Survival is Hell: Trottingham
in case you were wondering what I had in mind for ghasts
“Captain! It’s starting!” Twilight heard. She looked at the market square she was watching over and saw a man fall to the ground, vomiting corrosive bile that slowly burned the flagstones.
“Everybody to the shelters!” Twilight yelled with a magically amplified voice. She dashed through the crowd, helping fallen people up or gathering children and handing them off to parents.
“Twilight! They got through!” She heard over the magic radio. It was Celestia’s voice.
“I know, and it’s starting now... they must have had someone sneak in and draw you off...” Twilight said. She trailed off as she heard a low rumbling growl. She recognized that growl, she had spent months of her life avoiding it. She turned to see a single Ghast staring at her from a back alley.
“Alright, they had someone sneak in and infect a lot of people...” Twilight continued.
“Why what’s going on?” Celestia asked frantically. Twilight didn’t respond, but instead sent a flare of magic into the air, where a sphere was floating above the city of Trottingham.
“Already? They really want this place dead.” Starswirl’s voice came over the radio as the sphere began oozing light purple magic. It quickly formed into a small dragon that proceeded to dive into the narrow cobblestone roads of Trottingham, scooping people up by the dozens and quickly depositing them outside of the city limits. He continued this for a while as the inhabitants of the city either rushed to find him, the edge of the city or the nearest shelter.
Twilight cursed as she already saw a green mist slowly seep through the sewer grates scattered around the city. She was glad, however, that she had prepared for this and that the people, while panicked, were organized and they knew where to go.
“Our job here in Trottingham is no longer policing the city alone. I don’t know much yet, so Captain Twilight will explain further.” A royal guard chief said to his men seven months prior to the outbreak. He was addressing the entire Trottingham royal guard.
“Thank you. You are the Royal Guards of Trottingham city. Your job is to protect it and it’s citizens. But in less than a year, there is a high chance Trottingham will fall prey to the same thing Canterlot did nearly three years ago, or maybe even something worse. Even now, there are shelters being built, precautions being taken and training regimes modified. There is something I need all of you to do. Without openly saying anything about it, spread the word that if what I fear may happen does in fact happen, there are a set of procedures that need to be complied with in order to save as many lives as possible.” Twilight started.
She continued explaining how she was going to get as many people to schedule vacations and visits and trips as close to the estimated time as possible in order to get away from the potential threat. Then she explained the shelters. Certain abandoned warehouses in the business district of the city, as well as many underground tunnels and fallout shelters were being dug and modified to accommodate many for extended periods of time.
She then went on about a special rebreather she was developing to be mass produced that would protect people from the harmful effects of any airborne toxin, pathogen or anything else that could be harmful.
The discussion went well into the night as she made sure every single one of them knew what to do, and then she took control of the battalion stationed there and began training them in the art of killing Ghasts.
Twilight’s frown lessened as she saw groups of guards already handing out the rebreathers to everybody, but soon there was a light fog of pollution clinging to everybody's feet and Twilight was forced to send out massive tendrils of magic to specific, predetermined points around the city. As the light pink barrier encompassed the city, she used the magic to send her voice across the city.
“Stay calm and organized, the toxin is in the air and the barrier is stable. Get to a shelter or any large and sturdy building you can find as soon as possible and make sure you get a rebreather from a royal guard as soon as possible, minimal exposure won’t kill you if you get one swiftly.” She called. Her wings extended as she turned towards her own shelter, which was her Biomechanic workshop and warehouse, and launched into the air.
“This way, we have plenty of room left. Come on. No shoving, you have rebreathers so there’s no rush yet.” Twilight called out as she herded people into the warehouse, which was the actual shelter, of her shop.
“Captain.” One of her elite guard said as he kneeled in front of her to report.
“How are we doing?” Twilight asked.
“Better than expected, but worse than we hoped. There are scores of unaccounted for people and there are already ghasts in the center of the town. There’s already looting. I took a closer look at the first man to fall and his body is already beginning to degrade, I estimate three days before he either becomes a Ghast or is turned into a sizzling husk.” Her lieutenant reported.
“What’s the situation at Shelters one, three, four, five and six?” Twilight asked, pushing the button on her headset as she dismissed her lieutenant to continue his work.
“One here, we’re full and routing people to two, five and six.” She heard.
“Three here, we’ve got plenty of room, but the air filters aren’t working correctly so we’ve still got rebreathers.”
“Four here, we heard about that and figured out in the commotion your mechanic wound up here. We’re doing fine and he’s en route.”
“Six here, we’re filling up, but judging from the fact that I can see the end of people we’ve got enough room. If one can send their extras elsewhere we won’t have to waste time rerouting.”
“Roger.”
“Five, report.” Twilight said. Silence.
“S-sorry... um, the captain left to chase down some looters about two minutes ago, I can see him returning now.”
“Sorry about that, damn kids thinking they can steal money off of panicked people... Five here, we’re seeing Looters but they’re keeping away from us for the most part. Not all of them have rebreathers though so they might be forced to stop and survive with us.” Five reported.
“Good, Three what’s the status on that air filter?” Twilight said.
“The mechanic arrived with his apologies and he’s estimated an hour at the most.” He responded.
“Good. What’s the status supply wise? We’ve got everyone safe and sound with some room to spare and our supplies should hold for a month.” Twilight said.
“One here, ours the same but we’re packed kinda tight.” One replied.
“Three here, we’ve got some room to spare and we’re about to send patrols out to gather stragglers and get the guards out and about to safety, we’ll stop buy at one point today and escort anyone we can back to our shelter.” Three said.
“Four here, we’re full here but within reasonable numbers. We’ll last about three weeks, a month if we ration.”
“Five here, we’re catching some stragglers now and we’ve got plenty of room left, our supplies will probably last a month and a half.”
“Six, we’ve got a problem. some of the wealthy citizens are complaining and we’re a bit tight. We have a few injuries and the CEO of ‘swords and arrows’, a local weapon manufacturer, died and his daughter is demanding she see you.” Six said.
“Alright everyone, send any extras to Five, i’m sending some of mine there too. Six, send the girl down as well as anyone injured severely, and if any of the rich folks get out of hand send them over to me and I’ll set them straight. Same goes for the rest of you.” Twilight said.
“Roger.”
“Got it.”
“Sure.”
“Thank heavens.”
“Thank you.”
The five other shelters went silent after that and the only thing left was radio chatter from the different squads patrolling the city for stragglers.
“‘Swords and Arrows’ huh?” Twilight said to herself. She had helped fund that company not too long ago. She was sad the CEO died, for she thought he was a good man. He was the one who weaponized her inventions so they worked without magical intervention.
“Captain, the airlock is working now.” Someone said to her. She nodded and looked towards a flight of metal stairs next to her and climbed them. They circled a bit until she was about twenty feet from the sixty foot roof. There was a door, which she knew led to the second floor of the shop that was where she lived, and a ladder. She climbed up the ladder and used her magic to close a small bulkhead behind her as she reached the middle of the ladder. She pressed a few buttons on a keypad on an identical bulkhead, which was ten feet above the first, and it opened to reveal the roof of the warehouse.
She pulled binoculars from the side of the protrusion that held the bulkhead and looked at five different points. Each one was the five other shelters. The first was near the main entrance to the city, which was one of the two large royal guard barracks in the city. They were small compared to the warehouse though, so they could only hold so many survivors. She saw an elite guard, one of her five Lieutenants, standing on the roof with an identical pair of binoculars. He made an ‘all lies well’ hand signal and she replied with an ‘Affirmative’ signal.
They could have used the radios, but she needed to make sure they could communicate should they break. And besides, she had to turn hers down due to the chatter the patrols were making.
She looked towards the third shelter, which was the only supermarket Trottingham had, and repeated the process with the man standing on that roof. The fourth shelter was an underground bunker and the watch tower on top of it near the opposite side of the city. From the watch tower she repeated the signals to the woman there.
The fifth shelter was a Warehouse in the Warehouse district, Twilight’s warehouse being oddly placed near the center of the city. She had to wait a moment, but soon a man climbed the ladder and they traded signals.
The final shelter was in the wealthy district. It was the largest mansion in the area, which was nearly half the size as her warehouse. She spied a small group of people near her shelter, obviously having come from Six. She saw that the healthy people were struggling to help and/or carry the injured. She quickly jogged to the edge and hopped off the edge and skipped across the nearby rooftops.
“Need some help?” She asked.
“Any would be appreciated.” The guard in charge of this patrol said. She snapped her fingers and the dozen stretchers lifted off of their bearer’s shoulders and floated towards where her shelter’s doors were sliding open.
Survival is Hell: Trottingham
1
“So, which one of you is the dead CEO’s daughter?” Twilight asked the group. Nobody answered, but a girl a few years younger than her who was on a stretcher, raised her left hand. The other arm was just a crimson-stained bandaged stub just after the shoulder and crimson-stained bandages covered her right eye.
“I see. I’ll get everyone to our med-bay.” Twilight said. The rest of the group that wasn’t injured nodded and joined the great mass of other people in the expanse of the warehouse. She snapped her fingers once more and the stretchers floated in front of her and through a door, which led to the workshop and her home. The workshop was relatively unchanged, but she had turned her home into a medical bay.
Extra doctors and nurses had been brought in to all the hospitals recently so they could evenly distribute medical staff to all of the shelters. She used her magic to set the injured onto medical beds in a line as doctors and nurses made sure they were fine.
“The medical staff at their shelter did a good job, they’re all stable.” Red Heart said.
“Good. Now, there is something I have to ask all of you.” Twilight said. All the injured were conscious, and they gave her their full attention.
“It will be painful, but If you don’t know who I am, I’m Twilight Sparkle. I’m not only the most knowledgeable in Biomechanical prosthetics and surgeries, I’m the only one that can actually put that knowledge to use in a timely manner. What this means, is that you have a choice. I have enough time, resources and experience to make any of you with handicaps able to live normally again.” Twilight said. The questions and exclamations came in a rush. She put a hand up to silence them.
“It’s your choice. You don’t have to choose now, but if you do I can either set up accommodations or prepare my equipment.” Twilight said.
“I hear you’ve got three limbs that are Biomechanical, and that they’re weaponized to the point of being a one man army...” The CEO’s Daughter rasped.
“I do, and yes... The weaponization is almost ridiculous.” Twilight said.
“I want a new arm, and I want it weaponized.” The girl said.
“As you wish. Anyone else? You don’t have to be weaponized.” Twilight asked. There were a total of five, out of the nine there, that had missing limbs and/or digits. One man was missing his four main fingers on his right hand and wanted a glove of sorts. When asked he said he crashed when flying to the shelter and they had to be amputated at the other shelter.
“My father and I ran into one of those zombie things.” The CEO’s daughter, who revealed her name to be Starry Night, said lowly.
“What happened?” Twilight asked as she took a measurement of the girl’s left arm for reference.
“I had a longbow with, but it caught us by surprise...It took my arm off with a swipe of it’s claws and when I fell, the longbow I had fell into a small puddle polluted with acid and it got in my eye. He managed to pin it to a wall with a longsword, but it had run him through with its claws. in the struggle it knocked our rebreathers off and they stopped working... When we get new ones, he collapsed outside of the shelter and bled out.” Night explained darkly.
“I thought it took days, if not weeks, for one of those things to come from an affected human and the first one to die from the stuff only died this morning.” One of the nurses said.
“Obviously they were created before today and was somehow hidden from our knowledge... I also suspect the toxin was modified to do that to it’s victims much quicker. Night, will you let me test something?” Twilight asked.
“That depends on what it is.” Night replied.
“I’m just going to test your blood for toxin or acid... Or both.” Twilight said.
“But, blood is soaking these bandages and they’re not burning...” Night said, wiggling her stump.
“That’s not fresh.” Twilight said, forming a small claw on one of her fingers and nicking the girl on her intact left arm. Night flinched, but did not protest. Twilight brought the claw to her face and tentatively licked half of it off. Her face scrunched up and she coughed for a bit.
“Oh yeah, toxic and acidic.” She said before dispelling the magic claw.
“What?” Night gasped.
“You were exposed to a lethal amount of the toxin, yet you survived and you’re still coherent. That means you went through the same thing I did in Canterlot.” Twilight said.
“... What about me? That crash smashed my first rebreather.” The man with the missing fingers asked. She tested him and had a similar, albeit not as powerful, response.
“Damn it, anyone else lose their rebreathers?” Twilight asked. Everyone else shook their head if they could. “Good... I’ll be back soon. I’ll bring you individually into the workshop to fit you with generic prosthetics until the real stuff is made but for now I have a shelter to run.” Twilight said, turned and left.
“So you’ve got one over there too eh?” Twilight said over the radio, she was talking to the woman in charge of shelter four.
“The syringe melted when we were taking a blood sample.” The lieutenant replied.
“Send him over before the changes to his body start, once that does he’ll pass out from the pain. I’ll be on the roof to watch for him.” Twilight said. She received an affirmative and looked towards the watchtower. The green fog that was the toxin had reached her feet, even while standing on the roof, so she wore the mask she made in Canterlot and used it’s optics to watch the man making his way out of the bunker. She noticed that he had a prosthetic leg, as his steps were rigid and awkward.
She signaled the doors to open when he reached them almost an hour later. She called down to him and told him to visit the med bay and she’d meet him there. She signaled that the man had made it safely to the other shelter and allowed the lookout to resume his duty in peace as she climbed back down the ladder.
“What is your name?” Twilight asked the man.
“Red hadouken, don’t ask about the last name... Story is too long.” He replied. He was wearing a red shirt and his hair was a two toned mess of gray. He was tall, but not quite taller than her and she was tall, and looked like he hadn’t eaten in days. He had deep blue eyes and she could tell he was withdrawn.
“Alright Red, you had better go lie down with the other two like us. They’ve already started to feel the changes, are you feeling any pains?” Twilight said.
“A little.” He replied.
“Go lie down, pretty soon it’ll get bad. When it really starts tell a nurse and she’ll give you some morphine to knock you out for a while so it won’t hurt all that much.” Twilight said. He simply nodded and did as he was told.
Now that the injured were taken care of and her unit had things under control in the shelter, she was able to begin working on Biomechanical limbs. She first started work on the man’s finger replacements.
“Oh my.” She said suddenly, a thought gripping her mind.
“What?” Red heart asked, having just entered the room.
“I’ve realized I have no idea what to call us now.” Twilight said.
“What do you mean?” The nurse asked.
“before it was just me... now there’s at least three other people like me. What should We call ourselves?” Twilight asked.
“Well, I don’t know about you but the medical staff just started calling you guys ‘Altered’.” Red Heart said.
“Hm... That’ll do for now...” She said and rephrased her thoughts. She decided to work on the other Altered’s replacement fingers and get the framework for Night’s arm at least planned out. Now that her thoughts were on the girl, she thought of her abilities. She was an amazing archer, according to her father when they discussed weapons in the past, and the loss of her right eye would eliminate that ability.
“Hey Starswirl.” She said. The familiar sphere that was Starswirl popped out of the wall and floated to her.
“Yes Twilight?” He responded warily.
“Sorry to wake you, but do you think I could make a Biomechanical eye and attach it to the retinal nerves if they’re intact?” Twilight asked.
“If they are then I don’t see why not, it’d have to be pretty complicated though. As you know the eye is not as simple as a finger or a leg.” Starswirl said.
“Alright, I’ve got an idea then.” She said, looking at a disassembled optics visor on the shelf above her.
“What is that?” Night asked the next day. The injured had been given generic prosthetics while Twilight worked on the Biomechanical prosthetics, she had already finished the hand for Hiiro, which was the third altered’s name, and was putting the finishing touches on Night’s new eye.
“Your arm was easy enough to make, all I needed to do was take one of my spares and modify it to your lengths and sizes. I decided you’d still be a very good sniper even with handicaps, so I decided to try and get that eye back.” Twilight explained. She was currently using a magic laced pocket knife to scrape away excess material from the piece.
Altogether it looked like a camera lens was fitted in the middle of a mask that only covered the area around the eye. There were complicated systems of wires and such inside the thing and Night couldn’t make any sense of it.
“Exactly what will it do?” Night asked.
“Well, I took a look at your eye when you were sleeping. The acid has corroded it nearly all away through, so when it comes time to put this in I’ll detach your eye and attach this surgically. The nerves and retinal nerves will all connect, albeit rather painfully, and you’ll be able to use that eye as if it’s one of my optics masks. I’ll make a special mask for you to go with your armor so it’s comfortable.” Twilight said.
“Wait, what armor?” Night asked.
“I’ve already talked to the other two. Basically, we’re the only things in this place that can stand up to large groups of those things at a time. Think of it like we’re super soldiers, and we’ve got the arsenal to help us even more. It’s going to be up to us to keep all the survivors safe and to figure out how to stop this toxin again.” Twilight explained, having noticed the other two Altered enter the workshop.
“Hey Twilight, you told us that you had loads of biomechanical stuff... I believe you but where is it?” Hiiro asked.
“You’re looking at them. Both arms and my left leg.” Twilight started, before pulling what looked like her skin down like large sleeves and socks. “I had these artificial skin sleeves made when I got out of Canterlot so I wouldn’t freak people out anymore than I would.” Twilight said, pulling the sleeves off of the rest of her body and showing her limbs.
“What kind of weaponization do you have there?” Night asked.
“My right arm is the Longsword military model. It’s got the blade and I’ve added sharpened claw-like fingertips and an internal pump to pump my blood when I need to get rid of toxin or corrode something. My left arm has my shield and my longbow.” Twilight started, showing each of her arms off as she explained. “This one also has an internal pump, but it pumps what eliminates my blood from things like water and stuff. This is what I used to save many lives today, because when it’s in early stages it cures the effects of the toxin. But if it got into my own bloodstream it could kill me.” She continued.
“And lastly, I’ve got a blade that goes along with my knee, one on the toe and high fall hydraulics. On each of the limbs and on my armor there are steam thrusters that I use to dash around in battle, plus my wings.” She said.
“I’ve never seen you carry a quiver, nor did I see a string on that bow of yours.” Night said.
“I make the string from magic and i condense my magic into arrows of solid magic. Once I shoot them I can make them dissipate and give most of the energy spent back, taking whatever ambient energy nearby with it.” Twilight said.
“I want one.” Night said.
“Already did. Now, Red, your leg is the last thing I have to finish. Is there anything specific you want me to do?” Twilight asked. He nodded and showed that his right leg was severely bandaged.
“The only thing keeping this leg intact is the medical staff’s magic... I want it amputated so I can have both of my legs biomechanical. I want those thrusters so I can move faster, I want detachable blades in the thighs so I can pull them out as if they’re in scabbards and I want hydraulics that would make me run and jump higher and faster.” He explained passively.
“I can do that. Now, Hirro. You’re only missing fingers but I’ve made you a Gauntlet to go with the hand. If you’d like I could make a second instead of bracers for your armor.” Twilight said, turning to the red haired boy with slanted eyes.
“That sounds acceptable.” He said with a smile.
“Good. I’ll have everything done, finished and ready to go tomorrow. Tell that to the medical staff and they’ll prep you for it.” Twilight said as she walked towards the door.
“Where are you going?” Red asked.
“Apparently there was some trouble last night when it came to sleeping arrangements and I had to come down and glue some people to the walls. It’s about time everyone started waking up so it’s time to take them down.” Twilight explained with a smirk.
“What’d they do?” Night asked.
“The ‘richies’ were complaining the floor was uncomfortable, there was no room etcetera andante... so I glued them to the wall and put a silencing spell over them for the night.” Twilight said and exited the workshop.
