S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Discordant Emissions

The journey begins

I felt the searing pain in my rear right flank before I heard the report of the gun, I fell, tumbling forward as the wound caused me intense pain as I rolled. Knowing that another shot could be coming soon I took cover behind a tree and started to apply a bandage to my flank, it would only stop the bleeding for now and help to prevent it getting infected. If I just hobbled out to continue my escape I would be little more than practice for the sniper watching my position, it was time to summon my book. Taking out the white artefact in my bag I cast the spell that summoned my book of runes, peeking around the corner slowly and gauging the distance between me and the small wooden tower that I thought the sniper would be in I prepared to cast my spell, as I started the casting process, the required runes from my book floated out as magic, and moved towards my body, becoming almost like luminescent white tattoos on my coat, becoming more numerous as I continued compiling them into the right order for the spell I wanted.

From the snipers tower he had seen the tree the pony had taken cover behind and had seen the pony peek at his position, he would have taken the shot that would have killed this pony if it wasn’t for the gust of wind that had picked up and ruined his calculations, a similar gust of wind had made the first shot go wide and wound the pony in the first place. Now the pony was just behind the tree, that didn’t matter, he had plenty of time to wait for the pony to move, but what was that mysterious bright white glow coming from behind the tree.

I had finished the preparation and gotten the runes together, my body now was covered with bands of white runes that told their own story about the nature of the spell and what they added to it, nopony other than me could read them though, and they read accuracy, fire and destruction. There was a bright flash and loud explosion as I put away the white artefact and brought out its inverse, casting the spell to desummon my book, I injected my leg with a painkiller from one of my first aid kits and looked at the stand that now lay in scattered pieces. The spell was really just a stone that I had thrown, after infusing it with some of my magic and the runes, with a quick peek around his cover, I knew the sniper was waiting for him but he wasn’t quick enough to pull the trigger, the bullet hole in the ground behind where my head would have been. With the pain in my leg dulled to just an annoyance I hobbled off down the road, getting out of sight as quickly as possible before the bandits could see him when they went to check the explosion.

The wound in my flank wasn’t as bad as I had originally thought; the angle was high enough, the calibre large enough, and the shot was low enough for it to be a straight through, if the bullet had stayed in it would be causing further damage as I limped back to the camp. Although, the wound was still bleeding, and the bandage wasn’t enough to stop it, only to stem the flow, the trail of blood would attract any mutants in the area, I didn’t have much time before something found me and I just hoped it wasn’t one of the bigger threats of The Zone. I must have jinxed myself, as I finished my internal thought about my hopes for a smaller threat I heard the bloodcurdling screech emitted by a bloodsucker when they find their pray. Bloodsuckers looked like they could have once been ponies, but now they only had the shape of one, while their outward appearance was a mix of greens and browns, as if they had been taking a swim in a swamp before coming to do for what they were named, along with their glowing red eyes, the real nightmares that came with facing a bloodsucker were their ability to seeming go invisible until they reached a close range on their target, and their mouth, which looked like normal like a ponies until it split down and across the middle, peeling back to reveal their razor sharp teeth that they used to cut your flesh and open wounds that bleed heavily.

“It really had to be now of all times didn’t it” I said to no one in particular, cursing The Zone for its timing and it’s creations under my breath, as I looked around, lifting my gun with my magic trying to see the slight shimmer that was the only chance of seeing a bloodsucker before it pounced on you. There to my right, I saw a slight movement with the peripherals of my vision, turning to face where I thought it was going to attack from, I readied myself to react as quickly as possible. A twig snapped underhoof behind me, spinning quickly just in time to have the opening jaws of a bloodsucker fill my vision, unable to react in time and fire upon the bloodsucker there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it. Then there was a flash of white and I was looking at the forest around the road again, I looked to the ground in front of me to see a white pegasus climbing off a limp bloodsucker, the pegasus took a piece of cloth out of her, I guessed it was a her from the body shape, pack and used it to clean a blade that she had attached to a bracer on her foreleg. It appeared she had flown in behind me and stabbed the bloodsucker in the throat as it showed itself to attack me, the speed, while in flight to accurately find an instantly fatal spot to stab in the short time between when a bloodsucker becomes visible and when it has already started to drain a pony was phenomenal, either this pegasus was incredibly lucky, or she was a very dangerous pony to fight with.

“You right there stalker?” said the pure white pegasus, her coat and flowing white mane seemed nearly to illuminate the area around her, she also seemed to have a custom made flak jacket, not even my military issue one has that many pockets not to mention that it was as white as her coat, the only things that weren’t white about her were her sapphire blue eyes, her weapons, and her stopwatch cutie mark.

“As right as anyone is after being shot, then nearly feasted on by a bloodsucker” I replied taking another look at the bloodsucker on the ground as I put my rifle back in its place on my war reign.

“Oh you were shot? Do you need any medical attention?” said the pegasus rushing to my side, just now noticing the bandage it seemed.

“It’s still bleeding a little bit but it can wait for now, I’ll get it sutured at the camp when I get there” I said as I looked at the pony, to have the skill to do what she did to the bloodsucker, she didn’t seem to be such the caring type.

“Nonsense, I have the right thing to deal with the bleeding here with me” she said as she went into her pack, I half expected her to have a sewing kit in there, but instead she pulled up an artefact I recognized as a flame, a very rare artefact that reduced bleeding at the cost of a considerably high rate of irradiation as far as artefacts go, but then to my surprise she also took out a bubble to combat the radiation of the flame, the result was that the rate at which the radiation decreased was higher than the rate of increase. Just by putting the artefacts close to my body the bleeding was beginning to slow dramatically, when we were both satisfied the bleeding had stopped was when she broke out the sewing kit and sewed the wound shut as quickly as she had killed the bloodsucker.

“Thank you for letting me use your artefacts to heal my wounds, My name is Midnight Shade and my stalker name is Spe- Shade” I said holding the two artefacts out for her to take and put in her bag while almost probably getting myself on the receiving end of her blade.

“No problem, you can keep them, I have plenty of money and artefacts that I don’t really need them, where as it seems like you don’t have much if anything. My name is Swift Strike, I’m one of the teachers at the camp but I only teach a select few, my sort of blade play and speed is dangerous to myself as much as my target, round the camp I’m known as Santa, you can refer to me as whichever you please. Your stalker name, you were about to say a different name before you changed your mind, why did you change and what were you going to say first?” said Swift as she motioned me to follow her back towards the camp.

“I’ll explain when we get to the camp with the assistance of a couple friends, otherwise you may react poorly.” I said as a promise that she’d get her answer but not while I couldn’t have Night and Coach backing up my story.

She seemed to deliberate wether to let it go until we got to the camp or to make me tell her now

“Fine, if you think your name will cause a hostile reaction upon hearing it then I’ll let you explain yourself with your friends, don’t think you can fight me though if that’s your plan, also you’re leading now then” she said as she walked behind me. Being only suspected of evil intentions was a much better result than being convicted of them.

“That’s fine, whatever you feel is best until you hear the explanation, although I am sorry that I have to make you wait but you should know the two people that I want to help me explain, and should know how good one of them is at her judgement of people” I said continuing the walk to the camp, we should be there pretty soon, she didn’t seem to want to reply to me, after all, she didn’t trust me anymore, and if I didn’t accidentally start saying Spectre in the first place then she would still trust me it seemed.

As we reached the border of the camp I heard a shrill scream of joy before I saw Night bouncing up the road towards us.

“Santa is here!” She repeated with each bounce as she made her way towards us. I heard movement behind me as swift

“So who are your two friends? You aren’t leaving my sight so I’ll send Night to get them” hissed Swift in my ear while putting on a normal cheery expression.

“That’s the thing, Night and Coach are the two that will help me explain” I replied as the dark blue pony hopped closer before coming to a stop a couple meters in front of us, then she wasn’t there and the weight of a pony appeared on my back again, except this time she kicked the wound on my flank when she jumped up, the contact caused the pain that was only dull to come back as if I had been shot again and I fell to the ground bringing Night down to the ground with me. Night was about to laugh as she got up off the ground before she noticed my grimace of pain and saw the stiches.

“Oh you’re hurt! I’m sorry! I didn’t know! How did you get hurt Middy?” said the mare looking over the wound making sure she didn’t reopen it.

“I got shot by a bandit when I went to get some artefacts from that burner field slightly south west of here. Don’t worry though, Santa here had some artefacts that she let me have to heal it, she also sewed it up for me.” I told her to put her at ease as she seemed to be looking at me like I was dying.

“Oh thank you Swifty, but why did you help him like that and let him keep the flame and bubble when you’re ready to strike him if he does something wrong?” said Night, looking up to the white pegasus.

“Because there’s something he isn’t telling me that he said you would be able to help him explain, as for why I let him keep them, because it’s what I do.” She said with a shrug, was I the only one surprised by the fact that Night knew what artefacts she had given me, or what she was trying to hide?

“Yes, yes you are Middy. As for his name Swift his real one is Spectre, but he’s not the Spectre we’ve heard about, that Spectre stole this Spectre's name.” Said Night looking back at me as she seemingly read my mind and gave the explanation I wanted to give to Swift.

“I see. You were right to leave the explanation to Night, Shade, I would have killed you where you stood if you had tried to explain it yourself, now you do get to keep those artefacts. Also why are you packed for going on an adventure Night?” said Swift Strikes looking at the various packs and weapons the earth pony mare had.

“We’re going to try and find the Spectre we know so we can figure out what he did to cause the emissions to increase in range and be able to kill ponies outside the perimeter now, Shade’s coming too.” Said a voice behind me, I turned around to see Coach behind me with all of his gear as well.

“So you two are ready to leave?” I asked my two companions and they both nodded at me “Good I’ll just go see the medic and get him to cast a healing spell-“

“We don’t have a medic with that sort of ability here at the moment, you’ll just have to push through it until we find one that can” said Coach

“Really? This isn’t going to be a fun walk” I sighed grimacing at the thought of how painful it’s going to be to walk until we find a proper medic. “Fine, I suppose I’ll just use another painkiller and hope it works until we find a medic then, I shouldn’t take anymore for a day after this one.”

“And you think you’re ready for a foray into the deep zone? If I didn’t join you three on this journey Celestia knows where you would end up” said Swift, who with her valuable artefacts has shown that she’s been quite deep and survived well enough.

“Oh now it really is a party!” exclaimed Silent Night, “we can train while we’re travelling can’t we swift?”

“Of course we can, are you getting better with your blades?” Said Swift, taking to the air in excitement.

“Probably as good as you’ve been getting with your movement” replied Night, who’s mane and tail had started to appear to inflate and she looked like she might float into the air beside the pegasus.

“Ok ready to move off then?” I said after I finished injecting more painkillers into my flank and feeling the pain fade into a dull heat rather than a searing roar. Everypony nodded and turned and followed Swift who took point of our small band as we started our journey into the centre of The Zone, and our search for Spectre.

We stopped momentarily to choose the best path into the centre, at the moment it seemed like we would need to pass through Garbage first as the other ways around from the camp would add days to the journey which none of us really wanted. So we decided that the best path would be to go through Garbage and hopefully avoid the bandits in the area, as Garbage was a hub for bandits to do whatever it is bandits do in their free time. In our way to Garbage was another roadblock much like the post I had set aflame earlier in the day.

“I count eight bandits minimum, probably more inside that building to the right of the roadblock, three snipers in the tower on the left of it.” Said Coach as he put his binoculars away.

“I can take out those snipers from here with a spell if you can get me at least a good guess of the range” I said, finding a suitable stone and taking out my white artefact and summoning my book.

“A spellbook? Can’t you remember your spells or something?” asked Swift looking at me, “by the time you find the spell you want I could walk back to the camp, find a sniper, and pick them off myself”

“It’s not a spellbook, It’s a runebook, something only I can use” I said motioning to my cutie mark of runic circles and runes, “this will only take a minute, I already prepared a few of the runes I’d need earlier today”

“Ok, let’s see what you can do, if this fizzles I’m not too sure I want to go into the centre of The Zone with a unicorn that can’t use his magic properly.” Said Swift watching as I started to draw the prepared runes from my book.

“I estimate the range to be roughly 80 meters, give or take a meter or two.” Said Coach looking at the sniper nest with his binoculars again. My runes were flowing a lot faster than they were earlier today because of the preparations, and by the time Coach had given me the range my body was glowing with the white light of my runes. What the others would have seen was me pick up a rock and the runes on my body start to flow up towards my horn and out of the tip before shooting over to the rock and taking a similar formation to how they were on my body. Peeking over our cover I readied the rock which now resembled a flaming ball of magma rather than a rock and threw it at the sniper nest before I dropped behind the fallen tree again. A moment later there was a slight surge of heat, and a loud explosion as the rock landed, Swift had a look of disbelief, Coach smiled, and Night looked at the explosion like it was a fireworks display, but because of my use of my spells already today the rock fell considerably short and just a little over half way to the snipers nest. I really should have seen that coming I'm surprised that it didn't fizzle or even worse backfire on me.

“I see, those runes of yours are quite the weapon, you have a weak throw though, but now we start the gunfight, another five bandits have appeared, for there now to be a total of thirteen.” Said Swift as we broke out of cover so we could move closer for a better shot.

"Make that ten" said Night, somehow able to pick off the snipers at range, while by normal standards isn't that far at all because of the poor condition of guns in The Zone, their normal ranges have been severely effected, with an AKM-74/U which was renown for its inaccuracy and for having slightly less killing capacity than its rifle variant the AKM-74. So soon after using my runes, even if it wasn't successful, I wasn’t able to lift my gun properly so I had to make use of the war rein, to fire, while my shooting was much less accurate than if I was using my magic to lift my rifle, it was still just as deadly. We didn’t end up taking cover and firing from the position, the explosion had caused enough confusion amongst the bandits that we just ran in and killed the guards at the gate as we ran past them, even though it landed a considerable distance away from them, the explosion was still quite large, larger than a grenade and as such made the bandits wonder what sort of weapons we had. Night's ability to pick off the snipers from rage made it seem like we had a sniper watching us and that we were more numerous than we really were, the remaining four after the initial shots surrendered, dropping their guns to the floor, hoping we would be merciful. Being stalkers and them bandits, even though we were mortal enemies as such, we took mercy on them, they all seemed rather new to The Zone and more or less didn't seem to be like the usual bandits, after disarming them and leaving each one of the remaining five with a knife each, Swift and Night seemed to have enough between them to supply the whole zone with knives, to defend themselves, we started to move again. Suddenly Night disappeared from in front of me and I heard a gasp from behind me, I turned to find Night was standing on one of the bandits back with a blade like Swift’s at his throat.

“Now now, we let you live because we’re nice and not like you bandits, but if you’re going to be like that I guess I’ll just have to kill you. But this time you get a warning because you have no idea what you’re dealing with here and you look a little green, and don’t think like that, you aren’t faster than me or the pegasus.” Said Night to the bandit she was standing on, I saw a look of extreme terror cross his face when she brought up his thoughts, and again I wondered if she could read thoughts.

“As fast as ever Night, come now, we have more walking to do before we reach Garbage, there will be plenty more bandits to play with there” said Swift before turning and taking point again, and once again Night seemed to teleport back into her position in the line, much to the bandits dismay as the display for freakish speed caused him to feint in fear.