom of the area as a large chandelier hung from the top of the roof. Dinner tables and chairs had been in the center, but no guests. Even food had been placed onto the tables, but it had looked dry and inedible.

Ignoring that, Shadow pushed herself forward, avoiding the chairs and tables in her way. It had been a rectangular room that had been 15 by 20 meters long. Over at the end of the room had been a large door that opened through the middle. But in order to unlock the door, a certain slip-like key needed to be inserted into the center where there was something that had been like a driving wheel of a ship. It’s what had kept it locked the entire time.

Knowing this, Shadow realized that she had to take a different route for now until she found the key. But she still knew that whatever had been behind that door must’ve been either valuable or as important as to lock it away from every creature ever.

Turning to her right side, Shadow soon found stairs that led upward. The stairs went up a little, then went around the rectangular room till it had been facing the other side, and went on up. While climbing the stairs, Shadow began to think what the point of making stairs that leads into the opposite direction as planned.

Right as she reached the top of the stairs, there had been a small wooden door to her left that she could easily fit through. Grasping the door gently with her hoof, she slowly turned the knob. Right as she turned it, she heard chocking and gaging sounds from across the room. She then knew that she would have to brace herself if she wanted to make it out alive from this hell-hole.

Knowing the time had been right and everything, Shadow quickly kicked the door down with her hind legs and charged in. What she saw had been two of the same enemies before on her left side but on her right had been a different enemy. This one had looked all swell and didn’t have any arms or even a head just legs and a body. In the middle of the room had been two aquarium tanks, yet they had been moldy and contained neither life nor water. The glass of the tanks had even been shattered.

Taking immediate action, Shadow fired quickly at the tow original enemies. It took only a mere few bullets for them to sink to the ground. Turning to the opposing enemy, she noticed that it had been closer to Shadow than it had been before. A lot closer! Moving slowly back, Shadow began carefully firing at the enemy. Turns out that hadn’t been the best idea as the enemy began slowly imploding than all of a sudden it exploded. Blood, or what seemed to be artificial blood, flew everywhere staining the walls, floor, and even bits of Shadow. It turns out when somepony fires a weapon, they’re forced to stand on their hind two legs as they fire it in order to get better perception and aim out of a shot. Since Shadow fired in this method, the blood had gotten in areas a little below her chest, but she didn’t mind. She hadn’t been one of those crazy ponies like Rarity who would freak out from the littlest messes such as dirt or mud.

Ignoring the mess, Shadow trotted along the room until she found the door which had been only a few feet away. Right as she was about to charge into the next room and obliterate any more enemies that lurked around the hallways and rooms, she found a dead pony corpse completely drenched in blood just lying on the floor. It had been where the swelled up enemy stood just before Shadow infiltrated the room.

Leaving the door and approaching the corpse, she noticed that its neck had been completely torn out as a huge gap replaced the area. Shadow could literally see the insides of his neck as she leaned over to take a closer glance at the innocent life lost.

Down at where the chest was, Shadow had found a nametag on the pony. The nametag had been covered in that artificial blood, but could be easily wiped off from a plastic surface. Carefully unclipping the nametag from the corpse, Shadow wiped the blood of with her arm. Not only had the lower part of her body been covered with that artificial blood, but also her right arm too.

Reading the nametag, Shadow could see that it said the following:

DR. M. J. Phyler

Associate Medicine Technology Institute.

C17 Lower Quarters.

“M. J. Phyler,” Shadow said the name to herself before sighing. She put the nametag in her side belt and carried on with exploring.

Heading back to the door, Shadow this time opened the door gently, unlike last time. Entering the area, she noticed that she had been in a hallway with a sharp ninety degree turn at the end of the hallway. Once shadow reached that turn, she turned herself around only to come face to face with another one of the artificial enemies, but this one had been different. This specific one had two very long arms that had been curved and hardened. It even had spikes coming out of its arms too. And to make matters even worse, this creature had been faster than the rest.

Shadow had to act quickly in order to avoid this creature. She quickly held her ground, lifted her gun into the air, and began firing. Sadly, this routine did not work on this type of enemy as it raised its left claw high in the air and brought it down onto Shadows left leg.

Shadow fell to the floor from the sudden event. Some of her own blood began lurking out on the small incision crafted onto her leg, but it wasn’t anything major. Shadow knew she had to get back up or she would be forced to the ground even more and possibly killed by the enemy.

Getting back up, Shadow began slowly backing away from the enemy as she shot. The enemy approached her faster than the rest as Shadow kept firing. Suddenly, there was a clink sound as the gun had run out of ammunition. Turns out that Shadow didn’t have any spare ammo with her as she threw the useless gun right at the enemies face. It made a sound as it would if two metal pieces were to crash into one another. Now that Shadow didn’t have any weapons to fight with, she was going to have to take it old-school. She’d have to use her own bare hooves.

Charging towards the enemy, Shadow ducked her head a little bit, and crashed into the stomach of the enemy. This resulted in the artificial enemy to crash into the wall behind this as Shadow pinned it down.  Shadow knew that any false moves and the enemy would break free, so she gave her full attention and strength to prevent the enemy from escaping. Shadow knew that this fight couldn’t go on for any longer and that it had to end right there and now.

Shadow then tightened her grasp onto the enemy, and with one quick move, flapped her wings, or what had been left of them, at the enemy. Since her wings had been made out of knife-like materials, it had been very beneficial for cutting and slicing. The only downfall: she wasn’t able to fly with wings like those.

The result of this had been the right arm of the enemy literally falling off to the ground. As always, blood leaked out of the enemy as it began to sink to the floor. Its arm began sinking into a puddle of goo as well as the enemy did. It turns out that Shadow didn’t need a weapon after all to defeat the enemies.

Moving on, Shadow noticed an elevator at the end of the hallway. Since there were no doors around and that the elevator had looked clean and useable, she pressed the button to the side, calling down the elevator to her floor. As the elevator door opened, the first thing she checked for was if there were any more enemies hiding around the elevator. She had already encountered enough enemies for one day.

Realizing that the elevator had been empty and contained no creatures hiding around anywhere, she quickly limped into the elevator. The wound on her leg caused by that previously encountered creature prevented her from walking straight.

Inside the elevator, there had been only three buttons: Bilge, Main Cabin, and Control Panel. If anything, the control panel might have some useful information or data as to where Dusk might have been, so Shadow pressed the Control Panel button.

As on command, the elevator began its ascent slowly as the elevator rocked back and forth now and then. Shadow didn’t know how long this elevator ride was going to be, but she could never have braced herself for what had been next.

As Shadow reached the top of the elevator, the doors slowly rolled open. This alarmed Shadow as she knew that she had to be ready to fight anything in front of her. To her surprise, it had been nothing, just darkness.

“Shadow,” A voice called out from the end of the hallway. It had been so familiar to Shadow, yet she couldn’t put her hoof on who had been the caller. “Shadow,” The voice yelled out again, but this time a figure began charging down the dark hallway.

“Dusk,” Shadow began squinting her own eyes in order to see if the figure had been Dusk or not. Right as the figure approached her, Shadow could see who it had been as she ran up to embrace the stallion. “Dusk,” She yelled as she hugged the dark pony. “I didn’t know what happened. I began worrying that you were lost or something.”

“Same to you,” Dusk began stroking the mare’s mane. Unlike before, she now had not only pink hair atop her head, but what also seemed to be a black extension that had been attached naturally to her hair too. Still, the only similarity had been that they both felt the same way: soft and smooth.

Quickly releasing Dusk, Shadow backed away from the stallion just to look at him once more. She searched him to see if he had encountered any artificial enemies along the way too. For some reason, he didn’t manage to have the slightest scratch or drop of blood on him, indicating that he hadn’t ran into any enemies. Turns out Dusk really did have all the luck this time around.

“What happened?” Dusk yelled as he too got a good look of Shadow to see what had been going on. Most of her lower half had been covered in a blood-like substance while there had been a cut along her left leg. Her entire bottom half of her body had been a complete mess.

“Oh this,” Shadow answered back. “It’s just a couple of cuts and bruises here and there. Nothing major, really.”

“Nothing major?” Dusk yelled. It’s everything but nothing major! Here, I know where we can get some healing supplies and wash you off. Come on.” With that, Dusk grabbed one of Shadow’s good hoofs with one of his own and led her down the dark hallways. It was nearly impossible for Shadow or anypony else to see, but Dusk had been a special pony. He had the ability of night vision, allowing him to see in the darkest of areas.

As they both trotted down the hallways, they passed a room with a set of lockers in it, a bathroom, a cafeteria, and everything else, but a hospital room. Finally, Dusk had reached one of the very few hospital rooms aboard the building. Entering it, he found t to be quite larger than expected. It had a bed to the side that could be adjusted in height, a cabinet full of medicine, rolls of paper and bandages, a bottle of alcohol for drinking in order to alleviate intense pains, as well as a sink too. The room as a whole had been a lot cleaner than both Dusk and Ace had suspected.

Turning on the lights of the room from an easy switch to the side of the wall and entering the room, Dusk led Shadow to where the bed had been. Carefully, he helped Shadow onto the bed by lifting her own legs up. The left leg had been bruised enough to move and by now had gotten a little infected.

“Now don’t worry.” Dusk said as he rummaged through the cabinets to see what he could find to stop an infection or cut. “My father had a part-time job as a doctor.” Looking through the medication and ointments more carefully, Dusk soon found what he had been looking for. “Ah, here it is!” Dusk announced before putting the ointment aside. “We’ll need that for later, but for now, we need to clean you up.” With that, Dusk took a clean rag from the corner of the sink and drenched it in water. Taking the drenched rag, he twisted most of the water out until the rag had been wet but not dripping wet.

Taking the rag into his right hoof, Dusk began approaching Shadow who had been laid out onto the bed. Right before Dusk placed the rag onto Shadow, Shadow spoke up.

“Just be careful when you do this, ok?” Shadow asked to Dusk

“I’ll try my best.” Dusk replied.

“Oh, and whatever you do, don’t even thi..” Shadow had been cut off.

“I won’t even try.” Dusk said before placing the cold rag onto the area below Shadows chest. Her entire lower half had been drenched in what seemed to be a blood-like substance, and Dusk’s job was to clean it all off.

Moving the rag slowly back and forth, the blood slowly got absorbed into the rag as Dusk moved it across Shadow’s body. Once he had cleaned the area around the stomach, all that remained was the lower sections of the body that Shadow previously explained to stay clear of as well as the leas and where the cut had been.

“Umm, Shadow. I think there might be a little pro..” Dusk was cut off by Shadow.

“Just make it quick.” Shadow replied. Taking commands, Dusk carefully slid the rag across the lower part of Shadows body, careful not to make eye contact or anything. The last thing he’d want was to be literally ripped to pieces by a dark Pegasus.

Once Dusk finished that, he moved onto the legs, well only one leg to be precise. Moving on to the left leg, Dusk began a conversation. He knew that this would hurt for Shadow, so he tried to get her mind off the pain she would be feeling.

“So, what happened here?” Dusk asked as he swept up all the blood on Shadow’s leg. In place of the blood had been a cut around half a foot length.

“Heh, it was a hay of an encounter with one of those monsters out there.”  Shadow replied.

“What?” Dusk asked as he headed over to where the ointment was as he cleaned out the rag full of blood. “What do you mean, monsters?”

“Turns out there are monsters lurking around here too.” Shadow answered. “Pretty intimidating creatures, if you ask me.”

“Well that’s nice to here.” Dusk said as he approached Shadow with the ointment and placed some across her cut leg as he spread out the ointment. “Let me guess, one of the enemies got to you?” He asked as he put back the ointment into the cabinet and reached for the alcohol on the counter top.

“Pretty much,” Shadow added on. “I would’ve died right then and there if it weren’t for my quick reflexes.”

“Nice to hear,” Dusk said as he picked up a piece of leather lying on one of the cabinets. “Now, what I’m about to do next might hurt just a little more than expected, so I advise you to put this in your mouth.” He said as he handed Shadow the piece of leather. As followed, Shadow placed the leather in her mouth as instructed. “The point of that is to bite onto the leather to let out the stress given to you by pain.”

“Ready?” Dusk asked, looking up at Shadow who had already bitten down onto the leather. All Shadow did was give a hoof up to signal that she had been ready. “Ok, then.” With that, Dusk began slowly pouring that alcohol onto the cut on Shadows leg. The pain had been intense as it literally burned up her hide, but she just went with it. For an odd reason, Shadow liked pain. She enjoyed it. She always took in pain for pleasure, which resulted in making her so strong.

“Done” Dusk announced as he stopped pouring the alcohol onto Shadow’s leg.  “You can spit out the leather now.” He said as he held his hoof up to Shadows mouth. As commanded, Shadow gently spit out the leather, which happened to have intense bite marks imprinted onto it.

“Is it over?” Shadow asked as Dusk went over to the garbage can near the sink and threw out the leather. He then capped the alcohol and placed it over to the side where it originally was in case somepony else needed to use it.

“Almost,” Dusk responded as he reached into the drawers once more and pulled out what seemed to be a thin brown cloth rolled up. “Just one more bit” Dusk began approaching Shadow with the cloth as Shadow began asking him questions.

“Will it hurt?”  Shadow asked in a calmer fashion.

“Did the last part hurt?” Dusk asked back as he unraveled a bit of the cloth. It had been sealed by a pin as he removed the pin and held it in his mouth.

“Not really.” Shadow responded, trying to sound brave.

“Then this will be nothing.” Dusk mentioned before placing the cloth near Shadows leg. “Also, I need one more favor from you. Can you lift your leg for just the slightest second for me?”

As commanded, Shadow had lifted her left leg around a few inches of the mattress as Dusk slid the cloth underneath her leg.

“Good, now keep it there for a while while I do this.” Dusk said as he gently began wrapping the cloth around Shadows wounded leg.

“I thought you said for just a moment?” Shadow had a small smirk on her face as she said this.

“Well, I lied.” Dusk answered as he continued the wrap the cloth around her leg. “Sometimes it easier to tell a lie than it is to tell the truth. Just remember that whenever you are in a situation like this.”

“Sure.” Shadow rolled her eyes.

“Done,” Dusk announced as he finished wrapping a thick enough layer of cloth around Shadow’s leg. It had gone around seven times and had been thick enough from any blood to leak out of the incision. “Now all I need to do is cut the cloth so that it can be kept in place as you move.” Dusk said as he reached over to where the surgery tools had been and took a scissor. It had not only been sharp enough to cut cloth, but also to cut pony hide right off as well.

“But you just said that you had finished moments ago.” Shadow added. “What’s with you today?”

“Well, I’m just tricky.” Dusk replied as he separated the cloth with a simple snip of the scissors. “Just a little something extra you should know about me.” Putting the scissors aside and pinning the roll of cloth together, Dusk reached for a stapler as he approached Shadow once more.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Shadow asked with the smallest bit of fear in her voice.

“Well, it happens to be that there’s no more masking tape, pins, or even paperclips, so the only way to keep the cloth secure is to staple it in.” Dusk mentioned as he separated the top of the stapler from the bottom. “Now, this might hurt a bit, just to let you know. In hindsight, it may have been better to keep the leather rather than to throw it out right away.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” Shadow answered in a calm voice.

“Ok, then.” Dusk confirmed as he approached the end of the cloth with the stapler. Before pushing down on the stapler, Dusk spoke once more. “I’ll try to be gentle as possible.”

“That’s what you said for everything else.” Shadow grew a little impatient from all the hold ups the Dusk had been making. “If anything, it would be most beneficial to just get it over with.”

“Got it,” With that, Dusk pushed down on the stapler as soft as he could. The stapler made a click sound as the staple had been pushed out of it. It went through the cloth and against the skin of Shadow as in nearly went right through her outsides. A few drops of blood leaked out from where the staple had been placed as it stained bits of the cloth already.

“So much for being blood-proof,” Dusk said to himself as he looked down at the blood-soaked cloth. It had only been a few seconds since he placed it on, and yet it had already been covered with some blood. “How does it feel?” Dusk asked as he put away the stapler and turned on the water of the sink as he washed his front hooves.

“It feels better.” Shadow replied as she wiggled her left leg with her hoof.

“Can you walk with it?” Dusk dried his hooves as he turned again to Shadow who had still been on the mattress.

“I don’t know.” Shadow responded. “Here, let me try.” Shadow had carefully launched herself off the bed onto the granite floor as she wobbled back and forth as she tried to gain her balance. As if on cue, Dusk had rushed to her side to prevent her from falling onto the floor.

“Thanks.” Shadow said as she turned to Dusk. “Thanks for everything.”

Dusk blushed at this, although it was hard to tell since his dark coat prevented the blush from being noticeable. “So now what?” Dusk asked the yellow mare.

“Now,” Shadow began. “Now we do what I say.” Shadow reached into her side belt with her mouth and picked out what seemed to be a card. “I found this card a while ago before I got scraped on my leg.” Shadow went over to the counter and placed the card onto the top. Dusk soon followed the mare, helping her keep her balance up.

“What is it?” Dusk began reading the card. It gave the information of the name, type of business, as well as the area of working they had been in.

“It seems to be a nametag of some sort.” Shadow answered. “Apparently when I ran into it, it had been clipped onto a corpse of somepony on the floor, the card had been covered in blood, so I cleaned the blood off myself.  The card soon became visible as I read the info given. It seems that he works in a Medicine Technology Institute somewhere on the lower quarters of this place.”

“Lower quarters,” Dusk said to himself as he began rubbing his chin with his hoof. “That’s the bilge!” He shot out.

“The bilge?” This time it had been Shadow who did the thinking. “When I stepped into one of the elevators of this place. There had been three buttons: one that led me here to this floor, one that led me to where I began, and the last one was towards the bilge. I chose the top floor since I knew that if I searched hard enough, I knew I could find at least some info on where you could have been. Lucky for me, I found you with ought any trouble or anything.”

“But that still doesn’t explain why somepony would build a Medicine Technology Institute all the way down to where the bilge would be?” Dusk asked aloud. “This just doesn’t add up.”

“Maybe it’s not what is seems to be” Shadow stepped in. “Maybe it’s just some sort of trick or trap that’s occurring down there.”

“Do you really think so?” Dusk asked, looking into Shadow’s eyes.

“There’s only one way to find out!” Shadow yelled as she picked up the card and placed it in her side belt. “Come on.” She said as she slowly trotted out of the room. Just as she was about to fall, Dusk rushed up to her side and leaned up against it, helping her regain her balance.

“Thanks, again.” Shadow said. “But you don’t have to keep doing this. I’ll be fine on my own, that is if you trust me.”

“Don’t say anything now.” Dusk stopped her as he put a hoof around the mare. “Right now, you are no condition to fight, or even walk straight! Until you’re healed, I’ forced by my code to keep guard of you. It’s a vow I made a long time ago, and it’s also a vow I will never break.”

“Come on, Romeo. It’s time to go.” Shadow said as she picked up Dusk’s hoof and pushed it off her back. With that, she trotted out of the hospital room with Dusk close to her side. A new objective had been clear to not only her but also Dusk too:

Investigate the ship from top to bottom, no matter what it takes. Everything in life had a reason, and also an answer to go with it, and this ship is no different than life itself, and Shadow and Dusk are going to uncover that reason along with the answer to go with it, even if it kills them.

Done with chapter 33. Let me just start off by saying that the reason I typed up so much in the past few days was because I had been stuck at my beach house the entire weekend. And to make matters even worse, there was no Celestia damn internet! All that there had been was my laptop with Word on it, a couple of TVs, and some microwaved dinners. So in the time being of the weekend, I spent the time just writing away for Death City as well as played Portal 2 and Minecraft till the shit got boring. Still looking for new songs but no new OCs yet.  Not ready for the OCs YET! (Key word: yet). Just to let you guys know, but the reason I keep switching off form scenario’s such as Shadow and Dusk to the rest of the gang is because it is much more amusing than just focusing on one scene for a certain amount of chapters. It brings a lot more variety to the story when I do this. Also, I might even have the next chapter continue focusing on Shadow and Dusk. I still don’t know what I should do, so maybe you guys should suggest what the next chapter it should be on. Should it focus on: A. Shadow and Dusk, B. The group headed towards Spectrum or, C. The group headed towards Queen Chrysalis and her army (note: there is no option D). Now the poll shall begin.

Also, I’d like to take the time to shout out two things. One, thanks to Mister Moneybags for revising this chapter, as well as I’d like to also give  a focus of attention to one of my friends new series of music posted the other day on youtube. His username is Sunlight Sparkle (such irony that his fanfiction account is the same name). I’ve checked out his music, and it’s very lively and worth taking the time to listen to.