Red and Black 2

Rekka skid to a stop at the very door of the tall building, finding a whole pile of desks and used mattresses lining either side of a rotting wooden slab. The scents of mold, rot, mildew, and cheese filled the air. "May've found a fracking crack den," he muttered, craning his neck to look behind himself as his group caught up to him. "Quickly, and efficiently. Last pony alive in there gets the interrogation ritual."

Yuuki, Tenmei, Nagare, and Koto answered in unison, "Hai!" Rekka nodded and turned back to the door before lifting his blaster. His horn glowed, and the orb glowed brighter before a runic circle materialized in front of him and conjured a golden beam that slammed into the door and set it ablaze. When the circle faded and his leg dropped once the beam dissipated, the door then turned to ash, allowing entry.

Rekka didn't even take one step forward as a very fat unicorn stallion bumbled in to block what was left of the door. He had a dirtied yellow coat with patches of white here and there, and a greasy mane with more grey hairs than he could count. The two stared off before the fat slob tried and then proceeded to mangle, "Konishiwat."

Rekka mutely lifted his blaster again, and promptly fired the fat pony in the face with another laser beam, adding the scent of burning flesh to the air in the process. Once the beam cleared away, it revealed that the stallion was now lacking a full cranium and a good length of his neck.

The headless stallion fell over, his cauterized neck stump sizzling and smoking. The group snorted and filed in, trotting over his corpse to find molding hallways, one of which was smoking in places, very likely from Rekka's volley.

The other two, stretching to the left and right, remained untouched for the moment. "Remind me to come back here with a bomb one of these days," Rekka hissed, turning to look at the halls that weren't sizzling here and there. Already ponies were gathering in those halls, if only to see what the fuss was about.

Various overweight, poorly kempt ponies sloughed their way out of the rooms strewn about, eyeing the damage and the newcomers with wary gazes. One made the mistake of bringing a small doll with him. A life-sized, foal-shaped doll hewn of sullied yarn, crafted in the likeness of Scootaloo. Yuuki turned to that pony and growled like a jaguar before throwing her yo-yo at him, hitting him in the face and sending him bowling over his fellow ponies before she flicked her tarsus to reclaim her weapon.

"Bakana hito?" Koto seethed as another doll-bearing pony, one that had a mockery of Sweetie Belle, decided to try and amble forward in a pitiful attempt to confront her and her group.

"Mmm… if you were but little shota and lolis, we'd be more… open," the ambling pony snorted, donning a dejected frown. "You guys are a little too old for our liking."

Rekka responded by lifting his leg and giving that pony, and those who lingered in the hall behind him, another hefty helping of laser beams. "You foal-fondlers have zero chance of seeing the sun rise again. Just surrender and we'll make it quick," he warned, his tone dripping with equal parts anger and shame.

Unfortunately for them, his comment may as well have fallen on deaf ears. The pony who held the Scootaloo plushie staggered to his hooves and scowled at the group. "Listen here, baka, I don't know who you are to think you can just trot in here and raise hell at us when we did nothing wrong, but you can't just stride in here like you own this wonderful place!" he yelled, and for a few seconds silence hung in the air.

Then Rekka turned to him and lifted his blaster once again. "You're right—in that we don't actually own this place. But that doesn't matter much to us, because we're the cleaning crew," he snarked, right before firing another beam that slammed clean into the pony's barrel. The attack incinerated more flesh and came out the pony's tail, before it hit the less fortunate souls behind him and roasted them in vital places. As the beam faded, leaving no more than a smouldering head and legs that remained in place for some seconds, he shook his head.

"I'm amazed you could pronounce the term 'baka' without mangling it," he added as the head and legs remembered that gravity was a thing and promptly fell to the floor in a heap. "Yuuki, Tenmei, take the hall to the right. Nagare, Koto, go left. I'm going upstairs…" The group split as instructed, and Rekka simply trotted down the smouldering hall without bothering to look into any of the rooms he passed on his way.

Going down a few feet, though, made him realize something. He found himself staring at the end of the hall. His eyes narrowed. "Joy, I take the dead end…" Rekka grumbled, letting his horn ignite once more. A golden glow embraced the wall before him, and for a moment nothing else happened. But then he applied pressure to the wall, just slightly, and jumped back with a startled yelp as it crumbled before him to reveal a massive hole that lead to another street.

"Yay, the place is falling apart," he snorted sarcastically as he started to trot to the hole. He stopped right at its frame and peered out, looking left and right before noticing a rusted metal slab with slats that tried to pass off as a ladder a few paces away. Looking up enabled him to see a fire escape covered with more desks and mattresses, complete with a metal door. "Figures. Oh well, nothing I can't handle." He clambered out of the hole, turned to the escape, stood up on his back legs and aimed his blaster up, using his left foreleg to steady his weapon.

It took him a few seconds to gather another charge for his next volley, if only because his back legs started trying to give out the very moment he went upright. The instant he fired was the instant he fell flat on his ass, grunting as a stray pebble from the wall managed to scratch him on the dock of his tail. As a result, the volley missed his intended target, but it managed to incinerate a flying red-and-black pegasus overhead.

"Ecchi, I should've…" Rekka began before he noticed the smouldering leftovers of the pegasus he'd managed to hit. The corpse descended rapidly and struck at the clutter that surrounded the fire escape's exit with enough force to send at least half of it over the edge—toward him. He scrambled up and rushed to the hole for cover, and in a matter of seconds the clutter landed right where he was.

Before Rekka could turn around to see if the fire escape was de-cluttered enough for him to scale, he heard ponies shouting from the other halls his friends were sent to scour. "That blue one's going upstairs to the Maximum Fun Chamber! Stop her!" a stallion cried out, panic all but dripping from his voice. That was followed by the sound of bone caving in, and then a series of loud thuds.

"The purple bitch tripped me! Somepony pin her down!" another yelled, before any further utterance was cut off in a gurgling choke.

"Maximum Fun Chamber?" Rekka parroted, turning around and trotting out to look back at the fire escape, finding that the clutter overhead was now fairly manageable for him to handle. "Oh, that can't be good…" Deciding he'd wasted enough time, he hurried to the ladder and jumped on before rapidly climbing it to get to the bloody fire escape. When he reached it, he was greeted by a runic circle carved into the door itself.

"Really?" Rekka scoffed, lighting up his horn once more before his aura embraced the door to throw the runes into a stark relief. Looking more closely, he saw that they were messily scratched on, and some even were scribbled out altogether. Once he was sure his eyes were working correctly, he let his magic wrench itself into the runes.

The runes began emitting purple sparks, before crystallizing and then breaking away. Rekka's eyes widened at the anomaly as mana of a violet hue pulsed across the door. "Oh no… they've got a captive. And a smart one, too… but how? They're…" He tried to make sense of what he was seeing, but his thought processes halted momentarily as the door swung open of its own accord, giving one last pulse before going dead still.

What he saw beyond that door had his blood boiling. It was a single large room, filled with dead mares and foals. Some sported glazed eyes and very fresh white splotches, indicating they'd only recently passed. Others decayed, and their stench wafted through the room like a cloud of poison.

Amidst it all, however, stood one lone mare with a book-and-pentagram cutie mark that looked more like a teenager. A pinkish, emaciated unicorn with a light purple mane and tail, sporting a cap on her head with a crescent moon hanging to one side. Her horn glowed with the same purple light that pulsed across the door, and as she turned to regard Rekka with a reddish-amethyst gaze, she gave a sputtering cough and her legs buckled a little. One side of her mane sported a red bow, and the other had a blue bow.

The two stared off for a second. The mare's eyes widened, and she started to stumble over to Rekka on shaky legs. "Anatahadaredesu ka?" she asked in a hoarse, very weak voice.

Rekka rushed over to her as she tripped before she could reach him. "Tomodachi," he replied, lighting up his horn to pick her up with his magic. He turned her around before putting her on his back, letting her rest in a way that her head was next to his neck. "Namae wa?"

The mare gave another sputtering cough, but then she smiled. "P-Pachurī…" she replied.

"Patchouli? Ooooh, this'll be interesting…" Rekka craned his neck to give her a friendly smile. Her eyes brightened, and at a very sluggish nod, he turned to the fire escape and quickly made his way out. He descended with haste, but not too fast, lest he jostle Patchouli a little too much for comfort. "I need to get her to Shining, pronto. She needs food, water, and a fracking blanket."

Once he was on solid, dirt-based ground again, he turned to look at Patchouli again. She looked at him before turning away, lifting a hoof, and coughing into it. "What did those freaks do to her…" He turned to the hole he made as hoofsteps reached his ears, and sighed as he found a bloodied Koto and Nagare approaching him with frowns on their faces. "Time to face the music…"

Both of his companions turned to regard Patchouli as Rekka cantered to them. They gaped upon getting a lovely view of her current condition. "Are all of the… things in this building dead yet?" Rekka asked, garnering their attention with his query. Koto nodded, and Nagare blinked before turning to let his viridian gaze fall on Patchouli again.

Just then, Tenmei and Yuuki rounded a corner from the hall they claimed and rushed over to see what was going on. "We have another victim of the plague. We need to report to Shining, pronto," Rekka announced, his tone firm and glum.