An Azure Future

by Krass McWriter

Part 8

An Azure Future part 8

John Norris stared at the building in front of him that boasted its purpose, the headquarters of the human liberation front. A more prideful bunch of madmen has never before been gathered in such multitude before and quite likely never again... The human noted to himself. He grabbed the rope from the bench in the truck, pausing to prepare himself mentally for what he had to do. "Hey Azure, I'm going to need you to stay here." John informed Azure.

"What, why?" The young pegasus asked concerned.

John got a knee and bent down, lowering himself to the pony’s level. “The men in that building are the of worst sort imaginable. They are closer to monsters than men. I don’t know what horrors they get up to in there, and it’s better if you don’t either. So please, stay here, and keep low.”

John walked across the noticeably empty streets. >Where is everybody?< He scanned up and down the street, as far as he could see, there were no cars. His truck was also the only vehicle in the otherwise desolate parking lot.

He reached the large glass door of the HLF headquarters. Trying the door handle, he found it was unlocked. Stepping into what seemed to be the reception room, he noticed that inside was as desolate as the street, even the front desk was unmanned.

"Hello?" John ventured.

Immediately the loudspeakers came to life. "AI Model: HK7. Serial: HK2017. Copyrighted and patented by Intelligent Designs. Human life form detected. Message playback initiated."

There was a moment of silence before the message played. "Hello," A man's voice came over the speakers. "this is Frank Dunland, leader of the HLF. If you can hear me, know this: the HLF is no more. For years we have fought the demons invading our planet, but we no longer have the numbers. Thus we have birthed the International Human Survival Association. Where we WILL persevere!" The speakers played a few seconds of static before the AI informed John it was the end of the message.

Well fuck, Noob might not even be here! Maybe I can find out where they moved him at least. But if no one else is here, I might as well bring Azure. John left the empty building and crossed the street that was just as desolate. "Hey Azure!" John called, a pegasus colt with a dark steely mane and a coat that took after his name poked his head out of the bed of the truck.

"What's up Dad?" The young pony queried, standing up to come into full view.

John closed the rest of the distance and leaned into the bed, “Hey Azure, want to go into the desolate ruins of a place that belonged to a group of people who’d kill us on site if they were here?” His only response was an estranged look. “C’mon kiddo! It will be fun!”

Azure squinted his eyes and cocked his head slightly, feigning a look of worry “Are you positive you’re alright?”

“Oh shut it.” John snapped. “Now come on, I can use an extra set of han-uh, hooves.” He nodded towards the HLF HQ building. The azure pegasus rolled his icy eyes and hopped out of the bed to black-top. “Thanks boy-o.” The pair headed across the street and through the glass doors.

The message played again as John entered with Azure. "Are you sure he's even here? The message said their gone..." Azure asked, unsure why his dad was still here.

"Hey, do you see that on the front desk? I know you ponies are short but you should still be able to see it."

Azure examined the object in question. It was nothing special, just a typical receptionist desk. Chestnut brown with a fine glossy shine, a computer sat on it with a few papers. It was a post unmanned. Then it hit Azure, "They didn't pack up and leave, they abandoned ship!"

John smirked. "Exactly. We might be able to at least find out if and where they moved any prisoners." John looked around. "Now where would I put a pony that I never wanted to see the light of day again?"

"A sack."

John shook his head, "C'mon, it’s serious time." Azure gave him a look of disbelief. "I can be serious!" This only intensified the look. "...Moving on, I think the lower levels would be a good spot to start."

"Are you sure you even know what you’re doing?"

"Not really, but I'm doing it anyway!" John beamed. "Now... which way is down?" John looked around and found a reasonable source of directions, a fire exit map. Stairs were just down the hall to the left.

After a short walk to the staircase, John walked inside and noted that the stairs went far down. There were at least seven basement levels. "Well ain't that shit." John stated, looking down with a twinge of worry.

"So, what do we do now?" Asked the blue pegasus next to him.

"I guess we just start going floor by floor." John responded with a shrug. Thus the odd pair started the painstaking task of checking every floor for signs of prisoners.

Two flights per level. They made their way down the first set. John opened the door. The room revealed was dark, lockers lined the walls to the left and right, with a small cluster against the back wall. There was a security uniform on a hanger on a locker. Out of curiosity, John walked inside. Most of the lockers had security uniforms, towels, and civilian clothes. A few would have a pill bottle, probably steroids, or a picture of a family.

John was most curious in the small patch of lockers at the end. Half the size of all the other lockers by all means, the design itself was of sterner stuff. While the other lockers were crisscrossing strips of metal, the ones at the end had octagons made of thick steel. The gaps were also smaller than their larger compartments. Most importantly, John could see there was something still there and the door was slightly cracked.

John approached the locker and opened it. Inside was a single forgotten shotgun and three boxes of ammunition. John stared at it a moment, contemplating on taking it. If they left a weapon and ammunition on the very first sub-level, there was no telling what the lower ones held. It might come in handy. He remembered the last time he used a gun.

His father had decided that John should learn how to use the said weapon efficiently, as the son of an old soldier. He took him out to a desolate spot in the desert, miles away from all civilization. The set up bottles, propane cans, fruits, and various other things that the shooting of which gave a nice effect.

"Dig the rifle into your shoulder, focus, line up the sights, control your breathing, relax, pull the trigger slowly, don't jerk it. It should surprise you when it fires." His father instructed.

John did his best to keep the pointers in mind as he practiced the bead of the rifle and heirloom onto a watermelon. His target was maybe fifty meters away and the gun felt heavy in his hands. He pulled the trigger steadily with a slow methodicalness.

The gun rocked into John's shoulder suddenly and forcefully. He imagined he'd have a bruise to show for it, though this turned out fanciful. John could still see the effect the low caliber weapon had on his target. He had fired a .22 hollow point into the dead center of the now decimated fruit. There were no scraps left of his victim bigger than a good sized bite.

John shuddered a little at the thought of what such a thing could do to a live body and his father congratulated him at a well done first shot.

John recovered from the brief memory and decided that whatever horrors remained below, if there were any, he would deal with without the gun. "There's nothing here Azure, let's go to the next level." Azure just shifted his shoulders in what could only be a shrug and the pair left the room with the weapon.

Down another two flights to the second sub-level. John opened the door and revealed a room filled with high tech equipment, monitors, and other things used in the pursuit of science. "Wow... I wonder what they were researching..." gawked the ever curious Azure.

"Let's find out." John walked to the only computer left, it was unhooked but in mere moments John had it up and running. "Let's see..." John opened up the computer's data files. To his dismay and Azure's disappointment, they were wiped clean. "Damn." John swore.

"I wonder..." After a few moments of thought and some of John's special brand of techno-wizardry later, he was able to recover a single corrupted file. It mentioned something about an immunity to magic, at least as best as he could figure.

"That's stupid, how can anyone be immune to magic?" Azure posed.

"Kid, thaumaturgical studies are not my strong suit." John shook his head in surrender to the lacking of the requested knowledge. "Let's get moving, I don't want to stay here too long."

Another pair of stairs, another room. A room of which the very contents and nature would baffle John and Azure to no end.

"Who the hell build a break room three stories underneath the earth?!"

Azure just stared at the room in front of him. There was a pool table, snack and drink machines, a large television, plush couches, there was even presence of a bar! Words finally found the steely maned pegasus. "But... why?!"

"Maybe its for the people who work on the lower levels?" John tried to reason.

"But... the snack machine has ALFALFA in it!"

"Maybe it’s stocked by ponies?"

"But that makes even less sense! It’s THE HLF headquarters!"

"I think we need to leave before this room summons Cthulu through its total impossibleness, or we go mad." John rubbed his temples messaging his oncoming migraine.

"I am right behind you dad." Azure agreed.

The pair made their way from the overwhelming contradictions that the room held to the fourth sub-level. Immediately John knew they had found the right area. There were what was undoubtedly holding cells. What John heard next cost him a good nights sleep and some faith in his species.

There was a faint clopping of hooves. The human liberation front had left their prisoners to die. John was filled with an unparalleled rage.

He wasted no time in finding the controls for the door switches. The desk staring down the aisle had a built in touch control. He hit the screen to turn it on and waited as the machine booted up. The infuriating seconds ticked by as John waited on the machine.

Finally, the machine finished loading. John swore, it needed a passcode. John guessed at what he thought were likely entries: We will prevail, their motto and In God's Own Image, their older motto. After both failed, John had to resort to back door methods. These had their own dangers as there could be technological traps.

He got in, seemingly avoiding any security protocols. With a few swift and precise flicks of his fingers, John unlocked all the doors. Then all hell broke loose. A turret unfolded out of the ceiling and began firing. John scooped up Azure and shielded him and not a moment too soon as three rounds grazed John's left arms bicep.

>Shit! Now what?!< John's mind went into a panic as it tried to come up with a plan, any plan. Suddenly, John remembered the pre-recorded message kept by the AI. The AI developed by Intelligent Designs, the company that John built his wealth of off. If that was a House Keeper mark II, then this was most likely the Guardian Mark III.

Back when the company was still around and he was in charge, he insisted on an universal override code hardwired into each and every AI. The code was in every AI up to the Mark IV series, the last one developed before John pulled out. It was better than sitting there getting shot at.

John took a deep breath and bellowed, "OVERRIDE COMMAND: CATHERINE 12-05-20-37!" There was a long, pregnant pause and John held his breath and hoped.

"... OVERRIDE ACCEPTED. GUARDIAN MARK IV STANDING DOWN." The metallic voice rang before the unit powered down.

John released his breath. I got lucky. If they had a slightly better budget or resource... "Hey, you alright Azure?" John asked the shaken colt. "Azure?"

"I-I'm fine." Azure managed. He may have lived with a human for almost a month now and become desensitized to many a harsh thing, but getting shot at was something else. "Your arm!" Azure noticed the three bullet wounds on John's arm, and they were bleeding quite profusely.

The adrenaline that had been coursing through John up till that point faded, and John found his arm to be in a good deal of searing pain. "Ffffffffffff-" John gritted through his teeth.

John needed to pack the wound immediately or risk fainting from blood loss. Lacking gauze, he'd have to improvise. He took his shirt off and ripped a long thin piece from it. He took the remainder of the shirt, balled it up and put it atop the wounds. He then placed the long strip over the makeshift packing and tied it as tight as possible. It would do. For now.

"I'm good Azure, see?" He waved the limb about to show that the bleeding had slowed to a near stand-still. "Now, let's save some ponies." >Or what's left of them.<

Azure seemed to brighten a little, "Okay."

"Hey, stay here while I go gather everyone, okay?" Azure nodded in agreement.

John moved into the hallway. Steeling himself, he dared to poke into the first room. The smeel of fecal matter, urine and death stung John's nostrils. There in the room was what may have once been a pegasus. Its wings were missing but stubs remained, it was shriveled and dried, a husk. John fought the urge to vomit and removed himself as quickly as possible.

At the second doorway, he prayed for mercy for what he would find. Looking in it was blessedly empty. He moved to the third one.

He went in, there, on the floor was a unicorn with a shattered horn. John would of thought the poor wretch to have expired if its broken form didn't utter the most haunting moan at the sight of the human. John felt his heart give at the sight. He contemplated for a second on what to do.

He picked up the unicorn as gently as he could and carried it over to Azure.

"Please... don't hurt me... I never... did... an-" It managed through its immense pain.

"Don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you." John gingerly set the unicorn down by Azure. "Azure, keep him company. I'll be right back." Azure only nodded solemnly at the acceptance of the task.

John went back to his own grim task. He checked the fourth room. He suppressed his gag reflex as he saw a re-enactment of the first room with an earth pony this time. He moved onto the fifth room, once more an unbearable pungent stench attacked him.

>How can people do such things? How does a man do THIS to another living creature and live with himself?< John boggled at the seemingly endless capacity of evil some humans enjoyed. He was no stranger to cruelty himself, but he learned from his mistakes.

The sixth room was a bittersweet sight. There was no corpse and very little smell at least. That was the good part. However the wingless pegasus cowering in corner, wasn't such a welcome sight. The whimpering plead didn't help either "St-stay away! Please... no more..."

"Shhh... I'm not going to hurt you..." John spoke softly as he slowly approached with his arms out and his hands open.

"L-liar... that's what all you humans say. Then you be-beat me, o-or stab, or th-the machine." The former flyer squirmed backwards against the corner.

"It's okay, the bad people are gone. I'm here to rescue you." John was steadily approaching and was now a little more than halfway across the small room.

"Wh-why would a human ever help me?" The battered creature's eyes twitched around the room, looking for the non-existent escape.

"I'm not like them." John stated as comfortingly as he could. The pony seemed to relax and John quickly embraced it while its defenses were down. The pegasus seized up at first and then struggled madly against John.

John stayed there, just holding the poor pony. After a few moments of fighting the pony finally realized what this was. A hug. The pegasus relaxed and placed its head on John's shoulder.

"Can you walk?" The pegasus nodded. "My son is at the end of the hall, go wait with him. I'll be right back after I check these last four rooms." The pony nodded once more and walked down the hall to meet Azure, dragging its hooves.

The seventh room marked the second unoccupied cell. John let out a sigh of relief. All of which fled the moment John looked inside the eighth room.

All the various smells the previous rooms were present, accompanied by a few new ones. It smelled strongly of burnt flesh and hair. There was another scent, very faint, but could only be registered as sex. The scene grisly. A good two thirds of the former ponys form burnt and black. Its hind legs were broken and out at odd angles. Its chest was flayed, organs on display. And the face! It was left untouched. The look of complete horror, pain, dismay and sorrow painted upon the perfect visage would haunt John until the end of his days.

John lost the battle against his stomach. Puking, John stumbled out of the room. He activated the individual controls, shutting the door. John heaved again. He took long deep breaths to regain his composure. After doing so, he moved to the second to last room.

"John? Is that you?" The fuschia earth pony queried weakly. He had found his friend. Alive at that.

"Its me bro. Can you walk?" A slight nod. "Meet the others at the front. I've got one more room to check." The pony got up weakly and headed to the instructed spot.

John took a deep breath and headed into the last room. Empty. Maybe there was a kind and loving deity.

John turned back and headed down the hallway. The closed door catching his eye and invoking the images contained within into his mind. He continued to the end where Azure waited. "Everpony ready?" Three solemn nods. "Let's go."

John picked up the unconscious unicorn and left the jail. The process of leaving the HLF HQ was a silent and somber one. Up the stairs, out the lobby, across the street.

Upon reaching his truck, he opened the back door driver side and sat the pony in it. He walked around to the other side and helped the other two malnourished ponies into the back. Azure hopped into the passenger seat on his lonesome.

John moved back to the driver's side and got in. He turned on the truck and navigation AI. "Nearest hospital." John commanded as he turned the key. Directions popped up on the front windshield. John threw the truck into drive and floored it.

Left, right, right, left. Destination on left. John whipped around the corners and drove like a mad man. He slammed his brakes pulling up to the hospital. "Azure, stay here, this won't be long." He said while getting out and grabbing the unconscious unicorn.

"Either of you wanna come? You can ride with me back to good ol' Cali." The wingless pony wanted to come surprisingly and Noob wanted to as well which was expected.

John carried the pony inside. "I found this in the old HLF HQ." He stated to the shocked receptionist pony. In seconds they had a stretcher and took away the beaten pony.

After answering a few questions, John was clear to go. They'd be sending a team to the headquarters. John went back to the car, got in the drivers and started the engine. The other two ponies he rescued were sound asleep.

"So where to dad?" asked the steely maned pegasus next to him.

"Home." His stomach grumbled. "Right after we eat, that is." John smiled weakly. He put the truck in drive and set off.

Comments

[Chatoyance]

Elde: "Grisly, accurate, and I am so glad that some of the ponies survived. I wonder why the pegasus didn't want the stubs of his wings looked at?"

[Lolfail]

Curious as to how anyone could eat after seeing that.
Well, take back, I had a strange craving for Eggs after I helped in a morgue. The uh, car wrecks and such. Nasty shit, but hell, I was the only guy loling at Saw. XD

[Duality]

Not the only one....