Chapter Seventeen
It is funny what can be hiding right under our noses.
They crawled out from their frigid graves sluggishly, their decayed bodies frost bitten by the cold. Chips of ice had formed in their frayed and withered flesh in addition to the large shards of crystal piercing outwards from their unholy visages. They pulled themselves through the shattered windows, cutting their dead skin on jagged bits of glass that still clung to the edges of the frames. They burst from the snow itself, bony legs reaching out of the chilling cover and hoisting the rest of their corpse up to the surface, jaws hanging loosely and leaking with black sludge. Klaxon was up against a group of ghouls whose numbers only rose as he tore through the city. Now his back was up to a dead end, a wall of ice and metal sheets interspersed with concrete chunks, all brought together with a dabbling of snow.
"When I get back to Hope the first thing I am going to do is lay out in the sun and damn Steiner if he says anything otherwise!" the bronze stallion told himself. His muscles tensed up in preparation for what he was about to do. He was not going to meet his end by being gnawed on by mindless monsters. He had endured too much to fall like that. The first line of ghouls charged and Klaxon struck true like lightning, one of the horrid zombies having their face flattened when the stallion lashed out with one foreleg. From their crumpled head, bits of brain and clotted blood spilled.
"One down!" Klaxon called out before grabbing the stricken ghoul and swinging it around into another attempting to flank him, knocking both of them to the ground and then bucking his hind legs into another coming up from behind. Its skeleton became a symphony of cracks as its back arched sharply upwards and its chest was crushed, ribs snapping like twigs from the vicious double blow. Klaxon spun about and rammed the pony dead center, aged bile spilling out into his mane and onto his shoulders. Klaxon galloped full speed with the ghoul as an unlikely passenger slumped over him. Carried by momentum, Klaxon bowled over several of the crystalline undead with the ghoul as a shield, each impact desecrating the zombie's already decayed body further.
When the powerful earth pony finally dug his hooves down into the snow and skidded to a halt, the ghoul was sent flying, splattering against an icicle rising out from the street. Klaxon smirked with some sense of satisfaction. He was working off quite a bit of his anger here and as therapeutic as it was, it made him wonder how he could enjoy the violence. It was not something he had the chance to contemplate in depth for he found his period of reprieve to be short lived. The ghastly calls of the others called for his attention in full. He turned back around to see that another ghoul was already upon him, its hooves encrusted with sharp crystal shards. Klaxon threw himself onto his side and kicked up at the pouncing ghoul, the blows causing it to deform and bend like a putty. Klaxon threw it aside, got back up and skillfully dodged by bitten by a zombie, jerking backwards and then bringing both fore hooves down upon its skull.
He was covered in ichor of black and dark reds. He reeked of death. Though he had felled many with his bare hooves, there were many still that remained. No matter how strong he was, he couldn't hope to keep this up for much longer. As he tired, an errant swing could bring about his own demise. Even as he stood, panting with bits and pieces littering the area around him staining the white blanket, the ghouls pressed on, swarming him down the straight.
"Hey, daddy," he said while looking at the one ghoul who had appeared in his illusion as Sparks. "I know I've been bad for a long time..."
The ghouls got ever nearer.
"I'm just wondering... would you approve of what I am today?"
He struck a combat stance.
"Because I try to be like you, you know. Living by your example."
He looked at the former proxy of Roxanne.
"And I'm sorry for all the hurt I caused. Sorry for not being there to pull you up when you were going down..."
He spun about and bucked the nearest ghoul in the face, bloodied chunks soaring away in an arc.
"And I'm sorry for ever losing hope!" he snarled, immediately throwing himself onto the next ghoul, pinning it beneath him and clobbering it with his hooves.
Gun shots rode on the air, the songs of familiar weapons. Ones he had come to known over the years that tolled on by. It was how he knew Alana had found him.
A ghoul stumbled in place as each bullet tore through its body from behind. Its head exploded when one drove its way through its skull and right out the middle of its face, ejecting shards of skull in addition to flesh giblets. One by one the ghouls fell to the retort of assault rifle fire. They turned to see the second pony galloping to the aid of the first, covering a few yards with each bounding stride and then planting her hooves down, unleashing another volley into the crowd. When ghouls tore off from the rest to confront her, Alana responded with shotgun shells, shredding the undead opposition without hindrance. Their bodies rolled a few feet after they were felled, limbs dismembered or in some cases, the corpse torn in two with one half still squirming after it was severed.
Klaxon surveyed the carnage. Shell casings and blood, the hallmarks of a good time. "I see your time with Falcon Wing hasn't affected your aim one bit," he told Alana.
"I see you're still kicking strong. The Sparkle Shiny didn't do anything too bad did he?" the caramel mare asked, to which the bronze stallion snorted in reply.
"He didn't know what he was fu --" he began to say, Alana shooting him a stern look before he could swear. "-...messing with. Anyway, how about you, are you okay?"
Alana nodded. "Methryl is angry, though... he's in the palace thing... he couldn't have given in, right? He isn't losing control again...?" she dared to question.
"Not a chance," Klaxon replied. "He's done everything he possibly could have to keep that from happening again. Nothing the magical fuc --.. .jerk... can do will bring out that part of him," Klaxon said. He may have made fun of Steiner's plans earlier, may have poked fun at him throughout the trip, but there was a basic faith he had in his long time companion that could not be shaken.
"You sure?" Alana asked, and Klaxon chuckled.
"Positive. A better question would be, where does a mare whose talent is gunplay get off getting others not to curse?" he said.
"Guns are not what define me, Klaxon. If my identity revolved around my weapons, I wouldn't be much of a pony at all, really. I'd just be just that -- a weapon. And a pony who could only shed blood and cause pain is a pretty sad pony, I'd figure," said the caramel mare. "And we live in a kill-or-be-killed world. When you're used to taking lives... well a tiny standard to hold yourself to is a good thing."
"Huh. Did anypony ever tell you that you're a real piece of work?" Klaxon said jokingly, then in a more serious tone he added "We need to find Falcon...I hope he's alright out there, wherever he is..."
Falcon Wing just did not have in him to fly. His spirits were completely dashed, burdened by memories he had been content with putting behind him and the taunting words of the Shadow Sweep. Where was his brave face and burning courage now? Was he still just a colt in over his head, even after all he had been through in recent times? Was he still so weak? He trudged through the snow, completely overwhelmed. He was lost and alone and not even his Pipeye could offer him much consolidation. He had a map of the city but no idea where any of his friends were. He had heard a strange sound carry on the wind and gunshots in the distance, but that did little to aid him in his current state. He felt pathetic and useless, pitiful and small. The runt of pegasus kind, the one who was fodder for the world.
"Why am I even still trying... better ponies than I have tried to do the things I've vowed to do and died for it... what made me think I would be any different than they?" he wondered as he walked the streets in the grip of eternal winter. He was a joke. A wannabe. A follower of a pony he had, at the time, only heard of once. He was no hero, just a fool with a bleeding heart.
"Oh look, it is the Shadow Bro!" he heard someone say. The voice was strange, accented and deep sounding. The red pegasus looked around, spotting somepony waving at him from what would have been the second floor window of a ruined home. The large mound of snow that wrapped around the building formed a ramp up to the opening.
The pony was a unicorn and they had a very thick coat on. One thicker than the one Falcon wore, as if the leathery fabric had been stuffed. Its fur was white, which contrasted with the dark blue coat they wore. Their mane was two colored, dark purple on one side and light pink on the other. They had black shades on, so Falcon Wing couldn't see what color their eyes were. Though the colors made him think the pony was a mare, the voice was definitely masculine.
He hoped he wasn't going to meet another raider with a ruined throat.
"Shadow Bro, come on up!" the stranger called out to him in hushed tones. Falcon Wing cocked his head and did just that, trotting up the small hill of snow to the window. How did this pony infiltrate the domain of the Maxim Magimus?
"It's Shadow Bane," Falcon Wing told the pony when he got to the windowsill. He paused, catching himself then said "I mean Wing. Falcon -- Falcon Wing. Not... Shadow Wing... or... Shadow Bane."
"And I am known as Regolit! But call me Rego. Nopony calls me that but I like how it sounds!" said the unicorn of a small build that seemed just as old as the pegasus...