Rusted Growth

Chapters

Misunderstanding [unedited "professionally"]
Cold [unedited "professionally"]
Heart Beat Stopper [unedited "professionally"]
Beneath the Bog [professionally and thoroughly unedited]
Arrival [unedited "professionally"]

Misunderstanding [unedited "professionally"]

The trees told nothing but wordless stories of their lives. Whether it be from a small bump in the wood affecting the eerie wind slightly to either emphasize or dull the whistling winds, or from the darkness of their bark that gave personality to their wordless, soulless existences.

It did not matter. They all fell the same. Just like that as Burnt Sun digressed his tangent on trees, a slim tree collapsed onto its side, not forgetting to let out an agonizingly loud and long groan of rustling branches and old bark slamming into the ground, now ripe for dissection. "Jus' a splice o' timber, 'n nothin' else," Burnt assured himself. He had already torn down three trees in a few hours, and by then Burnt Sun had concluded that it was a vacant region, as any white coat or Lunarists would've had him dead to rights at this time. A stupid risk that paid off for Burnt's safety. A worthy trade.

Pressing hooves against the side of the tree to roll it to the small row of four trees that lay, ready to be processed under Burnt's hooves. Not only that, but he had taken it upon himself to attempt to refurbish and clean his saw, which was a magically-powered contraption that wrapped around his hoof with some black straps and velcro that carried a jagged blade within it, spinning whenever the user pumped their natural magic into it.

Or, they can just make it mechanically, like what Burnt has.

Pressing the blade directly onto the tree, momentum halted the saw but pressed the hoof onwards, activating it with a loud roar of mechanical energy. Wood shavings and dust flew into the air like flowers being thrown up around Burnt Sun, his helmet doing a decent job at blocking out the shavings and dust, save for his eye holes. He instinctively narrowed his eyes to minimize the effect as it felt like razor blades were scratching his eyes.

Twisting his hoof downwards so that the blade would keep following it's spherical route, Burnt Sun took it upon himself to reflect on his brief time within the jungle. Was it a jungle? He had no clue. Water was becoming a future concern and his food supply was going strong. Ammunition was alright, and his rifle was mud-crusted from swimming through a marshlands, presumably somewhere in the Davok Territories of the dragons.

"Ay, 'lil Rebel, ye art a feisty colt," he muttered a homeland song to himself as he made it half-way through the first tree.

The time seemed to be dead of the night, and nopony came screaming at him yet. It truly was untouched- and he was alone. He knew it was an idiotic choice to use the dead of night to begin his most industrious and most noisy of works, but since he had been testing his boundaries for hours prior to sleeping and after waking up, he felt entirely comfortable. For he was oblivious to the eventual arrival of Twilight Sparkle and friends, as he did not have knowledge of a town on the outskirts of the jungle, or the inhabitants of the Everfree Forest hearing the loud and ear-grinding screech of the saw.

The split trees rolled opposite of each other, one upwards and the other downwards as the saw had finished its job, breaking Burnt Sun of his reverie. "There ye are," Burnt whispered. Packaging his saw into his pocket for later, he began hoisting the smaller portion first, then he threw it at an open space capable for a temporary home for him to establish bearings. He turned, halting in his steps at the larger portion. It would take an effort, but he could manage, his mental psyche encouraged as he shrugged and began a calculated and meticulous effort to carry, push and roll a large log towards the smaller log.

Three-piece rather than two, he noted.

Pressing a hoof against the chin of his helmet in thought as well as humming to accompany it, he gave a meticulous once-over of the logs. Should be easy to add onto the schematics in his head. Cut off solid beams or make the logs the beams themselves, then lather it with mud to ensure no water can seep through, peel grass like skinning scalps and add it as a sponge layer, and then finish it with- then a part of the log slid off the log itself, slamming onto the grass with an anti-climatic thump.

His head sunk low as he let out an annoyed groan. Okay, he'll need to chop another one down. Another hour and a half to spend doing that. He began pacing towards the campfire, eyes settling on his rifle for a once-in-a-blue-moon decision to clean it. Why not? He was aching from the near non-stop labor of forestry. Maybe even try to clean some of the rust off-

Crunching of branches stopped him in his tracks as his lips instinctively formed an O. His head whipped to look in the direction of the crunching as his body automatically ran for his weapon and then cover, being a nearby patch of shrubbery surrounded by trees.

Another interruption and another reason to add onto Burnt Sun's long list of Days I Wish I Didn't Live Through, if he lived through it.

"Somepony was here," a feminine voice proclaimed. A soft, innocent voice. Thief. Bandit. Burnt Sun flinched back into the bushes even more so than he did before, hooves clutching his unclean rifle like it was his only trustworthy friend. The rustling of branches and leaves became more audible as there was definitely more than one pony in the area.

As if on cue, out came Twilight Sparkle with her convoy of friends, being the Elements of Harmony although they were dirtied and disheveled from the less-than-courteous pathway to his location. Immediately he assumed them bandits until his eyes fell upon Rarity, or a white coat. His breathing quickened and his ears seemed to straighten themselves, his eyes turning to pinpricks as adrenaline began to settle into his rapidly beating heart. Despite them being some sort of nudist colony of bandits, they even had the audacity to add a whitecoat into the mix.

Anything but them.

The bandits, Burnt classified as, began to rummage around the campsite and logging that he was doing, trying to clearly find traces of him. "This just doesn't make any sense," Twilight said with an unsure tone. "Somepony was just here and they left a camp behind? They must be out foraging or.. or something!"

"They could be hidin' from us," Applejack inquired.

"What for?" Rarity grumpily asked, picking a twig from her once luscious mane that was soiled by their trek.

Unbeknownst to them, Burnt had been slowly but steadily raising his rifle to his shoulder, hooves firm as steel and heart thumping of adrenaline-induced blood. He had not been thinking rationally or even with independence, only white coat and kill. Aligning his eye with the sight, he breathed in and out as calmly as possible. Calm, if you want to define 'labored breathing' as calm, which if Burnt thought about it was his regular breathing, as the toxins in the air really do tax on your own lungs and organs. He digressed, his hoof pressing against the trigger as he exhaled.

With a crack of the rifle, the magic-powered round shot out direct towards Rarity... only for her to shimmer purple as the round slammed into the purple aura, sinking into it only to stop dead just before Rarity's coat. The mares screamed, all shuffling about like madponies as they tried to find the way they came from. Half of them stood their ground, with the exception of Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie absolutely losing their minds more so than their stable friends.

Burnt Sun shook his head, his mind failing to process what just transpired. No pony that he's ever seen have that much reaction, life-saving at that, to an instant fatal shot without warning. He sputtered, failing to cock the bolt back in pure shock as he stared at where Rarity once was.

"Wh.. Wh- What?" He stammered, eyes widening even more so than their already terrified state as he began to loudly backpedal and try to run for it. His back turning, Burnt began to wrestle himself out of the bush and began his three-legged jog out of the area, only to be stopped dead short by a warm aura capturing his left back leg, forcing him to the dirt as his heart beat even more so rapidly than ever.

"Hey! Stop!" Twilight Sparkle called out, poking her face through the bushes only to meet the muzzle of Burnt's rifle, and the sight of an extremely scary and intimidating pony. She screamed in instinct, legs rearing upwards and back as Burnt had managed to cock his rifle and fire a wild shot in desperation, breaking the unicorn's focus on holding his leg.

Not only that, but Twilight Sparkle released another yelp as her ears folded and she attempted to cover them with her hooves, giving Burnt Sun just enough time to book it away. The sprint was brief but he could see an oncoming ledge with a bridge not too far away. He just had to clear the trunk, which he bent his legs and began to soar over the trunk with an exhausted grunt...

..Only before feeling his back bear the weight of a speeding bullet as his body bent like a stick backwards, letting out a scream of pain as he body soared forward and was forcibly, thanks to momentum and gravity, thrown over the ledge, his body missing the bridge by a solid two ponies' length.

"RAINBOW DASH! NO!"

Air screamed into his ears and his stomach turned inside out as he released he was falling. He let out a scream of fear and agony as his body fell quickly towards the oncoming rapids that lay at the bottom. He wasn't ready to die, he did not waste two years of his life just to be thrown to his death by some bandits. Terrible bandits at that. His squad would be extremely angry.

"Nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, NAY! NAY!" He shrieked with his voice cracking, arms flailing and body slowly turning at the will of gravity and physics like a ragdoll. The water came at him like a speeding bullet, and he was seconds from feeling it's impact.

"IT'S A COLT!"

A splash and water filled his ears, entering through his throat and sinking itself into his ruined lungs. His foreleg bashed against some sort of rock that was barely hidden by the water. He let out a muffled, gargled scream as he sunk lower and lower into the river, adrenaline fading and his mind shutting down as he entered the unwilling abyss of unconsciousness.

Guess that's karma for the time he took his dead friend Chip Baker's tooth brush to brush mud and bone that didn't belong to him out of his hooves' cracks and nooks.

Author's Note

on a roll, but i have a feeling something in this chapter is missing. it seems fast paced but it's how i want to go for the first few chapters, but something is missing

i'll come back later to see what it's missing, for now have fun reading yall

trivia for Burnt Sun: he hates water

have fun in it, my lad

:heart:

Cold [unedited "professionally"]

Water. There was always something about it that Burnt Sun despised. No, it shook him, rattled him to his very core to think about it. It had some meaning to him at some point to render such a fearful reaction, but his mind seems to shun him away from it.

Waking up in water put this reaction on steroids. Not just any sort of steroids, but the get-out-you'll-die-no-matter-what steroids. Burnt Sun had ignored the (as much as he hated to say it, pun intended) burning pain in his foreleg, that stabbed and jabbed at him and then burned at a high rate of pure pain that he couldn't physically handle it. It was torture, whatever remained or even whatever was not broken in the arm was being flung about in a frenzy of rushing water, unlucky fish and pebbles.

Water pooled in his lungs, and no matter how much he coughed, it just kept coming and coming.

No pun intended, of course.

His body grew weaker by the second as the flurry of water, light and objects flew by him in a quick flash, and the incessant flailing of hooves proved to be nothing short of disappointment. If anything, the aching arm in question at the moment was will screaming it's tail off nerve-wise to alert Burnt that he was currently being utterly ravaged by the elements. No, it certainly wasn't harmonious.

His body flapped and rolled like a fish out of water as he was dragged upon some sort of sandy ground. He eventually came to a rest on his side, sprawled out onto the beach with no grace or expectation. Water pooled out of the improvised air holes of his helmet and out of his ear sockets and even his ears themselves, rolling down his moist and rusted body in a quick flash, his lungs screeching for air as he hacked and coughed water up like a waterfall. The mixture of saliva and dirty water pooled at the side of his helmet once it reached low enough levels to not spill out of the holes in his helmet.

His ragged lungs could take no more, the pesticides and infections having been residing within them inflamed and extremely irritable. He was forced to take a time-out where he was for a while - maybe a day or two. He was going to be stuck here.

All-in-all, not a bad day for Burnt Sun.

Four.
Fucking.
Days.

Burnt Sun would've typically expected no less, but here he was, being half-dead with no actual clue where he was. Damn bandits for ruining his planned construction, damn those bandits for ruining everything, Can never expect somepony to be as lucky as Burnt Sun.

Time to overlook the essentials.

Plopping his bag onto the ground after having a quick session of coughing half a lung out worth of worms that eventually dribbled out of his helmet via chin opening, he unzipped his ruined bag and took a gander inside. Settling on a small rock slab that overlooked the beach where he was previously almost-dead a couple days ago to keep a vantage point, he found nothing within the bag and opted to dump everything onto the rock slab.

Rusted cans met him, possibly impossible to open thanks to a new coat of water to add onto the rust, completely ruined maps that he was drawing along the way but his journal somehow managed to maintain a decent appearance of being somewhat moist but still salvageable. His pencil was cracked and was going to be useless after a couple seconds of writing probably, but he can manage it as he opened up a fresh page to write into.

Writing a single letter, he quickly scratched it away and threw the journal and pencil into one of his many pockets on his ruined attire, patting it for security measures (more or less just to pat it to make sure it stayed, but hey, why not?) and he continued sorting through whatever remained of his pack.

Ruined candy bar, he was going to enjoy that one but he guessed wrong, which is a quick jab of a hoof and a flinging of a ruined piece of candy into the sand. He sifted through the surface of the pile, not noticing a prized possession. "Th'damn- NAY!" He shrieked, voice cracking as he dug through the pile to pull out a broken picture frame with no picture in it.

Burnt shook the picture as if it was a person having a nervous breakdown. "NAY, NAY, NAY!" He cried, until he let out a roar of frustration and he threw the picture into the sand, shoulders shuddering, hooves quivering and eyes watering with natural lubrication rather than river water. Falling onto his haunches, he wept into his helmet, hooves clasp around the facial protection attachment, his head shaking in hysteria.

"Nay.. nay.."

Burnt Sun sat in the blackened crater, body caked with grime, soot and dirt. His helmet wasn't as rusted as modern day, neither was his body as healthy, which if you were to look, you'd take a guess that he would've been a burly stallion had he grew up correctly. The tendons bent as the joint of his hooves hooked around the rifle, holding it to his chest as he laid back into the dried dirt.

He had been like this for two and a half days. Burnt Sun's squad had been ordered to advance forward and provide a small pocket of defense in anticipation of incoming Lunar forces. About fifteen hours before Burnt's realization of the hypocrisy of their own allegiance, but nonetheless he abruptly sat up as a long-coated stallion trudged into his crater.

He had a dull red coat, obscured by an extremely thick and long trenchcoat and a head completely covered by a helmet that was rusted out, with two dull lenses staring at him and ram-like spiked horns curving around from the dome of the helmet and towards the front. He also had a rifle, but slung across his torso like a guitar on a strap.

"S-3, 'ow goes th'position?" The stallion inquired, a giant S-1 emblazoned on the forehead protector of his helmet.

"Nay a thing t'speak of, S-1. Aye reckon S-5 spectated a scout of th'foe not too long ago." Burnt Sun replied, throwing his hoof towards the eastern-most point of his crater, obscured by the steep incline of his crater but would reveal the position of the so-called 'S-5' should he walk across the hump.

"Aye, thanks," S-1 nodded. Dried dirt crunched under his metallic hooves as he scaled the bomb-made wall with little struggle. They hadn't expected reports of a scout until tomorrow, meaning they were behind schedule on their daily runs and defensive positioning.

The Lunarists were coming.

Reaching the top, S-1 dipped his body lower than usual, swinging a hoof archaically at somepony that Burnt Sun could not see, but assumed to be the S-5 pony of the squadron. Sinking back into the dirt, he let out a drawn sigh and closed his eyes. Perhaps when they arrive back to base of operations, he could find himself a giant piece of cabbage to stuff down his throat with onions and possible anchovies if they have the fish in stock. Have it with some flavored water, maybe cherry-flavored?

There came a scream, and a crunch of metal and bone as a body fell nearby Burnt Sun's position, causing a yelp and a small jump from the latter-mentioned. Opening his eyes, they quickly fell upon a lifeless S-1, with a corner of his skull gone. The old and dirty lenses were shattered into small glittering diamonds all across the helmet and the dirt around, and the side of the crater he fell from had a distinct trail of brain matter and blood running down it, not to even mention the top of the crater which had a good portion of skull on it.

Burnt Sun immediately scrambled to his hooves, fumbling with the rifle as he climbed to the top of his side up to his eyes, overlooking the plains below.

There was small, two-stallion pockets of Lunarists advancing behind dead trees, rocks and ruins or even husks of war machines from days past. Fear filling his core, he lowered himself briefly to scream at the top of his lungs;

"INCOOOOMING! LUNARISTS!"

Hell was raised as rifles snapped their shots and screams of agony filled the air, along with the small occasion of an explosion here and there. Sinking low into his crater, Burnt Sun retrieved a framed photo from his pocket, a photo of a dark-coated mare holding him as a foal. A simple photoshoot for future use, that much he could tell, and it was all that he could tell of his days of nonviolence.

He sunk into the crater and hugged the photo, mumbling words of adoration towards it before he pocketed it, picked up his rifle and crawled into the hellfire of chaotic war.

Burnt Sun sat on the sand, staring out into the river. Nary a sound was made, nor did the birds chirp as happily as they once did. Here he was, completely knocked out of swing and utterly alone without a single clue or direction as to where to go. Somewhere along the line he had picked up his waterskin, swishing the meager amounts of water that were still contained within it.

Planting it into the sand, Burnt Sun lethargically brought up his hooves to push the helmet up and out around his head, only to realize about a second in that it was stuck. No, not any kind of being stuck, but legitimately stuck. The patch of cloth in his helmet that he can now no longer feel that was meant to separate the rusted metal from his ears was gone, clearly washed out by the river and he could come up with the deduction that it was going to be stuck around his head for a long, long time.

Inhaling stiffly, Burnt Sun felt his chest constrict and his throat suddenly become parched more so than it already was at the revelation.

He screamed.

Author's Note

tis be cold feelin all alone

Heart Beat Stopper [unedited "professionally"]

"Nary a thought, 'ave ye?" The grime covered tan stallion chuckled, pushing levers and adjusting switches in the war machine that Burnt Sun currently sat in. Torn faux leather seats and improvised metal seats in cramped spaces strewn about the beast of war, the metal creature groaning and growling a cantankerous rhythm that was best to be tuned out. The interiors of the machine were amazing, at least to Burnt, as he had only wondered the ingenuity of ponykind. He sat in a decently sized passenger area where him and three other members of his squadron resided, slightly lower in seating compared to the operators which stuffed their items and inventory around them unorganizingly and unevenly, with claustrophobic tight spaces for movement leading to a driver's seat, secondary gunner's seat to the right of the driver's seat, and sitting in an even higher elevation behind them were the loader and gunner's seat followed by an even higher elevated seat of a crew captain's chair.

The crew captain, a stallion who plucked the smoking pipe out from the seal of his lips, exhaling red smoke through his nostrils that spent no time billowing like a dragon's breath in the air, blowing back into his face thanks to momentum and bouncing around the interiors of the machine. He wore a dirty leather jacket and hind leg coverings, along with an improvised cap on his head with a rusted eagle with a half of it's left wingspan chipped off crudely stitched onto the front. His hooves were calloused, chipped and unappealing from Burnt's sight as he ground them against the hatch of the war machine, or 'APC' as the crew called it.

A cream-colored stallion craned his neck from the tight confines of his gunner's seat to yell at the driver. "Can ye move th'damn tin can any more jaggedly, ye cretin?!"

The driver let out a hearty laugh, quickly flicking two levers back and forth in quick succession to stop and jerk the APC forward, bouncing everypony out of their seats and back into them, some unlucky enough to bash their heads against the metallic, rusted ceiling.

The crew captain banged against the hatch, sending ear-shattering thumps throughout the vehicle. "Cease yer damn children's play, ye fuckin' whorses!"

"Ay, captain, Wheels idn't bein' steady!" The secondary gunner called out.

The APC resumed action once more as the driver, Wheels, chuckled and shook his head. "Art all o' ye critics o' my work, now?! At this hour?! I'll bounce this tin can inta th'river o' death if I have ta!"

Burnt Sun remained silent, ears flickering as he tuned out the banter of the crew, listening to the agonizing rattling of the old and rusted vehicle, along with hollow bumps and thumps it created by itself through the walls and underneath his hooves. As much as he was fascinated by it, he couldn't help but fear it. He couldn't imagine what it must've looked like during the Great War. What would it have been like to be its' original crew? Driving into death.. were they also laughing and smiling as these crazy ponies were? Did they not know they were dead already? Or did they just accept it?

Through one of the reflective mirrors on the sides, he gazed through and spotted the dead planet before him. Plains and plains of dead grass and dirt that was chopped up and tampered with from combat and pony intervention, along with rare sightings of dead, skinny trees that lurched over the dead land like a failing scarecrow. The sun beat down on all of this without prejudice or bias, for it's only bias, ironically, was anything's life. Blinking, Burnt Sun settled himself down on the metal seat, which really was just a metal box welded into the wall, but he dare not to question it. If it can work, it'll work.

Glancing up at the crew captain, who was looking through the many holes of the hatch with cracked binoculars, he grunted to himself and himself only. "Damn."

The crew captain's ear flickered but otherwise he kept still, watching the barren wastelands with a keen eye and sharp ears. Suddenly, he banged on the hatchet against with his calloused hooves and called out in a volume that made everypony flinch. "Cease the APC! We art 'ere!"

The APC immediately stopped, jerking everypony forward once more before the back doors opened up with a creak, letting the four-stallion group of passengers look out into the wastelands. The sun burned their retinas briefly, forcing them to narrow their eyes as they piled out one-by-one into the dirt plains. "'Ave fun, lads!" The crew captain laughed like a hyena, ending it with a long and drawn puff on his smoking pipe just before the back doors closed when Burnt Sun took his last leg out of the vehicle.

The APC was built like a box with a small tube on top, completely armored crudely from hatch to wheels in scrap, skinned hide of ponies and enemies, and jagged spikes that stuck out from the rims of the wheels as the two stocky pipes on the back roared out black smoke as the APC took off away, the thick cannon that attached itself to the hatch of the APC letting out a good-bye thump of HE that sent an entire area of dirt into the sky.

Burnt Sun adjusted his backpack for a colt his size at the age of 10 with a shovel and some other groundswork supplies.

One of the stallions, Chip Baker, a reddish stallion with an orange mane geared in clothing and minimal scrap and just goggles for head wear along with a giant backpack filled with essential supplies. He spat a wad of yellowish spit onto the dirt. "Damn madponies," he said. A yellow coated stallion caked in dirt with a black mane and cloudy eyes covered by glowing goggles stuck his snout into the air. He carried a thick backpack and an extra bag that was filled to the brim with building materials. Blind Eye, his name was, grunted. "Let'im be, they art only victims t'the dead lands."

The final stallion, white in coat and white in mane with red eyes, a flak jacket and a helmet, grunted. He had some power tools and nails all over his body, and if Burnt Sun could recall correctly, his name was Albino. "So? Be shame t'th' leadah fer trussin' em."

"Youngest, take t' th' lands fer diggin'. We build." Chip Baker locked eyes with Burnt Sun, who nodded in obedience before saddling off to go dig a trench in the middle of nowhere, while Chip and his building crew built next to it.. also in the middle of nowhere.

"Construct operatin' fortifications fer th'future use. Come back. APC arrives in a fortnight." Albino droned from a yellowed piece of paper, quickly flicking it into his many pockets before setting off with Chip and Blind to build.

Burnt grunted in pain as he tied the splint using seaweed and twine around the broken arm. He stopped when he turned his arm over to ensure the wrap was tight, eyes falling upon the intricate tattoo that made a sleeve across the back of his entire foreleg. A burning sun-like ray made the center, dotting from the beginning of the hoof all the way to just before the shoulder, dotted with scratches, nicks and drawn cuts along the way with a heart in the middle of the streak with an arrow through it. The words Heart Beat Stopper cut through the heart, being centered inside the streak and non-discriminatory to it's path, cutting across the heart and keeping linear within the streak.

Burnt's breath hitched in his throat, before stomping the offending leg back onto the ground to keep his mind off of the terrible 'branding' as he liked to refer to it as. He hated that day too much...

Way too much...

The distant body, probably a good 300 meters away, collapsed in a puff of sand, dust and heated air. The trenchcoat it wore flapped up sporadically from the body's backside, draping itself over the reddened torso that gave the diagnosis to it's untimely demise. The wind whistled a low hum of a death song for the corpse, as small tufts of sand fluttered about it like it was forming a cocoon.

A minor dust cloud spawned from the impact of the body. A small, low exhale meandered out of the rusted helmet of one Burnt Sun, nestled under and against the single palm tree in the tiny oasis, far away from the downed pony. Chip was prone besides him under the shade of the palm, his forelegs holding a pair of binoculars to his eyes. The goggles sat on his forehead, giving a glare to the empty desert.

He whistled, lowering the binoculars to look at Burnt slowly lower his rifle, a single spark of excess mana flittering into the air from the superheated barrel, the metal cooling from a red back into the black, chipped colors. "Good shot," Chip said.

Burnt's shoulders shrugged, looking towards the dead body before looking back over to Chip. Wordlessly, he raised his branded foreleg. It was a lot more crisp comparatively to his future self's, the design a lot more sharp and vibrant against his chocolate coat. Heart Beat Stopper emblazoned on the forefront, it made Chip snort.

"Aye, aye. Heart Beat Stopper Burnt Sun. Long name, nay?"

"Wasn't mine's choice," Burnt groused. "Sharpshooters get names any which way. If thy aim be true, thou art given title."

"An' given ink, We see," Chip said.

Burnt bristled for only a second, shoulders tense. "Branded."

Chip blinked, looking back out towards the unmoving body 300 meters away, laying unmoving in the bleating desert. "We thinks it th' highest o' honors ta receive that, nay?"

"For thee, perhaps," Burnt said sharply.

"Calm yer tits, o' joyous youth, ye forgo yer pride fer what? Moral 'ighground?" Chip shook his head, raising the binoculars to look out towards the body again.

"Morality be slain when th' bastards hold ye down 'n' dig it in thou skin like a casual day."

Chip paused. He stopped inspecting the body for sake of keeping the conversational flow from going choppy, but he had no answer to that. He shrugged, "Tae each 'o' thy own, We suppose.."

Burnt could only nod slowly, slinging the rifle around his withers. "Aye," and he got up to return to the small pond where Albino and Blind Eye were drinking greedily.

"Heart Beat Stopper! Care t' parlay in th' wa'er with us cretins o' the hammer 'n' nail?" Blind Eye looked up at the sky, his dripping snout wiggling before finding Burnt's direction.

"Refillin' me waterskin," Burnt said.

"By no accounts stop t' our meddlin', drink it up," said Albino with a swipe of his arm across his water-soaked muzzle.

"West bank's overran. Th' lunarists made headway intae our flank. Sent us 'ere tae make a hedge fort," Blind Eye sat on his haunches, pulling out a sack of hardened bread to munch on while Burnt filled his waterskin.

"Hedge fort?" Albino shifted as he too sat on his haunches short of the water, washing his hooves.

"Aye. Fort meant ta be hedged intae th' advancin' troop line. Spear'ead fer a new push." Blind said.

"We're losin', hrm?" Albino asked, looking over to Blind whose ear flicked at the accusation. Silence permeated from the goggled stallion, shoving another few chips of bread into his mouth. Swallowing, he set the bag down beside him.

"Aye."

"Huh. Methinks we ran out o' men b'fore they did, nay?" Albino chuckled. It was no good sign of the stone-faced laugh, eyes steeling for just a moment before softening into returning to washing his body of sin and the coarse sand finding ways into his cracked hooves. Blind could only nod, pocketing the bag of bread as he stood up to go return to building the first section of the wall over the small top of the oasis' dip. The few trees swayed lazily in a dust-laden wind.

Burnt just finished scrounging up what little clean water there was into his waterskin, turning to also walk up the small incline before being stopped by Albino's sharp whistle. "Huh?" Burnt hummed, looking over his shoulder at Albino.

He nodded his head the opposite direction, scrubbing his final unclean hoof. "Keep eyes on th' o'er side. Chip's got this side whilst Blind 'n' We build."

Burnt replied by listening to Albino's order, trudging to the other end of the oasis to keep watch out towards a dead, unrelenting plain. A torture to an untrained, unconditioned and dead pony. For the rest of the world, which was still alive and kicking ferociously, it was another Wednesday afternoon.

Splinted, and he considered himself cleaner than usual from the shellacking of the clean river. Burnt couldn't of asked for a better river, having dipped his helmeted head into the river to greedily suck at whatever could clear the rusted holes into his mouth. The headache was settling into him now, and he could feel the uncovered, flawed edges of the helmet's design dig into his skull now. It'd not be too long before it started cutting deep and infecting him with any type of disease or rust it carried.

That's a problem for another day. Well, at least his rifle washed ashore with him, miraculously enough. Inspection for it will be later, he promised to himself when he haphazardly slung it around his withers. Walking on three hooves was a problem, but not too much of a problem when a natural shade came to be in the form of a minor rock formation on this little river bank's shore, surrounded by an endless horde of healthy trees. Green? Everything is so lush here. A land where no pony has touched?

No, whitecoats were present in the area. He must have walked into one of the whitecoat's zones. Doesn't make sense how one would be mingling with the likes of pegasi and earthies like himself, especially ones who most certainly lacked white coats themselves. Fanatics? Pawns? Or just one of those mixed groups of bandits who managed to nab a whitecoat for potential big scores?

Leaning against a rock, looking out towards the flowing river, Burnt just stared.

Another day, another survival lesson.

Author's Note

remembered this and decided to pump out this final 2018 chapter before continuing onwards

Beneath the Bog [professionally and thoroughly unedited]

These days were few, yet they were always welcome.

A day of respite. A day of when the screaming of agonized ponies are lesser, and the pops of rifle fire are far in-between, distant, like a shooting star kissing one end of the horizon and flickering a goodbye on the other. When the Nightmare and the Daybreaker aren't struggling for control of the skies. When everypony could sit in their positions and just sleep.

A day that a Burnt Sun would not waste, indeed.

In the small crater, one of hundreds scattered on the orange battlefield of clay and mud, positioned behind rows of trenches and the occasional ruined bunker, sat a thirteen year old Burnt Sun greedily chugging his waterskin. Across from him, the camouflaged Chip Baker lay asleep. His chest inflated and deflated, his tipped helmet and goggles dangling off his neck just massaging itself into the mud with each descending breath was nothing unexpected of a stallion exhausted and uncaring of where and how he slept.

Not that Burnt cared. He took a large breath of the toxic air as he nestled the waterskin into a little crevice he dug into the crater. Hooking his forehooves and stretching them above his head, he yawned. No orders and no screams of any contact have raced across his position yet like a tidal wave, so it was assumed to be a good day today.

Metal clanked on metal, and an all-white stallion groaned as he slid down the crater's wall, mud and red clay staining his backside. He slung four tin pots that clanked together loudly, making Chip's leg twitch and a grumble leave his mouth. Albino didn't care, popping one of the tin pot's seals off to give to a hungry Burnt Sun.

With his helmet off, one could finally detail Burnt Sun's features. His eyes seemed to have a gradient to them that Albino could never stop yapping about. Something about auburn transitioning into a golden yellow, which 'looked nice with the auburn mane you were genetically blessed with'. A strong snout, connected to a firm jawline that had speckles of auburn hair peek out, threatening a decent beard one day if it ever decided to blossom.

All in all, even in the middle of the apocalypse, good genetics never seemed to fail to shine. Something a "tortured" Albino complains about being "stripped" of. Something about 'whitecoats' and experiments. He never bothered to listen to the miserable stallion's ramblings. Yet, here he was, delivering food to a weary Burnt and a sleeping Chip like a good friend and teammate would.

He wouldn't trade anything in the world to get rid of these guys. But, that was for later. This was a time to be eager for the news of potentially resting for once since.. maybe a couple years. Years? Has it been that long?

"Blind's talk t' the Commandant passed," Albino said while popping his own tin pot's seal.

Scooping a muddy hoof into the tin pot to eat the oatmeal, Burnt smothered his oatmeal-covered hoof against his mouth, obnoxiously snorting and smacking his lips to grab every last little bit he could. Chip stirred only briefly before turning his head, his red snout being half-buried in clay. Burnt licked his lips as he dug his hoof in again. "Aye? Our relief be arriving?"

"Nay, soon. A fortnight," Albino said.

"Commandant said that a fortnight ago," Burnt whined, shoulders sagging.

"What th' Commandant says is what th' Commandant says." Albino shrugged, motioning an oatmeal-stained hoof towards Chip, "Chip knows."

"Must We be stuck 'ere fer all o' eternity?!" Burnt moaned, his helmet hitting the crater's wall as he leaned his head back to look at the sky.

A smokey, oppressive mixture of red, orange, and yellows stared back at him. Thick, menacing black clouds thumped with sparks of white electricity every now and then, daring any pegasi to take flight to challenge it. Nopony has yet to tame them. Those who have managed to even survive being trapped inside of one during a dogfight between other pegasi and creatures haven't come back the same. It's the same frazzled look, as if their very soul had been struck by it, tainting and corrupting their very fiber of being.

It was the defining feature of being a flight-bound creature that made Burnt lose all jealousy of having wings. What must've it been like when the skies weren't so terrifying? To fly so free without fear of rifle shot, fear of the black clouds, and the nauseating thinning airs that were already so thin on the ground?

That, is what would've made him jealous once upon a time. Now? He pities them. To have your birthright stripped of you and replaced with a skull and crossbones sign every time you volunteer for the aerial divisions; it is nothing short of criminal.

Daybreaker would take the Nightmare's head, and all will be restored. It had to be.

"Aye, We be stuck." Albino tiredly looked over at the exasperated Burnt Sun. He could only shrug at the younger stallion's anger, "Nothin' ta do 'bout it any which way. We built th' hedge fort, We lead th' push."

"Fer how long? How long hast We been here? Th' sands o' th' hedge fort been left o'er yonder many cycles ago! We hast been leadin' this assault fer.. O' Daybreaker's sake, years? When will We be relieved?!" Burnt glared at Albino, smacking the tin pot into the mud.

Chip groaned awake, spitting clay out of his mouth. "Huah? Wassit?"

Albino rolled his eyes. "Thou hast forgotten, Burnt. We don't got what the rest has. We art th' only healthy flocc left. Or so th' word says."

"We care not what th' word says. Th'flocc's lost too many t' keep goin' like this." Burnt said.

"Hah? What?" Chip sat up, wiping at his eyes. His body twitched violently, his left eye shutting tightly with clay seeping out of it, his attention squarely on knocking the clay and mud off his hooves.

"Not ta the Commandant. Th' flocc keeps pushin' on. So shall We, and so shall thee," Albino said.

Burnt shook his head, speaking in a venomous tone to the apathetic Albino. "We.. Thee, an' th' remainder o' us.. art we nary a shred o' tired? We are tired. We are fightin' th' bog, and th' bog is gonna win. We need rest."

"Then thou needs ta dig," Albino grit his teeth.

"Oh, shut up! Thou art both so annoyin'," Chip groaned having finally cleaned his hooves enough to wipe the clay out of his eye. "Commandant hast us stuck 'ere, so we art stuck 'ere. Got it?! Thou hast ruined mine beauty sleep! Again!"

"Nopony asked thee ta get lost in th' dip, Chip," Albino grunted.

"We didn't ask thee fer this annoyin' bitching, did We?" Chip barked, taking one of the two tin pots with bleary vision.

Albino sighed, "Nay."

Chip nodded, flicking a hoof towards the top of the crater while he ate. "Then shut it and look thy sharpest. We can see Blind approaching."

"Gentlecolts, this troop hast orders!" Blind announced, waving them up out of their positions.

Burnt sighed, replacing the waterskin with the tin pot in the crevice as he gathered his gear.

Today was supposed to be a good day.

About 100 meters from their defensive lines, the small team found themselves trudging into a muddy field, complete with days and weeks-old bodies strewn about in various uniforms and fledgling colors, all looted clean and decomposing with the most horrifying stench that only any veteran of warfare could relate to.

Burnt sat as third-stallion back in the spacious single file formation, with Chip at lead, Albino in between them, and Blind Eye in the back. The typical scouting formation they came up with years back when they were finagling team chemistry and tactics with one another, until Chip, the ever talented leader, came up with this.

"Send th' engineers ta lead yer new advance. Top o' th' line thinkin', aye, Alby?" Chip said.

Albino quickly hopped over a sizeable rock, his equipment clanking noisily. His eyes were glued to the formation's right flank, rifle at the ready slung over his withers, pointed out towards the dead land. "Aaaaaye," he droned.

"We hast th' best success. So th' Commandant says," Blind said from the back.

"We can bet th' castle o' the Sisters that be a lie," Albino said.

Burnt harrumphed, looking off towards their left flank with his rifle at the ready. "It be funny chatter fer We art not dead yet."

"Th' colt's cracked th' code," Chip said, his eyes keeping front.

Defilades, craters, destroyed defenses; you name it, this battlefield has it. Though Burnt could only wonder where the rifle fire was, and why it hadn't found them yet. They were pretty far out now, and almost exposed in the open. Were they waiting? Waiting for them to walk into the trap?

"Once we alight th' flare, th' rest'll follow t' the line. Keep sharp," Chip reminded them as he stepped over a uniformed skeleton.

"Cruel Daybreaker.. art they all like this?" Said Albino, delicately side-stepping another skeletal remain.

"Thou art jus' lookin' at th' ones who fell when th' 2nd lost this all the years ago," Blind gravelly said.

Burnt ignored the bodies. He didn't want to see them up close.

Continuing their trek in silence now, save for the squelching of mud beneath their hooves, Burnt continued to look out towards their left flank. Soon, the scattered rows of dead and skeleton lessened, but the chewed up defensive fortifications seemed to thicken. Barbed wire in their miles of rusted ferocity, save for pockets of destroyed and blown apart smithereens remains, alongside curves of sandbags and stone decorated with bodies strewn atop them.

It didn't look like the 2nd put up much of a fight.

The thought terrified him.

"Trench shoul' be not far now." Chip said.

"This be where th' goin' gets tough- Contact!" Albino roared, dropping to a prone.

"Contact - Contact - Contact!" The other three said in a butchered chorus, finding defensive positions. Chip dove behind a sandbag fortification, half-assembled with straggling bags thrown about the mud. Blind fell next to a thick formation of wooden logs that resembled an asterisk if you were a writer. Burnt found himself leaning against a small mound of clay and mud, aiming towards their right flank where Albino was watching.

"Where? Where?!" Chip said, adjusting some of the sandbags to poke his rifle through.

Albino didn't respond, instead he crawled like a madpony to a small crater, disappearing with a splash of water and mud before surfacing out from the pocket in the ground with his rifle shouldered out towards a formation of barbed wire, destroyed but still looking like springs that tried to escape a socket.

"In- In the wire! Two, nay- nay, three! Three Lunarists!" Albino said, briefly unshouldering his rifle to point anxiously towards his call out.

The sandbags that concealed Chip from Burnt's view rustled. The barrel of the rifle was swinging left and right in tight, frantic motions. Blind pushed himself up, hoof locked around one of the wooden logs poking out into the sky to look. Albino just stood stock still, aiming with a stillness not seen from Burnt in a while.

Silence.

Then, Chip called out with an annoyed twinge to his voice. "Alby, thou art a moron! Those be dead ones!"

"Nay! Nay, the- they moved! We swear!" Albino jerked his rifle forward, eyes wide as he stared out at the barbed wire.

A couple of sandbags fell to the mud and clay as Chip's head appeared over the fortification, stepping out from behind it. "Geddup, all o' ye. Alby's hast it wrong."

Blind looked towards Chip, then did a quick doubletake to the three bodies hanging like chandeliers from the springy wires. Satisfied, his ear flicked before coming out from the asterisk wooden thing that Burnt couldn't name, walking by Burnt to help him up before they both trotted with their hearts thumping in their ears past the stock-still Albino.

"Th- They art not movin'?" Albino mumbled, eyes blinking as if clearing himself from a fog. He released a loud, startling breath he did not know he held, quickly regaining air to calm himself down. He pulled himself from the crater, looking out towards the three unmoving bodies.

"Art thou comin' with, Alby?" Chip said, swallowing a thick glob of phlegm down his throat, hiding his rapid breathing with slow, controlled breaths.

Albino whipped his head at Chip, then slowly back out towards the barbed wire angels. His ears turned and rotated like saucers, before he slowly nodded. "Aye... Aye."

A small little basket of leaves, branches and a little loose-fitted twine that took a couple hours to make with just one hoof and half of another had found Burnt constantly pouring basket-loads of water over his head and into his eye and mouth holes to help him try and wrestle the rusted helmet off of his head. So far, little results have come from this experiment.

"Damn it all!" He groaned, holding a section of his head where he felt the smaller helmet dig into the sides of his head. He groaned, banging on the aching sides that gave a weird relief whenever he said.

"Gedditoff gedditoff!" Burnt whined, wrestling the helmet back and forth before the piercing pain caused him to fall on his back, arm splayed out and the other wrapped up and curled to his chest, looking to the sky.

He grit his teeth. It hurt so, so bad. He had to sit still, let it pass, let it go. Let it pass. Let it go. This was all he had to do before he could start again, because if he kept going now, he might actually try to blow his head off with his rifle. He didn't want to. He had to keep going, for them and for everypony else who he left behind in this cursed journey to freedom.

Good thoughts. He had to keep good thoughts. His breathing was heavy, panicked, in pain, whatever one can call it. It needed to slow down, and slow down as fast as possible. Ironic. It would make him laugh if he wasn't groaning in pain right now. Good thoughts. The sky? The sky. There's something different about it.

The sky was so nice here. He had to think about it or else the aching in his skull would drive him insane. Good thoughts. Good sky. Sky is blue. The sky is blue. He's never seen a blue sky before. Matter of fact, he's never seen a yellow sun. Granted, you can't really 'look' at the sun, but every time he's caught glimpses of it through the black clouds, it always had a foreboding red twinge to it, like a sunset that refused to die.

Yet, it's such a warm yellow. The outside of it was, anyways. When did it become so.. nice? The clouds.. they're so scattered, so delicate-looking. So.. white. How are clouds white? They aren't meant to be white. The clouds hold so much dark magic and the elements that it's overloaded, oversaturated, looking to release on the first thing that goes near it. Here? It's.. they look so transparent.

Is that cloud making a house? Burnt looked at another formation of clouds. Is that one a train?

"Woah.." Burnt droned, his body relaxing ever so slightly as he watched the clouds slowly drift by. He chuckled when he saw one look like a certain piece of anatomy.. and when another looked like a hat!

Here he laid, watching clouds float him by. If only his team could see him now.

It's so pleasant.. it.. it was so nice. Today, today was a good day.

Author's Note

The first 2022 chapter and it was aight.

Arrival [unedited "professionally"]

First, it had started off with a blinding flash as he dreamed, and then the weightless air flowing its way into his tarnished lungs with nothing but gentle transportation. There was no weight, no aching or burning sensation that dully crawled at the back of his throat. In reality, it felt like nothing but cooling temperatures entering through his cracked lips and burnt nostrils.

It was strange. Horrifying. The radiation reminded him of why he trekked so far from his ponies. He had abandoned them for merely doing what others dreamed to do, and that was escaping their insane leader. Now, he had been cast into what many would rather die than experience. The white-coats. Corroded geniuses making themselves believe that they're just prying away the little of what remained pony population to find some sort of 'cure' for a 'disease of colored and non-unicorn ponies'. It was pure baloney. He had to find a way out of here before they sent their 'testing variables' after him.

If he didn't, well, Burnt Sun wouldn't live to see 18.

It was a lie. All of it was a lie.

Here, the colt sat, on a blackened hill of ash and destruction. His hooves were shaking ferociously as he glanced around the destroyed area in a daze. From the gored body that sat lifelessly a few steps away to his right, awkwardly bent at the crest of the hill Burnt himself was sitting on to the smoking crater at the bottom of the hill, and to the writhing wounded bodies to his left, he could only come up with one conclusion.

The Lunarists knew how to shell.

For the resistance Burnt Sun found himself under an insurrection for the Solar Diarch, Daybreaker. Only until he had sat here, watching confusedly as small dosages of Solarists trudged for ruins for cover and bodies for scavenging had he realized the mistake he had made. Daybreaker was mad.

She was no fallen martyr Celestia -- she was a cheap imitation, not only that, but a mad one.

He breathed in the toxic air as his fried lungs did their best to take in as much as possible before being forced to exhale it out in a ragged heave, his eyes turning to pinpricks as he adjusted the rusted bucket that was his helmet. An entire attachable jaw piece with crude holes dug and scratched into to let him breathe, and a dirty, rusted helmet that had surely infected the small cuts and scratches in his skull as he had been feeling sluggish the past month.

His eyes, a dulled golden yellow peaked through with a look of hopelessness and existential dread, what could he do? Sit here and die out slowly? He'd rather be cut down by the thundering roars of Lunar MER(Magic Enhanced Rifles) and artillery. His eyes slowly blinked, revealing the crust and dirt that caked his eyelids before they retreated back into the tight depths of the helmet.

"Burnt Sun, for ye 'ave no time ta diddle-daddle, for ye mus' take up th'torch 'n keep with th'fight!" An adult stallion shouted, breaking Burnt Sun of his daze. Like a robot, his hooves found his MER and equipment, most of it dirt-crusted or rusted as he slung it over his shoulders and withers. "Aye, Aye see th'way, Solarist!" He called, glancing at the chestnut brown stallion with his entire head captured in a steel cage of protection and rust. His trenchcoat was mangled and his equipment scarce, a gaping hole in his arm bleeding profusely at the second as he ushered Burnt Sun forward. "Ye mus' fight! Aye needa physician!"

Burnt Sun waved him off with his rifle arm, the stallion nodding and trudging off with a huge limp in his step as Burnt Sun stood forward. A weak posture for his weak state but he nonetheless carried on. Over the hill lay an entire field of devastation for both attacking sides as the Solarists were taking a beating from the depleted Lunarist defense forces. For such a destroyed world, there was still plenty a time to fight, Burnt thought bitterly as he stumbled and fumbled his way for a nearby piece of cover. The dead oak tree would do, he thought, his hooves sinking into the moist dirt which affected his balance greatly, but nonetheless made it to his destination.

Lifting the rifle to his shoulders, he leant into the ironsights and began his own conflict. It took some time, but eventually he had spotted a Lunarist run out briefly into the open to another spot of cover, being a giant boulder that was once enclosed by a fence, possibly some sort of artifact only to be reused into a chipped, burned and crumbling piece of cover. His hoof flicked on the trigger and the magically-powered round forced itself out in a quick FWLAP only to soar a few paces from the Lunarist's flank, his life still in his grasp as he dove for the boulder, now out of sight.

"Buck," Burnt muttered.

He rammed his hoof against the bolt located on the side of the rifle, cocking it back to let the steaming casing fling out before he rammed the bolt forward. Taking a quick second to ensure it was pushed all the way, he brought it back up to his shoulder as he continued to expose himself on the side of the tree. His breath was doubled in volume from the metallic barrier around his mouth, the sounds escaping to his somewhat exposed ears at the top of the helmet and filtering out through there and the small holes. Sweat mingled in his helmet, baking him through heat alone with each breath. His eye had found a skirmishing Lunarist taking pot shots at a rotten house of wood and chipped stone. A good portion of the wall facing the fight was collapsed, where two Solarists covered in dirt with their varied outfits, their only signification of being a Solarist being a sun-crested patch on their shoulders; Lunarists the same, exception of a moon-crested patch.

With a quick flick of his hoof on the trigger, another FWLAP rang out. Another target missed. Burnt's head flicked behind his shoulder in a paranoid, adrenaline-filled craze as the rush of the battle got to him. He felt his senses heighten as his airways constricted in tense anticipation as he roared out in a puberty-experiencing voice towards a small squadron of Solarists. "AY! TH'LUNARS 'AVE NOT A PICKET OF GOOD STALLIONS FIGHTIN'! COME 'ERE TA 'ELP ME!"

He failed to notice an ascending scream getting closer and closer to his self. He did not notice until he glanced to his right side and saw a purple-coated stallion rearing a dirt and blood soaked mace at him. Burnt yelped, swinging his shoulder nearest to the offender away as the stallion struck down and hit nothing but air where his shoulder should've been. Burnt stumbled backwards and collapsed onto his rear, the rifle in both hooves instinctively as he lifted it to counter-act a second swing from the mace.

Using his dirt-bound leg to kick one of the stallion's main supports being a leg that kept himself up, he also took to the dirt as Burnt lunged forward to attempt to straddle on top of the stallion. The stallion used whatever strength he had mustered from the sudden change from standing to laying to strike at Burnt's head. The mace struck weakly, but was enough to knock Burnt's head to the left from the momentum and collapse off the downed Lunarist.

Burnt's head rang, his ears popping as he let out a whimper, his hooves patting the dirt down in a weak attempt to regain focus as the Lunarist grabbed his collar and threw him backwards onto his back, where all he could see was the rage-filled eyes of the covered Lunarist.

Raising his mace, he struck down with a quick roar on a defending hoof, eliciting a cry of pain from Burnt. Pulling the mace back only to realize it was wedged into the colt's hoof, he was quick to let go and rear his hoof back to strike the colt. Only before that did he straddle the colt. The calloused hoof slammed into his helmet, furthering his daze as the Lunarist reared it back and struck his helmet once more. Burnt crossed his forearms in an attempt to block any more incoming strikes as the Lunarist pounded on him.

This continued for a few seconds before Burnt began to wildly swing his hooves at the straddling Lunarist in response. A hoof struck the soft underbelly as the Lunarist had let out a weak grunt in response as he doubled over. The two laid side-by-side for a moment, catching their breath and processing the wounds afflicted to them by each other. The war raged all around them as they sat coddling their wounds and slowly, but surely trying to get up.

"Nightmare Moon is nay but a hag, ye ol' madpony," Burnt groaned, his breathing ragged as he plucked the mace out from his bleeding hoof, before rolling onto his stomach with a moan of exhaustion.

"Aye, Aye coul-" The Lunarist hacked out, sprawled on his back clutching his tender stomach. "Aye coul' say th'same fer ya, hypocrite."

"'Cept yer dead," Burnt responded.

"Nay," the foe panted. "Fer ye- fer ye mus' die 'ere rather than me, traitor."

With a horrendous cry, Burnt lunged forward and lifted the mace onto the unsuspecting Lunarist. A convincing argument to the Lunarist's claim, Burnt thought cruelly. Slamming the mace down as hard as he could onto the rags-for-a-helmet Lunarist's head. The following result was satisfying, but sickening. A CRUNCH and the popping of jagged marrow and protein filled Burnt's ears as the head caved in from the forehead and snout ever so slightly and jaggedly. The Lunarist's body gave a spasm, his legs flailing and his voice suddenly screeching out horrifically in an unnatural tone, clearly from brain function being ruined.

Ripping the mace out of the skull, he brought it down again to completely disfigure the poor stallion's face, blood beginning to flick out with each quick rise and fall of the mace. Up, and down, up, and down, he repeated for what seemed to be an eternity as he pounded the stallion's skull into dust with nothing but a mace.

The skull had been disfigured so much to the point where the stallion's skull was nothing short of paste and brain matter and blood. The impacts of metal on flesh became nothing more but macaroni being squished around in a pot. Burnt's exhaustion caught with his frail body, and he too collapsed onto his back - alive. His rifle was but a forgotten item that he had lost somewhere along the fight, but he was too tired to care.

All he wanted to do was sleep. Blackness covered his eyesight and his body felt weightless.

Burnt Sun escaped that day, and was on the run ever since to avoid everypony that he could see. Now, the world seemed... living. Bright. A facade surely the white coats devised to make him feel comfortable before they killed him. If they were ever capable of that kind of generosity, anyways.

The grass beneath his hooves were soft, inviting and almost natural. Almost. It was too much of everything, too good to be true. It felt like soft pillows caressing his hooves, clearly a hallucinogen as he was being hoisted into the afterlife by those freaks of ponykind. He shuddered, eyes now paranoid with investigating every nook and cranny of the area. He had taken upon himself as a young colt to write in his journal of these discoveries in brief entries.

07/23/231 A.T.B
Five-hundred-and-ninety-three-days since I left the settlement. I haven't seen another pony for two-hundred-days. I think I am going insane.

The birds chirp louder and angrier. Wind is weird. I miss home. Must keep going. Apex promised light -- she gave us death. Had to get out. Reminder 372. Keep going. Don't stop. Never quit until free.

Apex. Daybreaker's 'code' name. 'Settlement'. Code name for the battle they participated in. All of these useless to him now as he trotted without difficulty for once in his life across (besides from breathing, of course.)

His ear flicked as a bird's chirping caught his attention for the fifteenth time that day. He had assumed it another whistling scream of an incoming Lunarist artillery shell. He thought wrong. Thankfully. Although still paranoid, he was slower to turn his head back forward, his eyes narrowed as he investigated the trees and flora. The air's weightless feeling was also scaring him. Thinning in radiation, perhaps? He's definitely noticing the healthy flora and fauna around this region, and began wondering if he had just blindly walked into a safe haven of some sorts. Then again, safe havens aren't completely safe. Cannibalistic tribes? White coat laboratory? Testing grounds for the Lunarists? Who knows. Only time can tell.

"Keep going, keep going, keep going," Burnt Sun breathlessly whispered to himself.

The grass became much more florescent and taller, as the grass reached up to almost his chin. Strange, or perhaps the affects of malnutrition and stress ruined his chance for growing, as he was pretty much taller than most, if not, one of the tallest of his Solarist detachment for his age group of 15 to 18.

How old was Burnt again? 16? 17? He never kept track except for when he would read his papers. Perhaps he was labeled KIA. That'd be great - free from one problem, not from the others. That needed to change, as he had been trekking for nearly two years by himself and he still felt chained.

Maybe losing his virginity in that old scraptown he had passed through not too long ago should've been accomplished.

Then again, the hookers there were as appetizing as garbage.

He shook his head of those thoughts, his hooves having been on auto-pilot for the last ten minutes of his musings and he had decided enough for the day. Unpacking his bags, he had set up a one-stallion camp in twenty minutes and had created a fire using stones he took from the forest and twigs and sticks he foraged, as well. A can of dog meat would do, even if his body was at a 50/50 crossroad of puking it or digesting it horribly. Griffons are weird.

His taste buds soured and his stomach begrudgingly filled for the night, he retired into his tent for a quick sleep before he'd press on in the middle of the night.

His dreams were of memories of horrific sights and battles he had endured, oblivious to the Lunar Diarch watching his night terrors from a distance within the dream realm.

Author's Note

weird way of writing lasts only for specific moments, if you were wondering about it

:heart: