Chapter V:
Apple Bloom, or CMC-01 Quickfix, jerked awake in bed, screaming her little lungs out as she thrashed in the tatty blankets that covered her, her limbs spasming as she tried to process the transition from dream to reality. Her back arched in silent mental agony and she smacked her forehead against the low top bunk above her, she reeled and feel off the bed to land with a thump on the floor.
She looked up with blurry eyes to see Scootaloo, CMC-02 Speedfreak, sitting on a threadbare carpet across the floor from where Apple Bloom lay, chewing slowly on a sandwich and reading avidly from the Daring Do omnibus that she had picked up in a previous recon mission. They all had ways to escape the horror of after the Attack and Scootaloo's was enveloping herself in a fictional world of paper and ink, a transport of words that could take her far away from the horror of reality.
She looked up from her story, idly flicking a page and swallowing the rest of her sandwich at the same time, "You okay?"
Apple Bloom rolled onto her back and took deep breathes through her nose, feeling the last dregs of the horrible, horrible dream float back into her subconscious and disappear.
"Uh, yeah....jus' the nightmare again."
"You should really get that checked."
Apple Bloom snorted, "By who? If ah remember correctly Nurse Redheart was one of the first to die."
"Oh yeah, I forgot."
Awkward silence followed as both young ponies remembered the horrible memories of the Attack, the silence broken as someone downstairs yelled at them to get up and come down to help make food. Scootaloo was the first to move, standing politely to the side as Apple Bloom trudged past. Even in their younger days before the Attack, Apple Bloom had been the recognized leader of their group, and exuded the need for respect whenever they were together on a latest escapade, but less arrogant as their shared classmates, Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara.
Walking down the staircase was set at a meandering pace, the hastily made steps rickety and worn ever more from the trek from bedroom to kitchen/dining/lounge/entrance room. To say that the CMC's lived a cave was an understatement, to say that they lived in a cavern was more like, except that this was a cavern with something that not many other caverns had. Furniture.
Stepping onto the cold stone floor was like stepping onto an ice rink and Apple Bloom cringed as the frosty feeling seeped upwards through her hooves, immediately turning them numb. A similar gasp came from behind her as Scootaloo likewise stepped onto the floor, but she trotted over to where the third member of their party stood slow-cooking homegrown lettuce leaves over a small fire. Sweetie Belle, or CMC-03 Silentsong, was always up early on weekdays, or what they took to be weekdays seeing that the Attack had made them lose all subsequent weekly coherence, cooking or cleaning or generally looking after their abode.
"Got breakfast for me?"
Sweetie Belle shook her head, "Only when you've washed your hooves. I want squeaky clean at the table."
Apple Bloom sighed and shook her head, but nevertheless went over to the trough next to the ghillie style netting that covered the entrance to their home. Taking a deep breath she plunged her head into the icy cold rainwater that filled the tub and shook her head in a burbling scream as the freezing sensation bombarded her face and basically froze every existing nerve. It was bliss, to feel something other than pain. She jerked her head out of the water with a gasp, expecting the surface to ice over in front of her, and blinked water from her eyelashes, looking at the reflection that stared at her from the mirror.
Apple Bloom was taller now, stronger too, like her friends Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle she had developed in the 8 years since the Attack. Her yellow coat was streaked with dirt now, long stripes that refused to be removed. They were part of her now, as were the faint scars that criss-crossed her coat and the ever-present loss of the majority of her left ear. Unlike her friends Apple Bloom had opted to keep her mane long and tied up with the red bow that she wore as a filly, a memoir of the life before, a personification of the red, white and smile filled environment of Sweet Apple Acres, a burning ruin now.
They had all changed in those 8 years. It was necessary for survival.
Apple Bloom trotted back to the huge wooden bench that served as their dining table and sat herself down next to Scootaloo, once again engrossed in her book. Apple Bloom took the time to study just how much her friend had changed over the years that had known each other. Scootaloo was an interesting case. Her shortish purple mane was still there, as was her mandarin colored coat, the only new additions to her visage was the ragged scar that came down from her lip to chin, the result of her attempting to headbutt an assailant, what they now called the "Shock-Kiss". Scootaloo had also developed heterochromia during their years and one of her eyes was now brilliant green in contrast to the other deep purple one. She always wore her armor and kept her sword strapped to her back, within easy reach of a quick jaw reach over her shoulder.
Something nudged Apple Blooms elbow out from underneath her mouth and dropped her jaw down to the table with a clack of teeth, "Ow!".
Sweetie Belle barked a quick laugh, "Hah!" and pushed the sandwich and plate closer to Apple Bloom's face, prompting her to go momentarily cross-eyed at the gaze of the bread and lettuce in front of her. Apple Bloom looked up and took another second to study her other friend. Sweetie Belle had developed in their years together, becoming lithe and just as beautiful as her lost sister, the had-been propetier of Carousel Boutique, the most famous dress shop in all of Equestria. Sweetie Belle's curly purple and pink mane was still there and just as bright as ever, but cut short to be held under a red and black striped bandanna that she preferred to wear over her head.
Whilst Scootaloo and Apple Bloom had transformed the most on the outside, it was Sweetie Belle had changed the most on a mental scale and in such a large way. She had become withdrawn and gruff, a complete contrast to her days as a filly when she had been wide-eyed, energetic and perhaps a little bit hare-brained. Out of all the CMC's Sweetie Belle was by far the best and most ruthless fighter, becoming a lethal whirlwind of lead with her pistols on the battlefield, but most shocking of all their changes is that she had never sung in her beautiful voice again after her sister Rarity disappeared, a voice that could charm birds and rival nature had been lost, hence the name 'Silentsong'.
Yes, they had all changed.
Swirling her hoof-tips in circles around the table top brought Apple Bloom out of her memoric trance and she tore into her sandwich with gusto, due to the fact that this could be her only meal for the rest of the day, depending on how much food was in their store and what majority of it was going off. The chill once again reached her coat, sending a quick shiver down her spine. Or was it? What was the saying? Someone walking over her grave. That alone was enough to chill her with foreboding and she involuntarily shivered again. "Really should get a heater for here. Ah'll find one next time we go into town."
Scootaloo looked up from her pages and laughed, "Make sure you check the price first."
Sweetie Belle took their laughter as a sign that they had finished eating and so picked up Apple Bloom's plate with her magic and began to levitate it towards the sink full of suds that she stood in front of. Apple Bloom yelped and vaulted over the table to grab the remnants of her sandwich, not wishing to go hungry. With the bread and lettuce tightly gripped in her mouth she turned her back to her friends and wandered over to the ghillie-style netting that covered the entrance way to their home, brushing it aside she stepped out onto the 'veranda' outcrop and let the full heat of the noonday sun wash over her. Still chewing her sandwich, she plopped down on her flank and surveyed the surroundings.
The CMC's lived in a mountain, an honest to god mountain. They had found the cave after they fled Ponyville a few days after the Attack, complete with a desecrated dragon skeleton and their first combat with the Shocks. Now their permanent residence, the ghillie netting had been the first to be put in place, giving the illusion of vines swarming over the side of a not-particularly interesting mountain to anyone beyond the 600 meter marker line around their home in a circumference. A rustling preceded Scootaloo walking out of their home to sit down beside her, taking a deep breath through her nostrils, a contented sigh.
"Still takes your breath away, don't it?"
Apple Bloom nodded in agreement, "Ah never, ever will get used to this sight..."
In the eight years that they had lived here the Everfree Forest had overgrown it's boundaries by a few kilometers or so and had begun to merge with Ponyville in a rippling amalgamation of tiles and bark at it's very edge. Massive brown tree trunks rose majestically above the rest of the of the treetops, bursting with vibrant green and purple leaves, some trees bearing ripe fruits lower down their branches. The songs of various noonday birds and jungle creatures rose up from the dense foliage in one big chatter, many of the animals being pets from before the Attack gone feral. In a strange way those animals were a lot like the CMC's, in the way that they had both been lost, forgotten or ejected from normality by the Attack and were now having to adapt to their new world and survive by any means necessary.
Apple Bloom swallowed the rest of her sandwich and let her gaze wander over to the left of the horizon where one of the more...spectacular parts of the Attack had taken place. The wispy tips of Cloudsdale still floated above the treetops, but they all knew where the rest of the once regal pegasus city was. Cloudsdale had been brought crashing down to the earth only a few weeks after the Attack, in a spectacular explosion of fluff and screaming pegasi.
Apple Bloom hadn't though it possible but Cloudsdale caught fire, a combustible reaction from rainbow juice mixing with deep-iced rainwater. She remembered holding back the screaming and sobbing Scootaloo as they watched horrified as the majority of her race was instantly immolated, screaming pegasi silhouettes fleeing the blazing inferno that their home was transformed into, straight into the first waves of Shocks. It was a night filled with fire, teeth, claws and blood. Horror.
"Ooh, look at that!" Scootaloo nudged Apple Bloom in ribs, pointing avidly off to the right of the horizon. Apple Bloom looked and her vision was instantly filled with a mirage of color, flashing reds, swirling greens, pulsing blues and intricate yellow veins. It was a beautiful sight that they had watched many a time together as friends, both before and after the Attack, a sight that had reminded them constantly of all the good in the world.
It was the sun's dying rays being filtered through the remains of the stained glass frescoes that had lined the marble walls of the Grand Hall in the center of Canterlot Castle, the roof now busted open to expose the dust-filled interior and the decaying tapestries that adorned and now hung limp from the towering walls, one between every second of the iron-bracketed lamps that burned continuously, due to the last traces of Celestia's magic still pervading the site.
Canterlot Castle was an area permanently wreathed in shadow now, an area of Equestria that had been instantly, irrevocably, and irreversibly poisoned in the aftermath of the Attack. It was a place from where the terrors of the night, the Shocks, and....other creatures were spawned, from where they poured forth in an unrelenting wave of grotesque vision. It was an area of all Equestria which was now a centrepoint for chaos, a menagerie of madness, an area from which sibilant, hissing, mocking, jarring, clawing, screeching, giggling, gurgling and utterly insane laughter issued from in all hours of the day and night.
Indeed, Canterlot Castle, and perhaps all of Equestria, belonged to the crown prince of chaos, the draconequus known as Discord.