It Was a Pleasure to Burn

It Was a Pleasure to Burn

Fire washes the skin off the bone and the sin off the soul. It cleans away the dirt. And my momma didn’t raise herself no dirty boy.

IV - Fueled Up

__________

Caulk's eyelids cracked open.

"Unghhh..." he groaned, closing his eyes again. The first sensation he felt as he woke up was a feeling not unlike a muscle cramp, only now it was in his entire body. His head hurt, his arms hurt, his legs hurt, his chest hurt, his groin hurt, his everything hurt. The neural interface of the firebat suit detected Caulk's excessively high activity in his nervous system, and applied him with a transdermal dose of painkiller. Caulk felt a sting in his left upper arm and sighed as relief spread throughout his body.

Having treated all immediate concerns, the suit began running through a systems diagnostic while Caulk laid on the ground, aurally reciting each readout in its trademark deep, gravelly voice.

*Armor integrity: one hundred percent.

Suit circuitry system integrity: one hundred percent.

Electrical storage battery integrity: one hundred percent.

Neutrino absorption array integrity: one hundred percent.

Flux battery storage: five hundred megawatts.

Recharge rate: ten megawatts per hour. Standard.

Right Perdition fuel supply: one hundred point zero zero percent.

Right napalm rocket count: fifty out of fifty.

Left Perdition fuel supply: one hundred point zero zero percent.

Left napalm rocket count: fifty out of fifty.

Stim-pack dosage count: ten out of ten

User neural integrity: stable. No change.

User oxygen intake: optimal for current activity.

User pulse: forty-six point two beats per minute.

Alert: user comatose for eighty-two point two hours.

Cause: neural overload.

Break in trend: unknown cause.

Clear to proceed.*

That warp gate put me in a coma for almost three and a half days?! Caulk thought incredulously. Where in the hell am I?

Caulk opened his eyes again and observed his position. He was laying on his back in a room that made Caulk instantly think of a prison cell, albeit enormous. On one end was a square, steel door that was six meters on each side and made up an entire wall. The opposite wall was about ten meters away. Each of the other three walls, the ceiling and floor were made of solid concrete.

Caulk thought for a moment. He remembered there being a set of rules in the Dominion military in regards to being a prisoner of war. One in particular, was that any PoW was to make every attempt to escape whenever possible. While he wasn't exactly a prisoner of war, he was being detained against his will and he did not like it. Looking around his "cell"--which he was now fairly certain was what this room was--from his position on the ground, he concluded that he was going to have to find a way to break out.

Getting to his feet was a challenge. Being on one's back side while wearing CMC armor was akin to flipping a turtle on its back. He had to swing his right arm and leg over his body in a wide arc to throw his body onto its side, and then on to his stomach. From there, Caulk could just put his feet under him and get up normally. Caulk approached one of the longer walls. He raised one of his giant boots and Spartan-kicked the wall, achieving only a modest, boot shaped imprint.

So these walls are probably reinforced. Probably a meter thick too. And underground.

Caulk scowled. Escaping was going to be harder than he thought. One thing he had learned over the years was that the door was often stronger than the walls. In this case, breaking out through the walls were out of the question as they were likely underground.

Might as well see my options with the door.

The door was a plain, flat, steel mass of which the only details were a small, rectangular window slit not much higher than a meter above the ground--which Caulk found odd--and the rivets that surrounded it. At his commanding thought, the armor rolled his right Incinerator gauntlet, one of the components on his forearms that housed the napalm rockets as well as heated the combusto-plasma Perdition fuel, a bit further up is arm, allowing the suit's huge mechanical hand to move through its full range of motion. Caulk's built-in mass spectrometer, a small, rectangular device with a tube jutting out of the front end extended out of the back of his "hand," and he brought the end of it a few centimeters away from the door.

*Chemical composition: ninety-eight point two percent iron, one point eight percent carbon,* came the gravelly voice from the suit.

"Hm. Just normal carbon steel," Caulk said aloud to himself, "I could probably melt my way through the door pretty easily..."

Caulk took a few steps away from the door and rolled his Incinerator gauntlet back into position. He raised both gauntlets and primed the Perdition magnetic fusion heaters.

"Barbecue time," He said with a grin.

The air in front of Caulk was then ablaze with a low density wave of thirty thousand degree, magnetically heated plasma. While he couldn't see the door through the orange flames, he could still tell he was getting something done by the puddle of incandescent, molten steel pooling around the door. Caulk even had to take another step back to avoid the heavily heated liquid. About ten seconds into the process, Caulk mentally face palmed. He realized he was using thirty thousand degree flames to melt through a steel door in a confined space. If he kept this up long enough, he would kill himself from the incredible heat.

Panicking, he was about to stop the flow when the flames suddenly stopped licking against the door and started roaring straight through the walls after nearly exactly fifteen seconds. Cutting the flow, Caulk found he had successfully melted his way through. A massive hole, big enough for Caulk's suit to easily fit through had been bored into the door, with the edges still glowing white-hot and a four meter puddle of cooling, molten steel covering the ground around it both inside and outside the cell. On the other side of the door was a much larger room with the far wall about ten meters from the door.

*Right Perdition fuel supply: ninety-nine point seven zero percent.

Left Perdition fuel supply: ninety-nine point seven zero.*

Caulk waited for the puddle to cool before he stepped through the hole. It wasn't exactly ideal to have the out-soles of your boots coated in steel. He waited until it was a blackish, cherry-red. Still hot, yes, but not so much that it would stick to his boots. To test it, Caulk poked the puddle with his toe. He was met with his foot making a small indentation, similar to clay. Chuckling, Caulk put his entire foot on the puddle, put all his weight in it, and took it off. On the ground was a perfect rendition of his footprint.

Pulling himself back to reality, Caulk slowly and steadily stepped through the hole in the door, leaving footprints as a walked. Looking around the new room, he found it was about a meter taller than his cell, and he couldn't quite tell how long. At least two hundred meters, by his estimate. One side of the corridor ended in another concrete wall, where the other opened to the outside and had a ramp of which the top was higher than the top of the opening.

As he looked around the room, Caulk's eyes fell on a small, white, quadrupedal animal that was wearing purple and gold armor, and was staring at him wide-eyed. It looked almost like a horse, in his opinion, but much smaller. He felt like there was a proper term for that. Pondering, Caulk remembered that they were called ponies, and what made this "pony" stand out was that it had a single horn on its forehead, its eyes were comically large, and its mane and tail were an odd shade of blue. Not sure of what to properly call it, Caulk decided to just label it as "equine."

What are the horned horses called again? Caulk thought, Unicorns. That was it. But I thought those were mythical creatures?

By Caulk's logic, if there were horses or ponies, especially ones wearing armor, there had to be some form of human presence nearby. Unsure of what to do, he simply stood staring at the diminutive creature, wondering if it posed much of a threat and would need to be put down.

Before Caulk could complete his analysis, the equine turned around and broke into a run down down the corridor to the opening. Unsure of what to do, Caulk ran after it in hopes that it would lead him to whoever was in charge. Unfortunately, the equine was much faster than Caulk was, and reached the opening of the corridor long before he did.

Who designed this thing? I can't run worth crap in it!

As it ran up the ramp, Caulk heard someone yell, "DROP THE GATE!"

Caulk heard what sounded like a pair of chains snapping, followed by a massive steel portcullis crashing into place with a loud boom. Swearing, Caulk scanned the composition of the gate which gave him the same reading as the door. He pointed his right gauntlet at the bottom of the portcullis and to his right, and used his Perdition flames to melt through the bars as he made a wide arc. Caulk kicked the section that was now only supported by its spikes in their holes in the concrete, sending it flying against the ramp with a loud clatter.

Caulk could see the white unicorn at the top of the ramp and ran after it, only to see it retreat out of his vision. Just as Caulk reach the top of the ramp, a large net fell on top of him, causing his legs to get tangled. He tripped over the thick ropes and fell flat on his face. He flailed his arms and legs instinctively, trying to get free. The only thing he achieved was making the knot worse. Caulk stopped to examine the ropes of the net for a moment, and found that they were made of plant fibers.

Well then this should be pretty easy to break, he thought, only to be disappointed when the ropes held fast when he attempted to pull them apart. Enraged, but at the same time impressed and intrigued, Caulk attempted to burn through a particularly large knot with a short, probing blast. To his astonishment, the ropes withstood the heat, but under closer inspection, many of the loose fibers were slightly blackened at the ends from the heat.

Realizing that while the ropes were strong but not invulnerable, Caulk used both gauntlets to blast the knot, and within seconds it had burned away completely. The net now in multiple pieces, Caulk was able to shrug it off his shoulders with ease. Getting back to his feet, he looked around and saw a thick ring of armored equines, each wearing gold armor.

Why aren't there any Terrans here? Caulk thought, perplexed, And what's with all the freakin' horses!?

Caulk was starting to grow irritated. Surrounding him was nothing but bizarre equines, but no Terrans to control them. Someone had to be in charge here, and his rather aggressive escapade was not exactly subtle, so why hadn't anybody noticed him? As much as he wasn't complaining about no opposing force, he wasn't too fond of being given the cold shoulder.

Caulk watched with annoyance as the unicorn that he had seen in the underground corridor approached him. When it was about three meters away from him, its horn began to glow purple, and suddenly everything Caulk looked at was through a purple sphere. Caulk looked at the purple ball as one might a missing shirt button: confused and slightly irritated. Caulk tentatively reached out and poked it with one of his Perdition nozzles, only to find that the bubble was as solid as steel.

Upon the realization that he was in a containment shield, Caulk was sent from slightly irritated to downright enraged. Driven by anger, he brought his right gauntlet up over his left shoulder and sent it crashing into the shield. Looking through it, Caulk could see the white equine wince at his blow. He deduced that this equine had psionic abilities to some extent, which raised a few questions such as: are these really equines?

Mentally shrugging it off with an "Eh," Caulk repeated the smashing motion again and again. Through the shield, he could see the small creature on the other side react more and more painfully to his blows. Eventually, the equine's horn stopped glowing, and the shield disappeared with it. The animal dropped onto its stomach and clamped its front hooves over its head, which Caulk thought to be a strange movement for an animal.

Thoroughly pissed at the equine, Caulk figured it would better his chances of escape if the thing was out of his way for good. His Perdition flamethrowers would at least be a swift way to die. Admittedly, it was kind of a bad way to go, but then again, there weren't very many "good" ways to die either. His conscience at ease, Caulk lifted his left gauntlet and was about to release the super heated plasma. The instant before he could, however, something impacted his chest and sent him sprawling onto the ground.

Dazed but uninjured, Caulk clumsily got back to his feet and looked around for the source of whatever had hit him. Standing next to the white equine on the ground was a larger, midnight blue equine that had a billowing mane and tail that looked to be filled with thousands of pinpricks of light. This one had a horn in the middle of its forehead, which was glowing a deep blue, as well as a pair of feathery wings at its sides. It was unarmored, unlike its white counterpart, and appeared to be pawing (hoofing?) the ground like a bull in a bullfight from old, old Earth.

Caulk was trying to think of what manner of equine this was when it surprised him by making the first move, its horn lowered, eyes glaring and advancing steadily towards him. The only way Caulk could interpret that gesture was that it intended to fight him. Not wanting to spend much time here, Caulk tried to think of a way he could end this and get on with finding a way back "home."

Coming up with an idea, Caulk advanced towards the equine at the same rate as it was. When they were about two and a half meters away, Caulk made a clumsy lunge forward, and followed through with an awkward, albeit effective, roundhouse kick in one fluid motion. The massive, neo-steel boot sent the equine to the ground with a strange yelp that seemed uncharacteristic of an equine. Then again, Caulk didn't know much about traditional farm animals as he had been more of a city boy, so he chose to ignore the anomaly.

Figuring that this equine (was it even the same species as the other one?) was the greater threat, Caulk decided to eliminate this one as well. He put his left foot on its side to keep it pinned, and raised his right gauntlet to incinerate its upper body. As he was priming the magnetic heaters, Caulk heard a raspy, feminine voice yell "Hey!" When he looked up, he froze in place as he was met with a bizarre, and incredibly amusing spectacle.

Using a pair of cyan, feathery wings to keep it hovering in place at eye level, was a cyan equine of smaller size than the white unicorn on the ground. Its fur was the same shade of blue as its wings, and it sported a peculiar rainbow-colored mane and tail. It had magenta eyes that were locked in a fierce glare at Caulk. If anyone else had looked at him that way, he would have cringed a bit. Now, though, that it was a tiny, almost adorably cute equine that was doing it, only made it that much more hilarious. Caulk bit his lip to contain his laughter, and thankfully his helmet concealed the huge grin on his face.

"Who do you think you are to go around beating up ponies, huh?" it yelled, and judging by its voice it was obviously female, "I should teach you a lesson for kicking the Princess! You don't look so tough, put 'em up!" As it--she?--said this, it used its fore hooves to punch the air in front of it, evidently in an attempt to be intimidating.

Caulk couldn't contain his laughter anymore. The sight was just too funny. He deactivated the magnetic heaters, pulled his foot off the dark equine and took a step back. The winged equine smirked, apparently thinking it had succeeded in making the colossal firebat back away. Its look of pride quickly turned into one of confusion and indignity as Caulk fell over flat on his back, laughing maniacally.

"HEY! Stop laughing at me! I could buck you all the way to the moon!" the small equine yelled, aggravated at Caulk's behavior. Unfortunately, its reaction only served to throw Caulk into even deeper hysterics. Fuming, the winged equine planted itself on the ground and waited for the laughing man to stop.

After several minutes, Caulk's laughter died down. Now understanding that these equines were sentient, he regarded them in a different light. Thinking for a moment, he figured that the only sentient aliens he had ever encountered were Protoss and Zerg, and neither of them had been very friendly. Caulk realized that he had made a first contact, and suddenly regretted his aggressiveness earlier, though not his breaking out of his cell.

Unsure of what to do, a childish thought wormed its way into Caulk's mind. He stood up in that awkward and carefully practiced manner, and walked slowly to where the winged equine stood. When he approached it, he saw its pupils shrink as it beheld his full height. He dwarfed the equine, the top of its head hardly reaching the tops of his knees. Caulk leaned over it, so that his visor was only a few centimeters away from its face and said,

"Boo."

The equine let out a high pitched yelp and jumped backwards away from Caulk, who immediately fell into another laughing fit. If looks could kill, Caulk would have been sent straight to Hell from the look the equine was giving him. Without warning and catching him completely by surprise, the equine spun around on its fore hooves and rammed its rear ones into Caulk's thigh plate, making little more than a metallic thunk that left him completely unharmed. Neither he nor his armor were damaged, but a small amount of the orange paint was chipped off slightly, making Caulk slightly miffed.

Caulk reached down and grabbed the equine by the tail before it could turn back around. He lifted it over his head with it dangling from his grasp so that they looked eye to eye.

"I painted this myself. It would be a shame if I were to have to do it again, wouldn't it?" Caulk said evenly, but made it clear that he did not approve of the scratch in the paint.

He looked away for a moment, and saw that the white unicorn and the strange, dark blue one were back on their fee- hooves Caulk reminded himself, quite a ways away and being tended to by a yellow, winged equine with a pink mane and tail. Another thing was that all of the armored equines--guards, apparently--stood around him in a four meter wide circle that had about seven layers, effectively encompassing Caulk.

Caulk watched as some of the equines separated and formed a corridor directly in front of him. A majestic, white equine, similar in build to the dark blue one, but significantly larger walked down the gap in bodies in such a way that it reminded Caulk of watching Emperor Mengsk move through a crowd. That is to say: tall, stoic and evenly. The equine itself looked very peculiar in relation to the others. Like the dark blue one, it had both wings, horn, and a billowing mane and tail, though these were shades of pink, green and blue. It had gold shoes on its hooves and a thick golden necklace with a large, pink gem embedded in it, as well as a gold... tiara? Caulk didn't know his jewelry that well. He had completely forgotten that he was holding the polychromatic equine by its tail, which was also staring at this new arrival.

Out of all the equines present this one was by far the largest, yet Caulk still dwarfed it. The white equine stopped about two meters in front of him, and he found that its head only reached as high as his codpiece. Caulk cocked an eyebrow as the equine spoke in a charismatic voice that uncomfortably made him think of a female version of Emperor Mengsk.

"I know you can understand me. Please, put the mare down."

Caulk recoiled and thought for a moment. Mare? What's- oh, rainbow-hair here? Caulk chuckled to himself at the thought. Imagine that: they use the same terms we use to talk about horses. He almost considered giving into his childish temptation to say, 'Be careful what you wish for,' and drop the equine on its head. No, that would be pretty out of line. After all it-- she? Dammit that's gonna get on my nerves... did ask nicely.

Instead of dropping the colorful equine, he gently lowered it to the ground until he could let go of it and have it safely land on its hooves. The instant he let go, the equine zipped to the regal looking equines side protectively, who then whispered in a barely audibly voice, "Rainbow Dash, get away from here. This is not your place." The equine apparently named "Rainbow Dash" opened its mouth to protest, but then hung its head and shot off to the outside of the ring of guards, but not before glaring at Caulk one last time.

"My name is Princess Celestia. You have hurt my guard captain, injured my sister and almost killed both," the equine said evenly, but was, without a doubt, ticked off at Caulk. "I can understand your wanting to get away from here by any means, but I will not tolerate you killing any of my little ponies, understand? What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I'm hungry," Caulk said with a perfectly straight face.