//------------------------------// // Wild Choices // Story: The Fused and The Severed // by Golden Cake //------------------------------// “Damnit, stop this plane NOW!” I yelled, as the back hatch shut and I ran to the front control area of the plane. Ruby was sitting in the pilot seat, holding her hoof over her eye. I guess she was bitten, but she still managed to kill that severed that attacked her by snapping its neck. She looked miserable. “Ruby,” I said. “Come on, we have to go back for Dan!” Ruby was quiet, before she slowly turned her head to look at me with her whitening eyes. “We can’t,” she muttered. “We’ve lost too many already.” I stared at her intensely. “What about Dan?! He wasn’t just MY friend, he was like a brother to all of us!!” Ruby’s expression turned angry, as she stared back at me. “Yeah, I know. We lost Fuzzy back there, and she was like a sister to me. SO BELIEVE ME, I KNOW HOW LOSS FEELS!!” She yelled. She looked at the floor and shut her eyes. “I don’t have much time before I turn, I’ve already lost enough. Just leave me alone, so I can try to enjoy what little time I have left,” she said slowly. After she said that, I silently stepped out of the front control room and shut the door behind me, and sat down in my seat and strapped myself down. After a few moments of silence, aside from the sounds of the plane, I looked at Moonlit Glow, who was sitting a few seats on my right, and asked him about Ruby. “She’s really not doing good,” he said. “But as much as I hate to say it, she a threat to us. I’m just hoping she’ll be willing to let us… take care of her when the time comes.” It was hard to relax for the ride that followed. When Ruby eventually stepped out of the control room and was ready for her pain to end, she told us to open the back of the plane, and let her fall to the ground peacefully. None of us objected her last wish, and did just that, as she shut her eyes, and was pulled out of the open back of the plane by the wind as the rest of us were all securely fastened in our seats, before we shut the hatch again a moment later. I can only hope that it was truly peaceful for her to go out like that. After what felt like forever, when we finally made it back to our safely hidden, but still very fortified camp, it was already night. Once we landed, as I stepped out of the plane, I looked around at the tall steel walls with barbed wire. Most of the camp was lit up with white light coming from several lamps we had to illuminate everything for those who were on night guard, or had other nightly duties. ‘Good to be home,’ I thought to myself sarcastically. I didn’t want to eat, or shower, or anything, I just really wanted this day to end. I was going towards my tent so I could go to bed early, but one pony from one of the other search party’s who was sitting alone at a campfire waved me over, and I recognized him immediately, despite how I couldn’t see anything more than his blackened silhouette from behind. “Hey there, Wild!” Dally Drift said, as I mopingly sat down on the log next to him. “I heard your group’s mission didn’t go that well, I’m sorry, sis.” I just shrugged as I stared into the fire. Dally was my brother, he’s terrible at reading other pony’s emotions, aside from me, sort of, and he can’t resist from getting intimate with almost every mare, and stallion, in camp, except for General Celestia of course. He’s my brother though, so even if sometimes I wish I didn’t, I still loved him anyways. “Yeah, a few of us didn’t make it, and Dan has gone missing,” I said emotionlessly. I looked up from the fire and looked him in the eyes. “But at least we were able to save some ponies from the severed wave,” I said, forcing a small smile. Dally looked into the fire. “Sorry,” he said seriously. “I know how that human was like a brother to you. We didn’t talk much, but I think he was a good guy.” I looked at him angrily, which caught him off guard. He made it sound as if Dan was dead, which was the last thing I wanted to hear right now. “You know what?” I asked rhetorically. “I’m going to bed, see you tomorrow, Dally.” Once I stood up and already started walking in the direction of my tent, Dally called out to me. “Wild, wait!” He said quickly. I stopped and turned to look at him. “I didn’t say he was dead or anything, I’m sure if anypony can find a way to survive out there, it’d be him, but please, I barely see you, let’s just talk for a bit,” he said. I sighed, and sat back down on the log next to him. He told me how his group’s mission went, and soon mostly just went into details about how much he just adores his fusion partner. “Selliano is such a strong, nurturing stallion!” He said happily. “If there’s anypony I’d want to be my partner it’d be him! When Celestia told me that he was who I was going to have my bracelet synced with, I nearly fainted!” Dally was practically drooling at the thought of his partner, but I just tried to ignore him. One thing about the fusion bracelets is that they have to be ‘synced’ with each other for a more stable fusion, otherwise members of the fusion party who are weaker with their magic could have permanent altered effects on their genetic code, and REALLY change, based on what General Celestia told us. I think Dan was actually busy with something else the day that Celestia broke that down for us, and I’m not sure he heard about it, but it’s not like he would fuse with any random pony with a bracelet if he had the chance to. He’s told me before just how much fusion kinda freaks him out, except with me, I suppose. But me and Dan were partners for a reason, plus, our bracelet’s were synced with each other, which can’t be reversed. As I was starting to leave my own thoughts, I realized that Dally was still talking, I think about the third stallion he sweet talked to bed, and that was when I decided to call it a night. I slowly stood up and started trotting in the direction of my tent. “But we were just getting to the good part!” He whined. “You think Nightmare Moon could make the night last forever? You should’ve seen him! C’mon, Wild!” I actually laughed slightly when he said that, he was so dumb. “No thanks! Night, Dally!” I said, as I continued trotting away. When I finally got to my tent, I slipped into my sleeping back and got kind of comfortable. I looked at the empty sleeping bag beside me. Me and Dan used to share a tent, and some of his stuff is still here, even his favorite saber sword, which was enchanted with a unique flame sigil by our camp’s unicorn blacksmith. Dan must’ve somehow forgotten to pack it for our mission earlier. Dan told me before that the blacksmith spoke to him about his blade’s power. ‘This blade grants no more power than you wield within yourself, but it will reflect you as a burning light of unity and growth between our world’s,’ the blacksmith told him. ‘And someday, you will be one key needed to return peace to our separate realms, or die trying.’ I was never certain if that was true, the blacksmith did seem crazy to me sometimes. Sure, he enchanted most of our handheld weapons to make them better and more durable, but I doubted he could really tell the future of somepony. Dan however, was determined by this ‘prophetic enchantment’, and has trained harder to grow stronger every day since. He’s such a strong, caring guy. I know I’m one to talk about doubting future predictions, since I’ve got my danger senses, but that’s different. It’s not that specific as telling somepony’s future is. I then turned off the lantern that was next to me, as I took Dan’s pillow from his sleeping bag and held it tightly between my hooves, breathing in it’s scent. I think I was pretending it was Dan. I hoped to Celestia that wherever he was, he was ok. The next morning, everypony was woken up by the morning camp alarm just as the sun started rising, so pretty early. As I stepped out of my tent, I went to our shower area, which was actually a solid room with running water, unlike other parts of our camp, and showered in the open shower area with the other early birds. It takes most ponies at this large camp a few minutes to pull themselves out of bed, not all of them are full military material, but I’ve been here since I was a teenager, so I was well used to waking up early and having limited meals and all that. As I showered, letting the warm water run through my coat, and onto my skin, when I put conditioner in my mane, and rubbed it in with my wings, I suddenly got an uncomfortable feeling. I quickly looked around for anything that seemed dangerous, but saw nothing. My danger senses usually feel something right next to me, but this feeling was different. It’s like I was feeling danger for… someone else, and it felt like it was REALLY far off, like on the other side of Equestria, far off. I got back to rubbing the conditioner in my mane as I looked at the floor, before I froze. “Dan…,” I whispered. I flew out of the shower area at top speed, almost running into several ponies who were half asleep, not caring that I was still soaking wet, and that my mane was still white with conditioner, as I flew to my tent to gather supplies. I filled my backpack with bugspray, a few energy bars, and Dan’s enchanted saber. Even though he told me never to touch it, this was an emergency. When I packed the bag with everything I could think of, I quickly dried myself off with a towel and left me and Dan’s tent, as I dashed to General Celestia’s large tent, which was near the center of camp. Once I got to it, I stopped immediately and hesitated for a moment, before I shook my head and regained my senses. “General? May I talk to you for a second? It’s urgent,” I said. “Yes, you may come in,” she said from inside the tent, before an orange colored magic aura zipped the front of her tent open for me to step inside. Once I stepped in, I bowed before her, as it was always required of us when we were in her presence, and looked her in the eye as I told her about my problem. As I talked, she looked down at me with her demon like eyes. She had such an overpowering aura to everypony she was in front of, especially when she was wearing her armor, which she wasn’t wearing currently. I guess she’d just woken up, which was probably why her flaming mane looked more frazzled than usual. “Oh, Wild,” she said sadly. “I’ve told you before that you can’t let that little ‘instinct’ of yours cause you to go and make foolish choices, did I not?” I looked at the floor, before I looked back up at her. “But… Dan is in danger!! We need to help him!” I said loudly. She raised an eyebrow at me, which made me to look down at the floor shamefully. ‘Spoke out of place,’ I thought to myself. After a brief moment of painful silence, General Celestia told me that she could just send her own rescue team to save Dan. “Listen, Wild,” she said calmly. “I understand how much you care for that human, I care for him too! He may be one of the last human’s left, and that’s why it’s essential that we bring him back home safely.” She stepped closer to me, as she lit up her horn and surrounded me with her magic, as she levitated me to look her in the eyes. “But just know, that if you EVER plan to disobey my order,” she said harshly, as small parts of my coat and mane were burning with small flames, which I could feel burning into my skin. “I won’t even let you run.” She then dropped me on the ground, and I patted myself off to put out the flames, before I looked up at her. “Don’t forget, I’m doing this for both of our world’s,” she said assuringly. “A strong universe needs an even stronger ruler, with an undeniably loyal army standing behind them, that way no one gets hurt, am I right?” “…Right,” I said, as my eyes were watering. Then she smiled with her jagged teeth, as she turned around and looked at the map of Equestria that was on her table. “Now, you get to morning training, and I will send a group to find the human,” she said. I stepped out of her tent, looking at the ground angrily. There was no way I could let some random squad of ours save Dan on their own. I’ve tried being generous about ranking the majority of our rescue teams, but quite a lot of them don’t even know what they’re doing, especially when it comes to fusion. They’re not acquainted with each other enough to use their true potential. Me and Dan are more than partners. …I love him, and I would go to tartarus and back for him. I looked around the camp, and then looked back at General Celestia’s tent. I had a plan. I went through the day as normal, training, lunch, afternoon training, cleaning, but when it was late into the night, and everypony was supposed to be asleep in their tents, I made my move. I quietly stepped out of my tent, and carefully snuck around the nighttime patrols, as I made it to General Celestia’s tent. When I silently opened the zipper and stepped inside, I saw General Celestia, snoring as she slept in her larger than normal sleeping bag, and I saw the map of Equestria that was in the middle of her tent. General Celestia was the only one with a map of the land, as she did most of the mission planning, but I just needed to see where our last mission was and try to assume where Dan could be now. ‘Ok,’ I thought to myself. ‘If we were about half an hour past the lower area of the San Palomino Desert, then Dan might be… near the old rock farm. He’s not one to wander around without a plan unless he has to, so he must be there.’ I then very slowly and silently stepped out of General Celestia’s tent, and avoided the guards as I made it back to my tent. I put on my backpack I’d packed with everything I’d need, and I stepped out of me and Dan’s tent. Avoiding the guards with a sort of heavy backpack wouldn’t be easy, but we’ve never had the finest nighttime patrols, so it wouldn’t be too big of a problem for me. After about an hour of patient hiding, well timed speed, and careful dodging, I made it to the front entrance of our camp. I remembered that during our first few years of being here, me and Dan had a little area near the front wall, which was small enough to crawl through. We used it to explore the majestic forest of the Hollow Shades forest on our breaks. These large tree canopies were cool, but we never normally had the chance to explore them beyond these tall, cramped walls, until one day Dan found the hole in the wall. We hid it with an uprooted bush that we planted in front of it, to ensure that nopony would check on it, at least for a while, but I remembered where to look. I grabbed the bush right above it’s roots, and after a few seconds of straining, I pulled the medium sized bush out of the ground and threw it aside. I poked my head through the low hole in the wall and looked around the outside. It seemed that there weren’t any severed nearby, so I was safe to move. I then suddenly got a sick feeling coming from behind me, but by the time I felt it, I already heard the yelling. “STOP!! SPY!!!” a stallion yelled from behind me, which was followed by camp alarms going off. I quickly wriggled and squeezed myself through the hole, but the large backpack I was wearing stopped me. I took it off, crawled through, and tried pulling it through for a few seconds, but then gave up and just grabbed what little I could from inside of it, before I ran into the woods. I then flew above the forest’s tree canopies so I could actually see what was around me. Tonight was nicely lit up by the moon, but you’d never be able to tell from inside the camp, because of the artificial lighting, and by the trees blocking out most of the moonlight. It’s actually been far too long since I’ve been able to enjoy a night, since it’s always been ‘too risky’ to be out at this time, according to General Celestia. When I escaped camp, it seemed that nopony was trailing me, but I was only able to grab a compass and Dan’s sword from the bag before I had to leave it. I looked at the compass needle. “Southwest,” I said to myself, before I looked forward, at the rest of the world that stood in my way. “Don’t worry, Dan. I’m coming for you.”