//------------------------------// // Taking Action // Story: The Fused and The Severed // by Golden Cake //------------------------------// Once Dan and Wild were gone, I, Wildan Monikind, got ready to jump with my buddies, just as I saw the rest of them finish with their fusions. I first started by wrapping a nearby piece of cloth around my waist. Fusion was cool and all, but it didn’t fuse clothes together, and since Dan’s clothes didn’t really fit anymore, I had to make do with this. Next I picked up a hair tie that was next to Wild’s seat that she left for me. Dan and Wild both have pretty short hair, but with me, I have quite a lot of hair, and they’re just uncomfortable with me having it all over the place, so I tied it up in a ponytail. I also looked around for a weapon, but the best thing I could find was a small pocket knife. “Damnit…” I said to myself. A lot of unicorns were taught combative spells, but there weren’t many physical weapons on board with us right now, so I just had to make this work, and give it my all. The plane was equipped with multiple parachutes, but since most of us were half pegasus fusions, only one or two of us actually needed them. We all DID however need to equip our earpieces, that way we could communicate in case any of us got in a sticky situation. Even though I had less magic than everyone else, being half human still had its upsides, as hands were especially useful for combat, especially melee, which is exactly part of what I was good at doing. “NOW’S THE TIME, FOAL’S! JUMP FOR IT!” Spitfire screamed over the loud gusts of wind coming from the large, open hatch. After she said that, our squad leader, a unicorn pegasus fusion, who I recall was named Ruby Burst, jumped out of the plane, and I jumped out after her. My ears were filled with the sounds of wind, as me and everyone else dove through the sky, towards the practically ancient, sandstone town, which was growing closer by the second. “Alright, coming up on target, get ready to soar,” Ruby said through the earpieces we were all wearing. Ruby then opened her wings and caught herself in the wind, as she floated safely down to a small, desolate alleyway of the town, which I, and all of my squad mates repeated, as we followed her. Once we all landed in the sandy, smelly alleyway, Ruby filled us in on our situation. “Alright, as you all know, we’re here to check for survivors before the approaching wave of severed reach’s the town.” Ruby looked around at all of us. “There are six of us, so we’re going to split into groups. Vanilla Swirl, you’re with me, we’ll check the southern lower parts of town. Lunar Gust and Dazzle Cake, you’re searching the middle of town. And Cotton Splash and Wildan Monikind, you two will check the upper Northeast section.” “We don’t have very much time before the wave reaches us, so we have to be quick, now let’s move! If any of you get into trouble, you know what to do,” she said determinedly, as her and Vanilla flew out of the alleyway. Lunar and Dazzle then flew above the alleyway and towards their part of town, as me and Cotton walked out of the alleyway towards our area. Our section wasn’t far away, which I assume Ruby intented, seeing as how my flight abilities were quite limited, but we still tried to get there as fast as possible, whilst also shouting to see if there was anypony we could help evacuate. This city was desolate, but General Celestia still wanted us to search this place from top to bottom to ensure nopony, or human, if we were lucky, was left behind. As me and Cotton went through the streets, I though I was smelling something foul with my muzzle, and sure enough, as me and Cotton peeked around the back of a wagon, we saw a lone severed, faced away from us, eating the corpse of a unicorn mare at the streets intersection. Severed are basically lifeless, magicless, husks of former ponies. General Celestia suspects that they were created intentionally, by somepony with very powerful magic. The severing spell splits a pony, or human, in some cases, from their basic consciousness, leaving only parts of their feral instincts, which seem to be influenced mostly by the spell that created them. They lash out and attack any pony or human that they see, sinking their jagged teeth into your skin, killing you in moments, then they feed on your remains, and whatever’s left of you becomes one of them. If they bite you, and you survive them after that, the resulting bite will transfer the infectious spell into you, and slowly turn you into a severed too. Fusions have an unexpected sort of counter against this, though, as a bite will cause all people involved to split, and lose their magic permanently, along with their ability to fuse, but the spell doesn’t transform you unless you’re bitten again when you’re split. Basically the bite is the most dangerous when you’re unfused. Cotton quietly moved around the wagon as she got closer to the husk. I quickly, but quietly snuck over to the monster, too, as I hid behind a phone booth. The severed are quite easy to recognize, based on their more gray colors of their coat and mane, very skinny and bony body, thinned hair, and their completely white eyes, not to mention their damaged body parts and severed limbs, which almost all of them have. Their distinctive rotting smell also gives them away pretty easily, at least for ponies, and other creatures who have better smelling than humans. Cotton Splash then peeked from behind the wagon and used her magic to throw a rusty can at the streets traffic light. The following sound drew the attention of the husk, and I started to make my move. Severed have pretty poor eyesight, but great hearing, so I had to be silent. I held my pocket knife tightly in my hand and walked hastily, but quietly, being careful with every step, until I was right behind the severed. I then stabbed it in the back of the head, pushing the blade as deep into it’s skull as I could. The severed screamed, said scream sounding inhuman, and unlike any pony I’d ever heard, until it collapsed onto the sandstone pavement, leaving black goop dripping from my pocket knife. Severed can only be finished with a blow to their brain, which isn’t hard to do when you sneak up on one, especially considering how their bodies decaying makes their skulls easier to pierce through. I wiped my knife clean with the cloth I had around my waist as Cotton Splash stepped out from behind the wagon. “Let’s go,” Cotton said. “Maybe it’ll be easier to look for survivors from the rooftops.” Cotton then helped me push the wagon on the street next to a nearby building, which allowed me to climb up on it and reach the buildings balcony, as she flew up to the rooftop above me. On the balcony, the rooftop was right above me, but just out of reach. I tried jumping as high as I could, and tried using my wings, but I just couldn’t do it alone. “I need some help here, Cotton,” I said. Cotton then peeked her head over the rooftop and grinned slightly. “You’re out of shape, huh?” She laughed. “Don’t worry I’ve got you.” I rolled my eyes and smiled as Cotton flew right behind me, wrapping her hooves around my bare chest as she unfurled her wings. I then balanced myself, and her, on the balconies railing, as I jumped as high as I could. I couldn’t flap my wings with Cotton holding onto my back, but thanks to her flight magic’s strength, we gained enough height to allow me to grab the rooftop’s ledge and pull us both up. Once we were on the roof, we decided to run along the rooftops to our area of the city, as Cotton was holding onto my shoulders the whole time. “You know you can just get off me now, right?” I gasped between breaths. “I wish you were as lightweight as your name makes you sound.” “Are you tired already? Geez, you really ARE out of shape! Just think of this as payment for me helping you back there,” she said. I sighed loudly among my panting breaths. Even though cotton was childish like this sometimes, she has a lot of loyalty for her friends when they need help, believe it or not. “Besides,” she continued. “This is pretty comfy.” ‘How mature,’ I thought to myself. Once we made it to our area of the city, with Cotton only helping occasionally by making a few rooftop jumps easier, we started calling out for any survivors. “HELLO?” I yelled. “IS ANYPONY OUT THERE?” Cotton screamed, as she got off of me. When we heard nothing, me and Cotton decided to continue scouting our area. After some time of finding nopony, just when I was becoming doubtful that we would find anyone, we heard what sounded like a filly screaming for help nearby. I ran to where the screaming came from, with Cotton Splash flying above me. It sounded like the scream came from a few buildings away or so, but there were no easy building jumps I could make from where I was. Cotton flew lower to me and held out her hooves for me to grasp. “Grab on!” she said quickly. I did just that, and Cotton strained to maintain her flight, but she was keeping us in the air. “KID, WHERE ARE YOU?” I yelled. “OVER HERE!” The filly screamed, from a building that was right in front of us. Cotton then roughly landed us in an open window on the top floor of the building, as we flew in and ran into a wall. Me and Cotton got up and looked around. “I think I heard her voice coming from the floor below us, we need to find some stairs,” Cotton said. I quickly checked the doors next to us for stairs, while Cotton dashed down the hallway behind us to look for stairs there. One door I opened led to a hallway, and the door at the end of it led to a stairway. “OVER HERE, COTTON!” I yelled behind me. “I’m coming!” Cotton said, her voice sounding distant. I ran down the stairs, taking three steps at a time, and bashed open the door of the floor below us. “KID, ARE YOU HERE?” I yelled, as I opened more doors frantically. “Help me!” The filly called, coming from a door on at the far end of the room. I ran and swung open the door, and saw a bedroom with a large, shut closet with a severed beating on it. The severed saw me and growled, backing off of the closet as it turned to face me. It then suddenly leapt at me, tackling me to the ground. I dropped my pocket knife as it ran into me, so I quickly picked up a metal rod I saw on the ground to defend myself. The severed tried biting me in the neck, but I stuck the pole I was holding in its mouth, and pushed it back, as I tried pushing it off of me with my legs. I couldn’t get a good position to push it off with my pony legs, though, so all I could do was hold it back. Just when it seemed like it was about to chew through the metal rod I was using, Cotton tackled the severed off of me and pinned it to a wall. I then got up and quickly grabbed my pocket knife, and watched as the severed bit into Cotton’s foreleg. “COTTON!!” I screamed, as I leapt towards the monster and jabbed my knife into its skull, stabbing it repeatedly as it fell to the ground, even after it stopped moving. When I was finished with the stabbing, I shakily laid my pocket knife on the floor, as I took heavy breaths. I used my hand to wipe the black goop off my face as I looked at Cotton Splash, who looked at her foreleg worriedly for a second, but then looked at me determinedly. “Help the filly, we’ll be fine,” she said, as she laid against the bed. I picked up my pocket knife and slowly opened the closet door, which revealed a small, orange pegasus, with a pink mane looking up at me with watery eyes and tear stained cheeks. “Whe-where’s my mom?” She squeaked. I bent down to look at her at eye level. “Where did you see her last, little lady?” I asked calmly. The small pegasus looked past me, at the corpse of the severed, then covered her eyes with her hooves. “…th-that’s her…” She whispered. She was shaking now, and I tried explaining to her that we had to leave quickly, but she wouldn’t budge. It was just then that I heard strange sounds coming from right behind us, followed by a quick flash of white light. I turned around and saw two ponies laying on the bed, one a pegasus and one a unicorn, who looked at each other, before looking at me. “You two were split…” I said slowly. Berry Blast raised her hoof in front of her face. “Y-yeah… I guess we were,” she said. “Bu-but we don’t have time for this, we need to get this filly out of here!” Fuzzy Fun said quickly. Just then we heard a horrible, deafening shriek, almost like an animalistic war cry, as the three of us looked out a nearby window. On the outskirts of town, we saw the wave of severed approaching us. There had to be at least a hundred of them. I quickly looked back at the filly, and tried delicately picking her up, but she screamed and refused. “We have to go! NOW! Just grab her!” Fuzzy said. I gritted my teeth, and forcefully pulled the filly out of the closet and put her over my arm. She screamed and fought back for a few seconds, but then she just stopped fighting as she started sobbing, which made my shoulder wet. As much as I wanted to comfort the poor thing, the best thing we could do for her was get the hell out of the city. Once we made it to the rooftop of the building, I was getting a message from Ruby Burst on my earpiece. Fuzzy and Berry left their earpiece in the building, so it was up to me to get us back to her. “Attention everypony!” Ruby said. “The wave of severed is now right outside the city. Spitfire’s plane is in the east southern part of town, and I’m not sure exactly when the wave will be on top of us, so be sure to get there as fast as possible.” “Ruby!” I responded quickly. “Me and Cotton Splash found a survivor, but Cotton Splash was bitten and she split, without strong magic, how will we make it to your part of town in time?!” Ruby was silent for a second as she took in what I said. “Hmm, you’re going to have to travel on ground level, just try to keep clear of the streets as much as you can. See you on the other side, my friends.” “Roger,” me and everypony else on the line said. I then filled Berry and Fuzzy in one what Ruby said, as we got ready to move. Once we got moving, we jumped to a nearby rooftop that was sort of closer to the ground, and I used my wings to soar safely below, with the little pegasus holding onto my back tightly, as I caught Berry and Fuzzy when they jumped down. This town wasn’t too big, but with only five minutes, we had to make every second count. We tried cutting through alleyways and staying off the main street as much as possible, but we would just have to run when we had no other paths to take. As we ran through the streets, I had a really uneasy feeling, but we had to keep running. It was only when I heard the monstrous shrieks of four of five severed behind us that I realized why I had that feeling. As we ran and ran, soon we saw the plane, along with everypony else who was eagerly waiting for us, including a few other survivors, as they boarded and held the back hatch open, as the plane started. I could sense that the small pack of severed were right on our tail by now, which was also confirmed by the pegasus filly’s screams in my ear as she looked over my shoulder. Berry and Fuzzy were in front of me as I was running, and Fuzzy turned her head to look behind us, before she sighed, and then stopped and turned the opposite direction as we passed her. “FUZZY!!” Berry screamed desperately, as she stopped in her tracks. “GO, JUST GO!!” Fuzzy screamed. I kept running and grabbed Berry as I looked back at Fuzzy, who was distracting the severed, by impaling them with her horn, and acting as… bait. I… I didn’t want to look back any longer, and looked forward, towards the plane, as the hatch was shutting, and all I heard was the sounds of Fuzzy screaming behind me and Berry crying into my shoulder. We all made it into the plane just as the hatch shut and the plane started moving, as I dropped everyone and collapsed onto the floor, with Fuzzy’s screams still ringing in my ears.