*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*...Flint...*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*
I popped an eye open, not knowing where I was or what the hell had even happened, and was met with the simple color black. I couldn't remember much for some reason, the only thing coming to mind being the unicorns charging something, but after that was a bunch of fuzz and headaches.
Dull pressure came from my flanks, but I found looking down didn't do anything; everything was still black unsurprisingly.
'I really should think of retiring.' I thought to myself, fidgeting my arms to find I had a bit of wiggle room.
'I could go do something with less explosions and rubble on me. Like be a baker. Yeah, bakers need fire, right?' I continued, laughing at myself for considering retirement even though I was barely old enough to drink.
I used the little bit of wiggle room to push whatever it was covering me, off of me.
Where I expected the black color from being under rubble to change, it only went from one shade of black to a slightly less black one.
Wherever I was at was poorly lit, a problem I could fix pretty easily with a bitta fire, but the other thing that was a problem was that I had no idea where I was -- and I had been here for years. I did find there was a hole to show where I had come from; but, unlucky me, it had been caved in as well.
This whole thing was weird.
I strained a bit and a little flicker of fire lit up, not meant to burn, but it did bring a bit of warmth with it.
Even after making fires for years, I still got a bit zoned out whenever I saw one that could pass as special. The little ball of orange light floated down into my hooves, not burning me where it would others, but feeling more pleasant than most people say fire should. Stone says staring at fire for too long causes blindness, but I've done it for a long time and I've still got twenty-twenty, so I think he's pulling my chain. But I just can't help looking at it, even a little ball of fire like this one was so pretty.
Like a little lightning bug.
I shook my head.
"Not the time..." I muttered to myself, pushing the fire up gently to help light wherever I was.
It was dark, duh, but most of the walls were naturally a dull, lead color, and felt rough like concrete. There weren't any obvious lights like most the hallways had, but instead had some of those really old torch stands - that I went ahead and led the little ball of light onto - that gave the room an almost romantic lighting to them in a weird sort of medieval way.
The room I was in was in was a large hallway at best, pretty narrow but still wide enough to fit maybe another me on either side, but thanks to the torch I could see that it opened up at what must've been the end of a hallway.
'Well, looks like the only way to go.' I figured, gripping the torch out of its holster and bringing it along with me.
I felt kinda giddy actually, even though I was in the middle of some climatic battle with some people trying to bust out Whitey. It was kinda fun to go through this place I'd never seen before - all dark and menacing, like some kinda dungeon.
"Hello?" I called out, partially to play into that whole dungeon crawler role, and to also see if anyone was actually there.
No one responded and I found myself smiling and trotting in place like a little foal.
I kept moving forwards, continuing to call out to see if anyone was there, and continued to be met with silence. I finally made it to the opening, preparing to call out for someone again, until I got stopped cold in my tracks.
Something answered.
Not a voiced answer, but a sound. The sound of what I would've guessed was something clanking together - either glass or a metal of some kind. My heart skipped a beat when I heard it, and so did the fire of the torch which I quickly dulled down to the point of being the orange glow of embers.
I could reignite it when I wanted, but I didn't want anyone to see the bright, glowing light of my torch - if there was anyone.
There were two downsides to putting out the torch. One was that I couldn't see for crap in the dark without it, and the other was that it made the occasional clanking sound ever more scarier.
I sort of played chicken with my hoof and moving forwards, moving my hoof forward to try and take a step into the room ahead, but pulling it back as soon as the clanking uncannily interrupted it.
I decided to relight the torch at a really dim light, letting me see enough to navigate the immediate area, but not bright enough to really be that noticeable unless you were staring at it.
I managed to creep around the room, figuring the dimensions were about fifteen by fifteen, and eventually found a sort of break away corridor - the only way to progress as well.
There was only one, tiny problem.
'Of course the damned clanking sounds are coming from this way.' I thought to myself, more or less ranting. That being said, I could make out that the clank sounded much more like glass now that I was close enough to hear it better.
I wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing. Probably the latter.
I gulped a little and touched a hoof to the wall, dimming the torch again and beginning to inch my way down the hallway, ears flinching every time the clanking sounds rang out.
Eventually, I found light.
Not natural light either.
The color of the wasn't fire from torches or the light of bulbs or lamps, not even really fitting into a color, but it definitely was light. It came from what looked like another hallway adjacent from where I had entered the room.
I'd watched a lotta horror movies while I was here, kinda helped out with the scary stuff you’d see on the field and also makes as a great way to pass time and get the people who run the desks a good break - everyone loves movie night.
Probably the worst thing about it was the shadow that was being cast on the wall inside the room I was in. I could tell that it was another person, so It wasn’t a monster or something like that, but considering I live in a facility where we hold vampires, I probably would've preferred it to be a monster.
'Woulda made my day a whole lot more interesting, that’s for sure...' I thought to myself, inching my way across the room.
When I got to the other side of the room, I guess something must’ve made some noise, because the shadow on the wall paused for a minute. The rummaging stopped and silence took over.
I immediately stopped everything, pausing just as the shadow had and waiting until whoever it was went back to their rummaging. It was about this time I noticed that, in addition to the sounds of glasses clinking together, there was an odd sound of liquid getting sloshed around.
'What the hell am I thinking?' I asked myself, letting out the breath I hadn’t known I held.
'This isn't a ghost movie...' I shook my head, figuring whoever was digging through the glasses must've been someone else who got blown away by the explosion.
And since I was on the side of the unicorns and hunters and stuff, it must've been one of them.
"Hello?"
The silhouette stopped moving in an instant, the shadow of a head peeking up and looking towards the door to the hall. It was a bit nerve racking, but I knew that they couldn't tell where I was in the dark - I had already put the torch out completely.
The shadow of the head seemed to move a bit before it fidgeted a little bit, leaving a sort of gap near where their mouth would be. Around the same time fortunately, the light from inside started to fade away.
I realized that that gap was a smile.
I felt a tingle creep up my spine while the urge to shout built, but I managed to push it back. Around that same time, the sound of something rolling across the floor caught my attention.
I looked down, the dull light of the torch coming back just enough to make out a bottle rolling up to my hoof and stopping as it gently tapped it.
In hindsight, I probably should've just blasted through the wall or something to get out of there, but I found myself picking up the bottle and holding it near the torch in an attempt to read the label. Why, exactly, I have no idea.
I couldn't make out what the words said. Not that I couldn't read the letters, but the word itself on the label looked like someone tried writing the alphabet without knowing which letter came first.
What was weird though, was that something in the bottle seemed to be moving.
Squinting and looking a bit closer, I saw some sort of shifting inside the bottle - like a tiny person walking.
I felt my heart freeze.
I lowered the bottle.
"Shit."
Something hit me with the force of a train, ramming straight into me from out of the darkness and knocking me into the wall hard enough send the air out of my lungs. Not to mention sending the torch far off to the side and out of reach.
I said that I hosted movie night to help deal with the kinda stuff you see here; that being said I usually dealt with that kinda stuff not so face to face and also not in the bloody dark. So yeah, I was a wee bit stressed that someone, or something, had gripped me by the shoulders and had me pinned to a wall. Care had always said that stress, anxiety and fear always find a way to surface somehow - and in this case I managed to keep those emotions from turning into a scream, but as a result it forced its way out in a different way.
Using the torch as an outlet.
The previously dulled and darkened torch off to the side of the room sparked to life in a blast of fire representing my current feeling of being bloody terrified for my life.
It turned from torch to bonfire in an instant, the fuel of magical flames not going out near as soon as a normal fire.
I made out a pair of lidded red eyes staring at me, a dull spark of something swimming around below their surface. Below those was a crooked smile that kept letting out giggles.
"W-Whitey?" I stammered.
The only response I got was her closing the gap between my body and hers, turning what was me being pinned up against a wall into more of a drunk pony support system.
'Damn...she must be burning up on the inside...' I thought, feeling what seemed like a hot pan pressed up against me.
I mean, it coulda probably been guessed that I was pretty fire resistant considering Stone and Care had called me a walking furnace before. That and how I always got picked to take things outta the oven at Hoovesgiving. The only time I had felt what I would call heat was from either fires that we made on patrol, or from when one of my spells backfired.
A wet feeling brought me back to reality.
I turned a little to see a tongue riding its way up my neck.
"Augh! What the hell?!" I shouted, trying my hardest to push her away, but I would've had better luck trying to move the wall I was pinned against instead of her hooves.
I figured the least I could do would be to try and use the only other thing that I had to get her off me.
My horn.
I gave it a go, straining a bit and letting a small ball of fire build up on the tip of my horn. I figured I'd have to put enough "umph" into it to knock her off of me, so I figured I'd need a small explosion at least.
She stared at the fire on my horn, confusion crossing her face as she strained her neck towards it and narrowed her eyes. After that she stopped straining and let out a giggle.
One of her hooves came off of one of my own, going up to her mouth and sliding across her tongue before making its way up to my horn. She gently placed her hoof on the horn, a sizzling sound hissing as the ball of fire suddenly dissipated.
"What the..." I said, eyes wide in awe as she put out a magical fire like it was nothing. I mean, what she just did shouldn't have even been possible.
She only laughed at me, giving a sick - and almost crazy - giggle.
Something was wrong with Whitey. She hadn't acted like this ever before when we were observing her and even when we took her, though it might be the explanation behind what Stone had told me when he found one of those rookies back in Canterlot in an alley all beat up. This might be the reason she's on the most wanted list here, and also why most people just think she's a legend. I know I wouldn't of believed those legends if I just saw Whitey. Hell, even if I knew her well I probably wouldn't believe those rumors.
My eyes widened as I notice she had extended her hooves, bringing her head back in the start of a very signature position.
"No..." I began, sounding almost like a mother talking to a foal who was about to do something stupid.
Her head made its way all the way back, her front hooves fully extended and a dangerous look in her eyes with an even more dangerous look on her face.
"No no no..." I continued, getting a bit nervous she was actually going to do it.
But she showed no sign of stopping, so I clenched my eyes and braced for impact. I knew she was going to pack a wallop with that noggin, I mean she broke through two sets of steel cuffs by pulling them apart, so there was no telling how fast and strong she could knock her head into mine. One thing was for sure though, I was going to be hurting in the end.
My ears twitched at an odd sound, like someone falling, and I noticed that her hooves had released from mine.
I looked to see that she had fallen backwards onto the floor, her left hind leg twitching a little bit.
'What in the ever loving hell is wrong with her?' I thought to myself, eyes wandering over to the bottle that had rolled up to my hoof.
'Musta been in that bottle...' I decided.
I turned back to Whitey to see that she had managed to get back up, leaning against the wall as a support with her head laying up against it, causing her cheek to squish up. I noticed that the magic ring was still on her horn, almost constantly glimmering, though faintly.
It was only supposed to light up when she tried to use magic, but this one seemed a bit different - 'cause it was lit up constantly. Must be some kinda counter magic or something.
Thinking of the ring brought me back to how lucky we all were that she had gotten that ring put on in the first place. If she hadn't, and she had had access to her magic in stuff, that grey mare probably would've lost that fight. Not to mention that she would've turned to us after that - and with that angry mother of hers, we'd probably be in a pickle.
Whitey began tapping the wall for some reason, making a small little beat out of it that made her chuckle.
Though that chuckling suddenly stopped, and her ears perked up. Even the smirk on her face got dashed, replaced with a stone face. It seemed oddly serious, but still kind of tipsy like before. Solemn would be the word that came to mind.
It was honestly worse than when she was acting scary. Before the idea that you should be scared was explicit, which was something we were all used to seeing in blood suckers, but this had an implicit fear hiding underneath the calm exterior.
She put her hoof and ear back up against the wall, tapping it one final time where she had been tapping before, before arching her hoof all the way back and hesitating briefly.
'What is she...' I began to think to myself, but the thundering sound of her hoof smashing into the wall interrupted me.
*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*...Octavia...*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*
"Ya okay?" A low voice asked, surprisingly filled with what passed for genuine care.
Looking up I saw Stone looking down at me with concern on his face, his beard hiding his pursed lips, a surprising change from the grimace he was wearing just a minute ago when he was trying to hit me.
The room that we were in had been completely destroyed for the most part, most of the white of the room had been chipped away and replaced with the grey concrete that was underneath. That being said, it had made a lot of new holes in the ground, one of which had caused me to fall down and onto a rather sharp piece of rubble, causing me to yip a little bit.
"I - uh - yes, thank you." I stammered getting back up off the ground.
"Look, can ya just give in? Make this easy for everyone?" He asked suddenly.
"Excuse me?" I asked.
"It's hard to do this Miss Melody. I'm just trying to subdue ya here, but when ya seem so fragile it's a bit hard to hit ya." He said, rubbing the back of his head.
I wasn't sure how to react to that, whether to be affectionate at his care, or angry at him calling me fragile. I had done good, or at least I thought I had, for the most part. He had hit my hooves a few time and it felt like a tickle, but now I wasn't even sure if he was hitting them in the first place.
"No, I can not." I said, tossing my head to the side with my nose turned up.
"Please? I mean, yer white mare is nowhere to be found right now, and we both know you can't keep this up forever." He said, trying to reason with me.
He was right, I had been getting tired ever since I had gotten back up after the explosion from before that sent everyone except me, Shakes, Care and Stone out of the room. Care was tending to the wounded unicorns scattered about the room and trying to evacuate them while Shakes had run off to look for her sister, leaving me with Stone.
I didn't quite know why we were fighting anyways, he probably should be helping with wounded too, but we were.
"I will not-" I began, but before I could fully state my apposition, a thundering crash came through one of the walls behind me.
I turned to see that there was a new hole right beside the one that Care had said Vinyl had been shot through, and along with it came a certain someone stumbling out of the hole.
I, and most likely everyone else, turned to watch as Vinyl stumbled out of the hole in the wall. She took a few steps out before falling down, her hind legs flailing occasionally as she tried to get off her back. Similar to a turtle, she eventually straightened her legs out and rocked them back and forth until she finally fell onto one side where she was able to get up.
"V-Vinyl?" I stammered.
General Flint came out behind her in what I could only call a death crawl, getting a certain distance away from Vinyl before finally getting up and stumbling over to the wall and taking a seat.
"F-Flint?" I heard Care stammer.
Stone seemed to stiffen a bit as he walked past me, disregarding me as a threat, and approached Vinyl.
Vinyl didn't seem interested in Stone at the moment, but I actually found her gaze looking at me instead.
I blushed a bit when I saw the... well, the intentions shall I say, in her gaze. She seemed to revel at that kind of reaction, but something in my head seemed to scream at me for blushing and shying away like that.
My ears perked a bit as they picked up a conversation of two familiar voices, one male and another female. I looked around and eventually at Flint and Care, who seemed to be talking to each other.
"She did what?" Care asked.
"She licked my face." Flint said, sounding a mix between disgust, embarrassment and the smallest hint of enjoyment.
I turned my eyes back to Vinyl, who this time seemed to shrink at my gaze.
'We are definitely going to have a talk when we get back.'