Chapter II:
Speedfreak landed with a thump on all fours, bending her knees and flaring her wings to take the brunt of the fall. He sword slashed down and carved through the neck of the Shock closest to her, shearing through the chitinous armor with minimal effort. The Shock didn't even have time to scream as it's head tumbled to the ground. Viscous and luminescent green blood spurted out of the gaping neck hole, splashing over the ground in a pool, as the tottering corpse crashed over onto it's quivering forelegs and then staggered sideways to lay against a wall, the blood painting a macabre display over the brickwork.
The other four Shock's hissed and arched their backs, spine-quills emitting a chilling rattle, a predecessor to them usually mauling something. Speedfreak dropped into a fighter's stance, spreading her hooves and keeping her blade parallel to the ground, the edge pointed menacingly towards the creatures surrounding her.
"Four to One...I like these odds! Come on!" she growled.
The Shocks hissed even louder and closed their circle, eyeballing Speedfreak warily.
"Simmer down Sally! All yah get is Four to Three t'night." yelled a voice, and then Quickfix and Silentsong barreled into the group of Shocks from the rear, Quickfix's weapon whipping around in tight circles and cutting deep into flesh wherever she swung her head.
"You always steal my fun!" yelled Speedfreak. Quickfix laughed in reply and pranced away from the melee, two Shocks trailing her and pouncing from stone to stone, claws cutting deep gouges into the stone. She spun a complete circle, the blade lacerating her enemies as they tried to leap onto her. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Speedfreak battling another Shock, dodging in and out of it's wild swipes and nipping back and forth to slice quick cuts into it's carapace.
She was quite clearly playing with her prey.
Outside of her vision, loud thumps and thwacks were playing out, Silentsong was in combat with the last Shock and was opting to beat at with the butt of her pistols instead and conserve ammo.
Quickfix turned her attention back to the more pressing matter at hoof as her whip wrapped completely around the nearest Shock and entangled it. She stepped in close and grabbed the handle of the knife as it swung in towards her and then slit the Shock's throat with a vicious jerk of her head. She untangled the whip, dropping the corpse to the ground, and spun around to face the remaining Shock. It lunged at her forelegs, swinging it's claws and dragging sparks from the pavement. Quickfix stumbled backwards in, well shock, and in her haste stepped backwards and caught her hoof on a rock and overbalanced. The Shock narrowed it's eyes and lunged forwards, yowling, and caught Quickfix a solid blow in her midriff, sending them both tumbling to the ground.
"Appl-Quickfix!" she heard Speedfreak yell, but it was far too late and they came out of the roll with the Shock's heavy weight pressing down on her from above. It snapped it's jaws down at her, the jagged fangs shearing through the air only millimeters from the tip of her nose. Slimy drool dripped from it's gaping mouth onto her face, the sticky mixture of drool and dirt stinging at her eyes. Sharp synaptic flickers of fear raced through her brain, accelerating her instincts and reaction times so she snapped out a punch and caught the Shock on the jaw but it wasn't enough to gain enough room to get out from under her assailant. She wriggled furiously under the clawed hooves pinning her forelegs to the ground. The Shock's hot breath wafted down on her face, reeking of half masticated rotting flesh and animal musk.
Up close, the Shock's really were the paragons of grotesque vision. A warped and twisted pony body, a reminiscent anatomy of a Changeling coupled with a thick, armored carapace created the most horrible enemy to ever appear in Equestria. But past all the thick green blood, unnatural clawed hooves and the general presence of their nightmarish silhouettes, it was the eyes that Quickfix found the most disturbing aspect of their body.
The eyes weren't overly large, or multi-faceted or demonic in any way. They were but liquid pits of intense sadness, eyes in the agony of transition for indeed, the multitudes of Shocks that roamed Equestria were all that was left of pony-kind, mutated beyond recognition.
Quickfix stared into those eyes in the present, searching for any presence of the pony that this had used to be, wondering if she had known this pony before the Attack. No, probably not.
Those jaws still snapping, the drool still dripping and no possible way to escape her fate, Quickfix closed her eyes and just waited.
SHLUK!
The blazing steel tip of Speedfreak's sword blasted through the Shock's left eye, killing the creature instantly and nearly taking out Quickfix's remaining left ear. The Shock's thick green blood splashed down onto Quickfix's face as the creature collapsed on top of her, the heavy and hard carapace beginning to crush her lungs.
Quickfix scrabbled madly at the sticky mixture as it all but glued her eyelids shut.
"Easy now sugarcube", said a voice while two sets of hooves heaved the corpse off her and helped her sit up, "Take it easy now." the voice repeated. Quickfix stopped struggling as an amount of water was dumped over her head, washing most of the hideous mixture away from her face and softening the rest. She wiped away the remains of viscera smeared on her face, hoicked and spat out a mixture of dirt, saliva and metallic, bitter blood onto the ground. She looked up from the ground into the battered, but smiling, faces of her comrades. Silentsong grunted in recognition and turned away to search the remains of Sugarcube Corner, their original purpose for coming here. Quickfix kicked her hoof against the ground, relieved to be alive, frustrated that she couldn't handle two enemies. Speedfreak spoke again,
"You okay there, sugarcube?"
"Stop sayin' that word." Quickfix spat at her, "And ah'm a big pony now so ah don't need your help."
"Whatever," said Speedfreak and Quickfix was about to rebuttle with a scathing retort, but was cut off as Silentsong yelled at them from over behind a large pile of debris,
"Rein it in girls! I think I found why the Shock's were here in the first place."
Speedfreak and Quickfix trotted quickly over to where Silentsong was motioning to. They rounded the burned out hulk of a carriage that had crashed through the wall, surveyed what lay before them and Speedfreak promptly turned away retching and threw up her breakfast all over the ground behind them. Before them lay the remains of not just one, or two, but at least fifteen different corpses, all of them having been a stockpile of dinner for the Shock's. They must have been seeking refuge in Sugarcube Corner amidst the initial chaos of the Attack when they would have been taken, ambushed in a corner and surrounded by an almost literal wall of death. they were all in various states of decomposition, the oldest being a pile of dusty and pitted bones.
The two corpses closest to Quickfix were the only ones that retained any semblance to pony-kind. The one on the left was tall, a mop of floppy hair stuck to the bleached white cranium by a mess of blood, but there wasn't enough left to be recognizable. The one on the right was shorter and obviously female, enough dry flesh left on the skeleton so that the pale blue coat was unmissable. Quickfix stared down at the remains of Sugarcube Corner's original owners, entwined in what would have been their last embrace as they died.
"Rest in peace, Mr and Mrs Cake" Quickfix murmured.
Speedfreak finished gagging and wiped a hoof across her mouth, "Yeah, rest in pieces."
Quickfix shot her a glare and trotted over to Silentsong, to help, a large piece of sheet metal covering what could well be a stockpile of supplies.
Speedfreak rolled her eyes and sighed, looking at the dull orange sunrise in the distance.
"Rest in pieces world."