DAY SIX
“One!” came the growl of the mare behind the door.
“Girls, help me with the furniture!” Scootaloo frantically urged the other Crusaders to their hooves, and they all scrambled to the door.
“Two!”
Apple Bloom grabbed a hold of a chair and threw it out of the way. Together, she and Scootaloo got on either side of the cabinet.
“Boss, just blow it already.”
“WAIT!” Scootaloo shrieked. “Wait! Hi! Hey! Um, how are you? Please don’t blow up the door! We kinda need it!”
“If you don’t want this thing busted down, then open it already!”
“We’re opening it!” cried Sweetie Belle. “Please, just give us a moment, it’s barricaded!”
“You got one minute! Hurry it up!”
Together, and with some frantic use of Sweetie Belle’s magic—“Ow! Sweetie, watch the head!”—they managed to clear the rest of the furniture from the doorway.
“The night ain’t getting’ any younger!”
“Just a second!” Apple Bloom waved a hoof at the other two, who took a step back from the door. She reached for the knob and opened it a crack. “Umm, howdy, what can we do ya fer—“
BAM. The door flew open, sending Apple Bloom flying and crashing into her friends.
“Eek!”
“Ow!”
“What the hay—“
“Fuckin’ finally, that didn’t take all day!” snarled the mare as she stepped over the threshold, several other ponies following in her wake. “Sharp Quill, guard the door. Hap, hit the kitchen. Forest, see if there’s any medicine for Dusk.”
As the fillies disentangled themselves from each other, they heard a telltale mechanical clack. Scootaloo slowly looked up at the mare, only to come face-to-face with the barrel of a shotgun.
“So here’s how this is gonna work,” snarled the mare on the other end. “You pipsqueaks answer my questions, and you won’t have your brains splattered all over the floor.”
“P-please don’t—“ stammered Sweetie Belle in terror.
“We’ll answer whatever ya want,” Apple Bloom said placatingly.
“Hey, Scarlet, they’re just fillies—“
“Nopony asked you!” the mare named Scarlet shouted at the stallion, who flinched. “Shut up and stay on that door!” She returned her attention to the Crusaders. “Is there anypony else in this tree?”
“N-no one!” answered Scootaloo. “Promise!”
“You got food?”
“Well, a lot of it’s gone bad—” started Apple Bloom.
“You. Got. Food?” she growled, leaning in with her shotgun.
“Y-yes, we’ve got food, there’s some in the kitchen…”
“Morphine? Aspirin?”
“More-what?” asked Sweetie in confusion.
“Painkillers, you stupid foal. Fever pills. Medicine! Anything!”
“I-I’m not sure, if we have any it’ll be in the cabinet in the bathroom…”
“Good.” She turned to the others. “You heard the whelps! Get moving!”
“Listen, we don’t have much—“ Scootaloo started, standing up.
“SIT DOWN!” the mare shouted, batting Scootaloo on the head with her shotgun. “Do not move, or it’ll be your last mistake.”
“Why are y’all doin’ this?” sobbed Apple Bloom, who clinged to Scootaloo.
“Ponies gotta eat,” she replied coldly.
“Well we're ponies too!”
BLAM.
Scootaloo jumped back from the sound of the gunshot, which echoed throughout the interior of the treehouse. She spun to her friends, who... thankfully, were okay. The shotgun blast had gone straight over their heads.
Another click-clack.
“Then I'll force-feed ya lead if you don't shut up.”
They obliged and fell silent.
A few terrifying minutes passed as the looters rummaged through the library. Occasionally, Scarlet would shout orders to them, but not once did she ever aim the shotgun away.
“Um... beggin yer pardon, err, Miss Scarlet…?” ventured Apple Bloom, cautiously breaking the silence. Scootaloo and Sweetie shot her a look as if she were mad.
Luckily, the mare merely grunted, quirking an eyebrow.
“Er, if you don’t mind me askin’ somethin’…?”
Scarlet didn’t move.
“I… I just wanted to know… what’s goin’ on outside…? Are we winnin’ the war?”
“…You wanna know what’s happening outside?”
“Yes, please…”
She spat to her side. “Horseshit, that’s what. The damned turkeys marched into town a few days back and already took part of Ponyville. The EAF is on the other side, and whenever they push back, an entire row of houses gets shot to shit. Meanwhile, all of us are sitting pretty in the middle, barely scrapin’ enough to eat each day, waiting for our turn to bite the bullet. I’d say it’s the Halls of Tartarus outside if it weren’t gettin’ colder every Sun-damned day.”
“…Will the fighting die down anytime soon?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“Doubt it. They’re entrenched harder than a tapeworm.”
Another uncomfortable silence followed at that news, and Scootaloo despaired at the thought that the Equestrian soldiers hadn’t made any progress in kicking the gryphons out.
“This sucks,” she grumbled.
“No shit,” said Scarlet.
“Umm… Miss Scarlet, if I can—”
“What is it now?” she glared irritably at Apple Bloom.
“Eep! Umm… I just wanna know if my family’s okay…? They’re over at Sweet Apple Acres…”
Scarlet chewed on her lip for a second. “That place was pretty much a forest fire day one. Dunno about the house, but the orchards are nothin’ but ash for acres. But it’s not like any of that matters, since the turkeys marched through there days ago.”
Apple Bloom grew very pale. “B-but, what about my family? Are they okay? What about Mac, and Granny, and—“
“Look, I ain’t here to play twenty questions. They’re probably dead, so shut your trap already.”
The room grew deathly silent, but it took only a few moments for Apple Bloom’s horrified look to transform into one of pure despair. Hugging herself tightly with her forelegs and unable to restrain her tears, she began silently sobbing. Sweetie Belle slowly moved over to hug Apple Bloom, shooting a glare at Scarlet in response.
“Shit happens,” grunted Scarlet callously.
All lay silent. It was only another dozen or so minutes before the looters gathered their spoils together. Jewelry, food, bottles of medicine, toilet paper, even a revolver and a box of cigars—they had stripped the library clean of anything that could potentially be useful or valuable.
“Hey, check this out,” said a red-maned stallion—or was it a mare? Scootaloo couldn’t really tell—as he held up a sparkling gold pocketwatch, engraved with the six stars of Twilight’s cutie mark. “Fancy as tits.”
“Not important, Forest Feather. Did you find the meds?”
“Just a bottle, but it should be enough for Dusk.”
“Good. At least we have something. The kids weren’t kidding about the food—a lot of it is spoiled.”
“Between dying and a night of the shits, I’d rather the latter.”
“Point.”
They quickly began packing it up into rucksacks, which they slung over their backs.
The sound of gunfire echoed from the distant night outside.
“Boss, we gotta get moving,” came Quill’s voice, looking back into the room worriedly.
“We're set. Go,” said Scarlet, waving the other ponies out the door. “I’ll deal with the runts.”
She turned back to the fillies.
“Well, I doubt you kids are gonna survive another fortnight.” She cocked the shotgun again. “Might as well put you out of your misery.”
“W-wait, what?!”
“Yer yankin’ our chain, right—?”
“Don’t, please—“
“Shit happens.” She raised the barrel, and the fillies clenched their eyes shut.
BLAM.
Scootaloo flinched as she felt a strange warm sensation all over her coat. A few seconds passed, and… nothing else happened. Slowly, she opened an eye.
Scarlet stood before them, staring off into space with a shocked look, a fresh red wound having appeared just over her eyes. Almost in slow motion, she toppled to the ground, blood pooling around her body.
Behind her stood one of the looters, a smoking revolver in his outstreched hoof.
“Yo… Forest…” came the hesitant voice of the stallion at the door. “Don’t tell me you just—“
“Don’t even start,” he growled. “The bitch had it comin’ to her, and all of us know it.”
He trotted up to Scarlet’s body, picking up the shotgun that had clattered to the floor. He then glanced at the fillies, who sat in silent shock, horrified by what they had just witnessed.
The stallion dropped his rucksack. Out spilled a bottle of medicine, several cans of food, the revolver, and a few other trinkets. He snatched up the bottle before glancing at the Crusaders once more.
Nopony spoke.
He grunted softly, then turned around and galloped out the door without another word.
A few seconds passed.
Then a sniffle.
Scootaloo slowly turned to her friends, and in the darkness, she could barely make out Sweetie Belle’s pearl-white coat, now spattered with red. She was still staring at the unmoving body of the mare that had been Scarlet, her mouth agape, her pupils the size of pinpricks.
Scootaloo glanced at her own coat, also speckled with the mare’s still-warm blood.
There was a rustling and a clopping of hooves, and as Scootaloo looked back up, she saw Apple Bloom rush to Sweetie Belle’s side, just in time for the other filly to begin weeping openly.
“Hey. Hey, it’s a-alright,” she whispered softly into her ear, hugging her tightly and struggling to suppress her own tears. “It’s okay. W-we’re alive. We’re alive, and that’s all that m-matters right now.”
Sweetie Belle did not answer. She merely curled up against her friend and began bawling into her coat.
Scootaloo moved next to her friends and wrapped her wings and arms around them, saying nothing. Together, the fillies cried in the darkness.
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You know that avatar next to your name, Swanny? See that look on her face? That's the look Imploding Colon is giving you for using his patented use-commentator-names-as-characters-in-story technique.
At least he had me be merely one third of Chrysalis. You have me threatening the Cutie Mark Crusaders!
<3
5546408 Hey, at least you didn't put a hole in a bad mare's brain :P
Well then
Them Jury references, though
Brains are so gross. You never forget the smell, or that gritty texture. Guy looks fine, but he ain't movin. Never wash your hands enough. Never enough.
I thought they were going to be griffons. I'm extremely disappointed that they're ponies, because I can't see pony soldiers treating kids that way.
5797785 They're not soldiers though. They're just other civilians trying to survive. And they're stuck in a warzone, spending every second thinking it might be their last, unable to leave because of the two armies on a rampage just outside their front door, with kids to feed and families to protect, starving because nobody's growing food anymore, sick because emergency services have broken down, and constantly looking over their shoulder in case an unscrupulous character might be preparing to take advantage of any weakness they show.
Desperation and fear can drive perfectly normal people to do some pretty awful things to each other.
Also, gryphons aren't all "evil", at least not exclusively. It only naturally follows that ponies aren't all "good" either.
Well I’m about to go pure survival shit on you. They can eat the pony meat, sharpen the bones for weapons or tools, use the fur for warmth. I know it’s fucked up, but they could get a lot of food and supplies from this Scarlets body. Also, since the revolver was left with them, they could go on trips to the outside to gather more materials. Even if going outside is risky, it’s just as risky as being inside the treehouse at this point.
8651861 They could. But, I mean, wellllll, they're kids, sooooooo that's probably not the first thought to come to mind. And by the time it does come to mind, the meat's probably gone bad.
also prions fam