Imaginerian

Their white-hot screams bubble in his ears. Tires rip up the road, their nirik drivers turning vehicles into inflammatory suicide vests. He releases a short burst from his rifle to leave the pick-ups headless, charred corpses rolling around on the road, scorching the asphalt they bounce upon.

He and his squad get out of the way of the still-moving vehicles, hearing the hiss of fire extinguishers from policekirin and Fickle's entourage behind them. He just has to hold it together to the steps of the entrance. "'Bright Futures Health Center' sounds rather optimistic," he quips, now swearing he can sense the sharp smell of medical alcohol from within.

By a few pillars, Apple Bloom talks with a few bigger guards. "Come on, we need ta get inside and help y'all!"

"No can do, miss," says one of them, the patches on his forelegs identifying him as the leader. "Your presence inside will only complicate matters."

"We just helped save the Chief Executive!"

"And I am extending you the mercy of not putting him in further danger by staying outside and guarding the perimeter," he says.

"And I say Fickle Current's our employer, Mister Leader, and we're not havin' any of this nonsense 'bout the both of us fightin' when we could be workin' together on the field!"

Then "Mister Leader" points a hoof outward, upon the burning car-strewn avenue ahead. "There's the field."

Apple Bloom replies with a curse at him and a knowing nod to the crew.

Tall follows suit, Nascente and Eckhard now standing by behind fallen cars and some huge chunks of fallen wall, evidence of a prior fight, one with explosives. He overhears orders from behind, asking for status updates on a code name whose meaning is all too obvious.

The soothing sirens of police cars are the next attraction to arrive, cadets set to secure the scene and advising onlookers to please not go beyond the invisible line. Tall peeks through the coming-and-going stream of passers-by, something about social camouflage. Who is this stallion wearing so many jackets? Or why is there a raggedy mare going around with a foalless stroller? Or the pair of plainclothes citizens on the avenue's far side chatting with each other, eyes shifting his way? Or those begging on the streets lying on cardboard boxes yet analyzing every angle of the hospital Tall's guarding? Away from the information overload, he turns back to the next train of pick-ups heading their way, accompanied by vans, not unmarked but bearing logos of TV stations, unloading armies of camerakirin and reporters now attempting to bargain with the local police force to get a literal inside scoop with the Chief Executive.

Tall growls at the unintentional distraction. He sees his zebra and griffon mates staring down the news crews as if daring them to come any closer. Squad leader Apple Bloom straightens up at the sight of them, looking past the babbling kirin in their dashing suits and dresses and make-up perfect for colored TV—and Tall follows her gaze.

A few silhouettes shuffle on a roof across the road.

Tall trots ahead of Apple Bloom, entering the fray of camera flashes and red lights declaring that they're recording him now. "Everyone, we advise that you please stay away. The situation is still developing—"

Then the bang of a gun, a fallen camera, and the screaming continues.

Under Apple Bloom's orders, Tall and company fall back to the doors of the hospital, taking cover behind the pillars and then the welcoming atrium inside with its comfortable air conditioning. No further gunshots, but the skidding of wheels and news vans leaving is a sign.

Now a distant hiss, and Tall can't help but look out the window—flare guns shooting from the rooftops. Multiple roofs, with nirik blazing against the starless sky.

Then flare guns shooting at them, disgusting smells of chemicals burning and spreading like a sticky sort of gasoline coating the grounds outside. He spots Nascente and Eckhard picking off nirik jumping down to ground level, one or two dropping dead like flies. "Hold the perimeter!" shouts someone—a grunt directly employed by Fickle, most likely—and she and her own squad rush deeper into the facility, disappearing behind clean, pristine white walls.

"We're not holding this fort down!" Apple Bloom yells back seconds too late, seeing what Tall's already deduced—the four of them left for dead at the gates of Tartarus. When she looks back, she beholds several flaming pick-ups, machine guns firing ear-splittingly on all cylinders, filled with intent to crash through the doors and windows.

As if they read each other's minds, they sprint back, maintaining a forward stance to keep shooting, praying that a few dead drivers will blunt the initial impact.

Those walls crumble; glass windows melt and shatter before the might of a herd of headless truck-nirik.

Tall hides behind the corner of a wall, leaning out for shots from anyone peeking out of the smoldering remains of their cars. One dead. Then another. One more pick-up drifting late to the scene—a few shots, its tires explode, and it swerves into an adjacent building, demolishing the storefront… he remembers that it had TVs on display.

Then a dot coming his way—

His magic grabs the grenade inches from his muzzle. Throws it back, a lucky hit on someone's face, and she disintegrates—the gory bits, he doesn't see, hiding his face from shrapnel. With his hearing recovering from the blast, he notes…

A ghostly tone. Haunting, slowed-down shrieks. Coming the nirik's way.

More nirik rise from the flames engulfing the atrium, pupilless eyes staring right at him.

Pulls down the trigger. He shoots, he scores a few. Down some more—one shoots back, carrying a machine gun mount she's ripped off from a nearby dead car, her sheer adrenaline- and rage-fueled strength keeping her grip on the hefty weapon. Primal roars attack his ears while bullets shred the wall dividing him from her. He scampers further into the hallway—looking back is the comforting sight of Eckhard telling him to get a move on and scram.

Against the hard floor tiles, his hoofsteps quicken, still facing forward. It's like one of those atomic bombs going off but truly slowed down: the fireball of the explosion eating every inch of the corridor, where from the mass of mindless fire, fanged faces appear, now brandishing guns and shooting wildly. He throws a grenade at them, which only feeds the fire, hastens its pace. A door falls, and he trips—Eckhard yells at him now to move up the stairs, second floor.

Gunfire from upstairs is now a badge of safety—he's on the same floor as Fickle's bodyguards, though questions pile up about their competence, which he shelves for now in the face of nirik ascending the steps. A choke point he'll hold. Apple Bloom's orders tell them to focus on that choke while Eckhard—with his wings for mobility—will scout out potential flanking points the enemy may spill in through.

"Is there anyone else out there?!" Tall shouts above the chaos. "Or is it just us?!" A sweeping view of his new surroundings—a kind of lobby, with elevators and seats for those waiting in line to be called by a number—confirms that several more of said bodyguards—taking care of their own stairwell killzones—are present. But not PMCs. No badges or anything. Black suits, some with glasses. "Hey, you! Any update on Fickle?! Hey, I'm talking to you! Are you—?!"

And he's sent flying, now across the lobby, now crashing through the window of a reception room, then through some kind of office space—shards of glass planted into his coat, clawing at his frying nerves. He can only grit his teeth, senses recovering to feel the flame washing over him.

The flames of the nirik that swatted him so far, so fast. To the other side of the hospital, so it feels, his joints firing pain at him, tearing him apart. Then, he feels for his gun. Empty holster.

Without looking, Tall leaps and roars at his assailant.

Blocked with a hoof, his head grabbed, then smashed against the counter, body falling limp on the floor. Still, he can feel the warmth of tiles kissed by nirik hooves. Behind the enemy, fallen cabinets and drawers incinerate themselves, fireproof magic spells vanishing in his blackening sight.

Now the hot, molten core that is the leg of a nirik touches his face. It pulls his neck, begs him to gaze upon the muzzle of its owner. Fangs as sharp as ever, eyes as white holes or voids. He growls. "Just you and me now, you traitor," the nirik whispers. The edges of what might've been his uniform fray at his collar. "Traitor… traitor! You smell like them, and I hear the beaks in your accent, you scaly… you smug snake!"

Despite it all, Tall manages a weak, fading grin. "Heard… all that before…."

"You don't get it, do you?!" The nirik's breath is rancid and blistering; Tall's own eyes might've evaporated were he not a kirin. "You're with them! I don't know you, I don't know you! I've seen many kirin, but I don't know you! Your lord Fickle is using you to rat his own kind out, and you don't know it!"

"No, no, I-I'm with harmonist forces, I'm with an Equestrian team, I—"

"They have nothing to do with us if you'll sell us out!" His hoof pierces the wall ahead of him; concrete falls. "Those stupid princesses!" He turns his head away, though the fire that was his mane rages brighter. Not looking.

A window of opportunity for Tall to bite his captor on the leg. So he does.

Feeling its searing warmth.

The nirik's howls flood the room. Bullets whiz by in his direction, deflected only by a small magical shield he conjures. Crouching down to avoid the guns, hooves wrap around Tall's neck, dissolving his uniform until his whole body's exposed, open for ravenous fangs to rip and tear through his flesh, the great white heat piercing into his being.

"You want to play smart, little one?!" cries the nirik, getting his face up close and personal, fangs inches away from snapping at Tall's jaws. "Do you want your masters to dim the life out of you? Live on while you die in fear inside? I will live, I will outlive you in death! The Primordial Flame will not welcome you back when you die… but I will be there! I will be there when Kiria returns, while you'll face the curse of non-existence!"

"What if I'm no believer?" Tall cries back, searching everywhere for hints of anyone coming in to strike his attacker from behind. No one.

A primal roar, and the nirik scratches Tall on his barrel—deepening pain, the seeping away of blood, and he can only grunt in pain, biting his tongue and grinding his teeth, breathing harder. His nostrils flare with every pained breath. The fire within him calls for his soul—he hears the crackling of flames from behind him, what he knows is the start of his burning mane.

So he roars. The feeling is fresh, minty relief.

He leaps at him, pins him down to the floor but only after crashing through several boxes and cabinets, mounds of papers falling and dying upon the two scrambling nirik. Lava-hot hooves scratch the floor, and the splinter of one severely broken cabinet he grabs in his magic, one of its ends sharp enough to do the job. He lunges it between the other nirik's eyes, though it stops with his enemy's own telekinesis in a magical tug of war. Their mutual shrieking at each other is meant to deafen the other, so the rest of the world is drowned out—so much force pulled from both sides, the fear creeps into Tall's psyche: whoever falters gets the splinter's pointy end.

Tall drains his lungs, roughens up his throat in yet more screams to pour in a few more ounces of magic into pushing the splinter through the nirik's defenses. He listens for the snarls, the angry and obsessive slobbering his assailant makes, the incoherent curses he's hurling at him.

With a hindleg, Tall strikes the gut, then strikes it again, pummeling his stomach, feeling the nirik's magic grip slip—

The splinter shoots forth. The flames of its nirik state vanish, yet the fangs and the pupilless eyes remain. Tall refuses to witness anymore of the damage done to the body, especially the head.

Said refusal lasts less than a second when the pops of guns remind him that keeping his eyes closed is a surefire way to lose sight of the enemy.

For his prize, though he spots the blurry visage of Apple Bloom hopping over the counter, asking him if he's okay and pulling him up and telling him that everyone's told them where Fickle's hunkering down, Tall doesn't avoid the spectacle of a burned skull split in two even as he walks over it and back into the growing ruins of a lobby.