TCB: RAGE!

The vents grill fell, and soon after a pony fell, glittering as it fell. Makeshift armor of scrap covering it's hide. It recovered faster than the men could bring their guns to bear, lunging for Mikey's throat. . . only to meet the butt of Terry's gun, hard.

The pony landed with a thump, scrambling to it's hooves it's howled in bloodlust. The end of Mikeys rifle touched the stallions forehead for a moment, before painting the back of the wall red with gore.

"Should’ve wore a helmet," Mikey deadpanned.

“Shit just gets worse and worse, now there getting armor, what are they going to get next?” Randy spat.

"Dumb fucker, never watched any movies has he?" Mikey spat, freezing for a moment. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her move.

*FWOOM*

The group was slammed bodily into the far wall by a crashing wave of telekinesis.

"Aw, what wrong, hummies?!" Hissed the mare, grinning. One of her eyes was gouged out, fresh gashes and cuts running along her hide from horn to tail.

"Fuck!" Randy shouted, more pressure as intermingling colors overlaid, more unicorns pinning them against the wall. This is not what alarmed them, what alarmed them were the four soldiers behind them guns at the ready. For a moment Randy thought they were alive, part of the P.E.R. cue, but they weren't, they were all wrong. Eyes glazed over, bits torn away. One man was missing his nose, and they stood there stock still, guns cocked and ready.

"What's wrong with them?" Hissed Mikey, any more force from the five unicorns and it looked like his eyes would pop out of his skull.

"Why, they joined us. Won't you?" She grinned, her horn sparking to a sick glow, a flickering shadows dancing about as though the shadows of a flame.

"Fuck off!" Terry shot back, for his outburst the sick mare on the left began to turn up the light of his horn, slowly Terry's arm began to turn to the breaking point, but even the pony with her mighty magic seemed to be struggling against the man's sure bulk and natural strength. He began to push back, Flesh went flush, cuts opened wider as they turned it up on him, any moment now and the alternating forces would break him.

"ENOUGH!" Hissed their leader, "Bring him to the ground. . ." Terry grunted as gravity and magic flung him to the ground with a thump. "Now now, I never meant you had a choice. Oh a willing participant is 'so' much more useful than my little. . . puppets, but you know as they say," She cooed a wicked grin creeping across her muzzle "More’s the merrier!"

The mare turned to look at him just in time to receive a boot to the face. Mikey had somehow slipped the grip of the three ponies holding him, leaving them with a black eye apiece and one of them a broken snout for their troubles, and was now assaulting them. The meat puppets stared at him with glassy eyes, minds to broken to even consider pulling the trigger without their master's command.

"GET HIM!" She screeched, and her puppets obeyed. Mikey leapt arms stretched out as if for a touchdown as he went after the scattered guns. He was hit hard as one tackled him from the side, dragging him low. He grit his teeth and managed to wrench his way free, his fingertips scrapped the assault rifle as another dead man flopped on top.

Randy wrenched against their grasp, he had to get loose! This was his only shot if he didn't want to end up like her other playthings. The four other unicorns were having none of that though, keeping their attention on the soldier and technician as their leader and her personal minions pinned the man beneath their weight.

"HEADS UP!" Mikey grinned, a pistol clutched in hand that he had wrenched free from one of the men. He leaned out to one side, one arm straight as an arrow, he fired. One of the mares on the side line screeched, rolling on the ground clutching her now shattered horn.

"NO WEAKNESS!" Cried two of the unicorns in unison, bringing their hooves down onto her head with a pulpy *Thwup*.

"What the fuck," Randy mouthed the words, staring in shock as her two 'friends' killed one of their own without hesitation or remorse, in fact they seemed to take great joy in it.

"No weakness," The stallion pinning him grinned, eyes wild and ears straight. Mikey strained against the puppets grasp, and Terry faught against the invisible force which pinned him, but to no avail.

“Mikey, why the fuck didn’t you run for it?!” Randy shouted, struggling against the force that pinned him and the soldier to the wall.

“Hold them still, if they will not join us willingly. We will make you,” The mare smiled before walking between the prone Mikey and Terry, now side by side and pinned by magic and the weight of the puppets. Her horn glowed a flickering and sickly light that sent shivers down the spine of any sane man  with the misfortune to see it. Her rictus grin spread wider, and wider still til her face almost seemed as though it would rip, and with a sound between a sob and a laugh she tapped her horn to the forehead of Mikey.

* * *

Mikey’s eyes opened slowly, under a street lamp he lay head aching. “Someone must of billy jackes me. . . wait, why am I. here,” He half whispered. Wind whipped  about him from a coming storm, the lights of a nearby building flickered on as lightning struck once. “Am, am I . . . asleep?”

Lights were on in the building, flashlights searching about the darkened interior. Slowly, clutching his head, Mikey shuffled off towards the large ugly building. Thunder rumbled low in the distance.

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Mikey muttered to himself as he picked up the pace, “I can’t be asleep, can I?”

He made his way slowly to the building, before sitting on a bench underneath the awning of the ugly building, as he clutched his throbbing head to make the world stop spinning. The rain came down in a torrent as the bottom fell out, and for a while Mikey leaned back, enjoying the scent of old oil and fresh rain. ‘Not the first time I’ve dreamt something like this.’

“No it well, do ya son?” Asked the man next to him, Mikey nearly fell out of his seat at the sudden appearance of this stranger.

“The hell?!” Mikey sat in mild shock. Not used to folks getting the drop on him. The old man turned his head to him, and with a gleam in his eye began.

“Where do you think you're at, right now?” He smiled as Mikey straightened himself up.

“I don’t know, looks like a shit hole for me though,”Mikey smirked as the old man began to chuckle.

“Hey, says a lot about you now don’t it?” Grinned the man. In the distance the far off buildings shifted, twisting and turning as what looked like plant life engulfed them, before wrenching them about, twisting and turning the large towers into odd shapes.

“Where is here?” Mikey asked slowly, only somewhat alarmed at the events in the far distance.

“Damn your dense, if you haven’t figured it out by now I don’t think you ever will,” The old man's smile faded, before turning into a hard frown. “You don’t get it do you?”

“Get what, and no I don’t know where ‘here’ is,” Mikey said slowly, the wind and rain began to pick up. Lighting struck the towers and vines, burning them away. Figures could be seen in the distance, men in black clothes marching off towards the towers and veins, guns, torches, anything they could get there hands on that was nice and sturdy or could kill.

“Welcome to this ‘shithole’ as you call it, but this shithole happens to be your psyche,” The old man's smile returned as he looked at Mikey’s confused expression.

“You mean I’m. . . why?” Mikey said puzzled.

“There trying to take your mind for there own,” The old man said, he reached into his pocket pulling out an old beat up hip flask, taking a long draw from it. He smiled as warmly as the whiskey made him feel before offering Mikey a sip.

“No thanks, who are those angry mob fellas, and who the heck are you? Jiminy Cricket?” Mikey folded his arms as he waited for an answer. The old man took another long sip of his flask before screwing the lid on tight.

“Those fellas are the reason you ain’t been engulfed yet, there what ya call Censors and that storm up there is something akin to them, as for me. . . well I’m a bit of an ‘enigma’,” The man smile grew wider as Mikey only became more confused.

“I don’t understand what exactly is going on,” Mikey cringed as another crack of thunder, and flash of lightning lit up the sky.

“Like a cancer there spreading throughout your mind, but you. . . you and that other guys got a bit of a chance with me here,” The man smiled as he reached into his jacket and pulled out a long object, smooth the cobalt blue steel shimmered in the light of the broken parking lot. Mikey grasped the sawn off shotgun with surprise.

“I don’t understand, how are they spreading. Am I going to become one of those puppets?” Mikey said looking worried, as the man got up slowly. He marched out into the parking lot to the faint cadence of drums.

“They grabbed hold of what they could boy, like a cancer you gotta cut’em out,” He smiled at Mikey as he strode towards the light of a bent lamp post. “How much of ‘you’ are you willing to drop, how much flesh will you cut away, let fall into the dust?”

“Wait, DON’T GO!” Mikey said, hopping up, he ignored his headache as the man stepped backwards into the light underneath the lamp post. Lighting flashed, striking the pole, Mikey shielded his eyes, and the man was gone.

“How much are you willing to lose, sacrifice. . . to win,” The voice whispered around him like the wind.

* * *

Street lamps shone along the street, poles twisting every which way, some of the lights didn’t shine on the twisted and broken road that Mikey walked down, in crooked window frames images flickered, and faces from Mikey’s path seemed to peer through at him, scowling and snorting. Each step revealed painful memories to the man, better left behind in the dirt where they belonged. Hatred surged through the man as he watched things too painful to mention swam in front of his eyes, as the faces in the window panes laughed and mocked him silently. When the branch of the screaming and twisted tree shaped creature struck him, it was almost a relief. Almost.

“Fuck!” Mikey yelled clutching at his chest, a few broken ribs added to his worries. The twisted beast thundered towards him. From the darkness of one of the buildings burst forth a man out of the darkness. The shadowy tree beast howled as one, two, five of the men rushed it. Familiar tools clutched in their hands, hatchets, knives, drills, wrenches and guns clutched tightly. They began to swarm the beast who shrieked and howled as it threw them off to the side where the burst in a flash of lights and a flitter of sparks. It charged Mikey as he staggered to his feet, only saved by the road splitting in two, a great ravine forming as the buildings rolled back and away.

“I HATE THIS PLACE!” Mikey howled firing shots of rapidly as more things charged out of the woods about him. Shadows, men stitched together with knives jammed in their sockets, a thing of many legs flesh and wood, leaking blood from gouts in its hide and knots in it’s trunk. The thing from before, it seemed to rush him, fused with nightmares it welled up growing larger spreading it’s roots through the ground, the ground itself moved, not the tree. Earth cracked and split as the hellish thing started to take root, Bones hung from it’s branches and bleeding horns slowly plumped, growing and shifting into fruit that burst in a shower of blood.

The sky cracked open and there was light. Thunder boomed, roaring it’s cry of anger as the tree was split. Winds howled as it was torn free from the ground, wrenched free by it’s wretched roots. The vile corruption that it spread slowed, clawed and torn away by more of the men before as they worked with shovels and Picks. They cleared the area as fast as it was taken, but it was only delaying the inevitable. The thing was forcing it’s way into Mikey’s mind.

“It is inevitable, as with all weak minded fools. Defeat is the only option, you will be ours soon,” Croaked a voice from the black ether.

“No, I-,” Mikey choked as darkness closed around him, lights about him winking out of existence one by one. Something shifted about him and he was wrenched free, pulled into a light by something.

“You all right?” Terry asked hesitantly.

“No, I don’t really think so,” Mikey paused clutching his head, for a split second an overwhelming rage boiled in him, urging him to rip and rend. The lights hurt his head, but what had happened to him sickened him. Chains of various links encircled some of his limbs, running through him, there was no pain just a dull ache, a hunger for something.

“What happened?” Terry said, concern flashed across his face as Mikey staggered. With a firm grasp Terry pulled Mikey into underneath the lights as to get a better look at him. Parts were alright about him, looking almost untouched, other parts looked as though they had been swapped with some raggedy man, torn flesh. Gashes and gouges all about the side of his chest, gray fleshed, pale. All around it on the other hand was clean looking, and new.

“I got grabbed, thing sucked me into that. . . darkplace, nothing but screaming and. . . then I brushed up against something.

“Me too,” Terry said. “I was in an old house, the floor swallowed me up,” Reluctantly he turned around with a rattle of chains. The same style of gouges and marks covered his flesh, though around his wounds they looked leathery, and burnt. His fingertips seemed to be burnt to the bone, but his face and neck were unmared. A sicking contrast to the rest of his burnt and slashed look, Mikey had fared far better.

“Bravo,” came the voice of the old man, his face looked more grim this time, though not without that bright spark in his eyes. “Out of everyone I was able to help, you both fucked up the worst.”

“Wait, what the fuck are you talking about, were ok!” Mikey shouted at him, his voice had something to it now, and he shrank back from whatever it was. He felt, wrong.

“I guess you two could be said to be ‘happy’ little accidents. Those things got their teeth into you real good, Hell you rushed right into their damned jaws!” The man sighed,he reached into his jacket, a warm glow appeared in his hand as he lit a cigarette. With a groan of pain and weariness he leaned against the lamp post. “Though, I guess that’s what saved you.”

“Hold up, the floor ate me, I didn’t even know what to do!” Terry bellowed, his wounds seemed to bleed as though cracked open.

“Don’t worry, in your failure you have succeeded in another way, though it has a price. You have been touched by their hate, pieces of yourselves. True selves, torn away, mangled and reshaped. Though, luckily. . . they couldn’t get deep enough due to all the thrashing about you two did. You flopped about like a couple of air drowned fish, and luck would have it. you flopped right back into the water.” The old man sighed, taking a long draught of his flask. as before he offered a drink to Mikey, and then to Terry. ”You’ll have to be smart about it, they believe you are with them. When you wake you’ll have a chance to take them by surprise, but that doesn’t worry me too much. What does is this, keep tabs on your thoughts, those things from before still lurk here, though they are now rooted in the wrong parts, unvital pieces of your mind. . . you both must watch and keep your impulses under control. If you don’t,” The man smiled taking another drink.

“If we don’t, then what?” Mikey sneered, but caught himself. surprised at his own reaction.

“You will wish you will have never been,” The man smiled “One last thing, Terry. I think you can stop hitting her now.”

“Wait,” Terry asked puzzled, that original dumb goofy look overriding the grim mask he had been wearing.

* * *

“I SAID I THINK SHES DEAD!” Randy screamed, He and the soldier were both standing far away. something had them spooked, badly.

“What I do-,” Terry stopped, taking in his position. He was atop the main unicorn, straddling her. Something wet and red trickled down across his fingers, tightly clenched into a fist. He couldn’t recognize her face.

“I don’t, just. what's happening?” Mikey said, he looked at his hands. Arms and fists were stained with blood, in a daze he wiped his bloody limbs against the front of his jumpsuit. It occurred to him suddenly that the two terrified men in the corner had their guns trained on them. Mikey stood slowly and shakily, Donny cocked a shotgun, pointing at the weary man.

“Don’t pretend like you don’t fucking know, they held you down. She said she was going to make you into her puppets like them and then. then you just.” Randy shook, “You two woke up, and just started killing everything!”

“I don’t, we don’t remember,” Mikey’s eyes settled on the red ring around Randys neck, strangle marks, fresh.

“What happens now?” Terry said slowly standing with a groan.

“We go back to command, you two fuckers are going to walk in front of us, til we know what the hell happened we’re keeping your guns!” Randy yelled again, Donny nodded in agreement.

Mikey and Terry walked in front of the wairy two, guns trained on them.