The Last Flower

by TheMareWhoSaysNi

Like Golden Petals Scattering

Through the mist of forced sleep, Soarin had a glimpse at a white wall, turning around itself like a merry-go-round. He closed his eyes again and let inertia rocking his body. It felt as if he were floating on a cotton-like cloud, which could have been pleasant, if it wasn’t for the sour smell of sweat mixing up with the rest, obliging him to wake up many times.

When he finally regained full consciousness, the white walls he had discovered earlier appeared again. Far from being perfectly immaculate, conversely they looked more like being of a bleached kind of grey. If he hadn’t the slightest idea of where he was, he knew one thing – it wasn’t the cell he’d been brought to after his first awakening.

He needed a few more minutes to take in every other element of this new room. In the back, on an old cast iron machine, a kettle was whistling, spitting out tiny puffs of smoke. Somewhere near one of the walls, a huge table was overcrowded with maps, pencils, papers and ammunitions. A loophole as large as a brick was the only visible gap.

The background noise which had accompanied his semblance of dreams, like creaking wood, suddenly stopped, and finally Soarin could see, close to the kettle, still whistling, a young woman. She had put on slippers decorated with an elegant satin bow. Her long thin legs were covered of black transparent pantyhose and she was wearing a quilted black dress with two pockets on each side which, despite how simple it was, seemed to have been sewn by the most skilled Crafters ever. Between her hands was a jacket with a hood that she was mending while humming.

The young woman put down her work on the rocking chair on which she had sat during all this time, and walked to the cast iron stove to get the kettle.

“I thought that, when you will wake up, you will appreciate a good cup of hot coffee. It is recreated coffee, of course… but it is almost as good as real coffee. Or so, I hope it is.”

Soarin could feel she was trying to sound cheerful but that, despite her efforts, something in her voice sounded odd. As if she didn’t believe her own words. Her voice with aristocratic hints and her refined manners clashed a bit with how austere the place he was in looked. At each of her step, her elegant hairstyle, a whirlwind of carefully controlled purple curls, was moving with the grace of a ballet dancer.

She walked through the room with the kettle in her hands, obviously looking for something, and for a very brief while, a sparkling light went through her marine blue eyes, before she went to the table from where she was able to unearth two cups, one of them with a broken handle.

“I suppose this will do the trick,” she whispered, shrugging.

Not that Soarin thought this young person to be an unpleasant company, no matter who she was, however, it was the third time in a short while he opened his eyes on a different place, and too many mysteries were still wrapped around his mind.

He had not forgotten what had happened before he arrived here. The alarm and the red light. The screams, the explosions. And this armed girl who had stepped into his room and sent him off to sleep, in all likelihood so she could bring him here. What was the point of all this?

When he tried to sit up and to put back into order the few pieces of this puzzle at his disposal, he found himself hindered again, his arms blocked by handcuffs around his wrists at each side of the mattress.

The young woman put down the cup she had prepared for him and ran to the bed, taking a tiny key out of her dress’s pocket.

“I am sorry. Sunset Shimmer was scared you would run away if you woke up in the middle of the night. I forgot to get you out of these.”

She hurried to get him out of the two bracelets, before going back to the table where she had left the cups, still steaming from hot coffee.

When Soarin sat up, he noticed he had been taken out of his other shackle, the strange machine in which the nurse had forced his legs before obliging him to sleep. Much to his surprise, he discovered he was able to move his legs again, though they hadn’t exactly regained their whole suppleness.

He welcomed the cup given by the young woman with pleasure. Whatever was the place he was now, the unbearable heat from outside couldn’t touch him, and though the air was far from cold, it was difficult not to shiver without the blanket over his shoulders.

While he was blowing about the ebony-colored liquid, Soarin couldn’t ignore the weight of this female gaze upon him, and when he looked up, he saw his new fellow staring at him with an open intensity.

“Please, forgive me,” she said, lowering her eyes. “I did not want to look impolite. It’s just that… it has been quite a while since I haven’t seen any man. My name’s Rarity, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you,” he answered automatically.

Quite a while without seeing any man. Then, came back to his mind the words of the scared man whom had shared his room for a couple of hours. There had been a virus which had exterminated a part of the male population. The war had been won thanks to this unconventional solution, and… And, he wasn’t sure what exactly.

It was his turn now to stare at the young woman. What was her name, already? Oh, yes. Rarity. Funny. If he believed everything he had been said, it was himself whom seemed to represent some kind of rarity. He had been told about “The ladies’ genitors”, if he remembered right. He didn’t have enough time to gather more information. Maybe Rarity would be able to light his path.

Yet, even before she had drunk her cup of coffee up, the latter put it back on the table and brushed an inexistent dust out of her dress. Compared to her former casualness, she now seemed to be taken over by a stiffness sucking natural out of her every move.

Without a glance at him, she walked through the room again, and went to a door Soarin noticed for the first time.

“I am going to get Sunset Shimmer to tell her you’re awake.”

Then she left, closing the door behind her so delicately he barely heard the sound of a click.

The silence of a wake suddenly weighed all over the room. With his eyes, he looked all around him, as if expecting to discover something else he would not have seen before. He didn’t know much than before he woke up, except maybe one thing. Rarity had said the same name twice – Sunset Shimmer.

The way she had spoken about her let Soarin think she was some kind of leader. It was her who gave the orders, anyway, since she had demanded to keep him handcuffed so he wouldn’t run away. As if he could have gone far… He didn’t even know where he was.

His legs shaky, he got up and made a few steps to the small loophole in the wall. All he could see through it was a dune of red sand, similar to any other dune.

New sounds of steps coming from the corridor drew his attention, and when the door got opened again, another young woman was standing behind it. Her blond hair tied with a red ribbon, she had worn a tunic equipped with a kangaroo pocket and a cowl neck that probably was put in front of the mouth once outside, a pair of worn-out jeans and black boots. She was carrying a tray with food in her hands.

Rarity was right behind her, and stepped into the room after the girl, visibly more relaxed than she was before she left.

Unceremoniously, the new young girl put the tray on Soarin’s bed, grabbing an apple as red as the sun on her way, in which she bit with delight. It had been ages since he hadn’t seen a fruit of this quality.

“What yar waitin’ fer, dude? It ain’t goin’ to eat ya! It’s the opposite, even.”

“Are you… Sunset Shimmer?”

“Nope! Ah am Applejack. Sunny’s goin’ to be here soon. She had to harness her horse.”

Apparently not impressed by his presence, nonchalantly leaning against the table, Applejack kept on eating her apple, her mouth half-opened. Her manners a bit uncouth were in a complete opposition with Rarity’s a bit affected behavior, offering a rather delightful visual contrast.

In all honesty, it was hard for him to envision what kind of connection there could be between two persons so different. The famous Sunset Shimmer, once she would finally deign to appear, would have to answer to many questions.

Soarin walked to his bed, passing by an Applejack who still was not disconcerted, and sat to admire the first meal he had since he opened his eyes – at all.

On the tray, inside a terra cotta bowl, was a soup smelling like mushrooms and, to accompany it, in a smaller bowl, a generous portion of grilled grasshoppers, smelling like lime.

Only once his spoon plunged into the bowl soup, Soarin did realized he was starving. In order to keep in alive in the same shape as he was during the war, he probably had been stuffed of liquid vitamins and proteins, but it would never replace a good meal. Sure, it lacked meat, but animals were already rare during the Community Power era.

He was in the middle of his meal when a fourth person entered in the room. From the moment Soarin looked up, he knew who she was. These turquoise eyes, he couldn’t forget, even if he forced himself. They might have the same color as ice, but they encapsulated a flame as blazing of an ardent fire. These eyes were all he had clearly seen from the girl who had sent him off to sleep last night. These eyes and a strand of red hair.

In reality, they were ribbed with a dazzling yellow, forming some kind of golden furrow into boiling lava. She was dressed with leather from head to toe.

It was her. Sunset Shimmer. The leader of that odd group.

“Ah checked last night followin’ the guidelines like ya said,” claimed Applejack to the young woman. “Ah don’t think he’s sick. Well, we’d know it better if we had a Healer, but…”

“OK. Thanks, AJ. Since Lyra’s on her break, we need someone at the control room.”

“Goin’. See ya, good-lookin’,” she said to Soarin, winking at him before she left.

If it remained the least of doubts, she had just swept it with her arm. She was the one telling the others what to do. Hence the first question Soarin asked her, as soon as she sat in front of him, her legs parted, her arms leaning against the back of the chair she had just grabbed.

“Where are we?”

“Canterlot. Well… What’s left of it.”

The Uncivilized War had left scars behind that had disfigured Equestria’s capital forever. Even he knew that. The Angel Stealer’s Army had invaded each of the Ghettoes of this part of the West Continent, but it truly was Canterlot that had been attacked the most, because it was the cradle of the Community Power, the place where decisions were taken. As arbitrary as they had been.

However, it was not exactly what he was expected when he had asked where they were. Which ghetto this was didn’t really matter to him, in reality. What he wanted to know was what was this place, the place he was right now, and whether or not he was a prisoner, like he had seemed to be where he had been taken off.

“It’s a bunker and a nuclear shelter located at the East of the Ghetto. And no, you’re not a prisoner here, conversely to what happens in the Underworld Ghetto. It’s to be said that there, the population is more than limited, so men are an even rarer thing than they are at the surface.”

“Because of the virus?”

“Yes, partly because of the Y virus. Also because the lack of sun creates other disease, diseases we can’t cure or we don’t remember how to cure. So, when they get men who are sturdy and in great shape, they don’t want to risk one of them to escape. Do you understand why?”

Soarin nodded. No need to be a genius to understand the problem this shortage of a male population was. The perpetuation of the human gender was now disrupted, like a mechanic with one piece which ceased to turn.

The words of his former roommate came up straight into his face. The ladies’ private genitor… This was why the doors were secured. This was why he had told him he would be requested all day long.

He took a glimpse at Sunset Shimmer, in the same position, who seemed to be lost in thoughts, her eyes in the direction of the loophole. She had come all the way down to this Underworld Ghetto to get him out and to bring him to this bunker. There was an explanation. And the only one able to find a way through his mind was this one: she also wanted to use him in order to perpetuate the human gender.

And yet… And yet, she had affirmed him he wasn’t a prisoner here. If she had handcuffed him, it was only so he wouldn’t run away.

“Is that why I’m here? To be a genitor?”

“No,” answered Sunset Shimmer, never taking her eyes off the loophole. “It has nothing to do with this.”

She left her chair, and started to walk up and down through the room. In the back, Rarity was still here, busy to mend her work again, humming and rocking on her chair.

Sunset Shimmer leaned against the wall, and deeply sighed. In her eyes, the fire wasn’t burning now, it was something else. An expression between melancholy and fear. That was how he knew there was even more to it all. So much more than a question of perpetuating the gender…

“I need… We need soldiers. Very, very good soldiers. A lot of them are dead, many others have decided not to fight again, because they’re traumatized and they’d rather sleep with women who don’t love them, or not the way they’d like. The female fighters almost all joined the Leader of the Underworld Ghetto, what’s left are still prisoners of Queen Chrysalis… Queen… Who the hell does she think she is?”

Just like last night, the name Chrysalis resounded in a familiar way into Soarin’s chest, as if an enormous bell was shaking between his bones. Conversely to a lot of things which remained wrapped in silky threads, this one was hitting his retina each time.

What he has suspected was clear now. Someone like Sunset Shimmer would never take a risk such as the one she had taken last night, seeping into a place where the best female soldiers of Equestria were, just for something like sex, although sex could be important in their case. Her goal was bigger than that.

“Did you see that dune?” she asked him by showing the loophole with her chin.

Then, without waiting for his answer, she went on.

“It was where Sweet Apple Acres was, where Applejack and her whole family used to live. Of course, it was a geoplant, but… Chrysalis had created some kind of army, an army that’s not made of human beings, though they look like humans, but of very sophisticated androids, like they created back to the postmodern era, and she calls them Butterflies. She had chosen Canterlot as the “guinea pig” of her “army”. And she had destroyed the whole Ghetto. If we can’t quickly gather an army as well, she’ll destroy every other Ghettoes the same way, will steal their Angels and will get done with the work Sombra had started with the Uncivilized War.”

A hundreds of years before, a solar storm of an inequivalent strength had destroyed every bit of the very advanced human technologies. The communication systems of yesteryears had been wiped out, and with them, monetary transactions, and everything which constituted the world back then. Shortly after this, several natural disasters, coupled with global warming, had finished the existence of these civilizations.

From then, the planet had turned into this heap of red sand, and humans of the now called Equestria country, one of the rare places of the West Continent to be still populated, owed their survival only to these entities fallen from the sky called Angels for this reason. They were a powerful magnetic strength imprisoned in spheres of tempered glass which could supply a whole ghetto of a hundreds of inhabitants with electricity and various sources of energy, allowing, among other things, to grow crops. Before the Uncivilized War, a Ghetto like Canterlot possessed around ten Angels, while smaller communities could have only one.

And so, anyone with a certain number of Angels in their possession would dispose of an immense power, able to get enough energy to render a part of the leading-edge technology of the postmodern era. And to run what was left of the world.

It had always been Sombra’s goal, a self-proclaimed king, and in all likelihood, it was now also the goal of his former right-hand person.

However, it remained details which, for Soarin, were still a mystery. Alright, he was a very good soldier, one of the best from his infantry unit, but how could he make a difference in front of a whole army of androids able to destroy a Ghetto as large as Canterlot? Even in the case her and her friends were excellent fighters, it would never be enough.

“I’ve been in a coma for four years. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to shot with a gun again. And… I’m only one man.”

“But not any man. One of the best gunner of the whole late Resistance Army. None of us here is from the Military Caste. Applejack is a Producer, Rarity’s a Crafter, and I’m only an Envoy. We had learned to shoot with a gun as you go along, just like everybody else here in New Canterlot. Back in the Army, didn’t they say that one person is enough to make a difference?”

Soarin opened his mouth, ready to contradict Sunset Shimmer, but he closed it back immediately. The image of his General, this legend called Bow Hothoof, came back to his mind. This litany was the one he used to repeat to his recruit each time they wanted to give up, thinking they were bumping into an obstacle impossible to overcome.

Without him to even nod, Sunset Shimmer knew he hadn’t had anything to add. And, anyway, if he didn’t fight by their side, where would he go? Everything he had known was gone. His army mates, his superiors, his family, they all had died or were missing. They were everything he had now.

Or in the least, almost everything he had.

“Fine. Let’s say I give you until I’m back from my trip to answer, would it be alright?”

“You’re going on a trip?”

“Let’s rather say I’m going on an expedition. And it’s not for pleasure. I told you, I need soldiers. There’s someone, someone hiding deep in Equestria, in the middle of the Everfree Forrest. Do you know about it?”

“Of course I do.”

The Everfree Forrest was one of the rare remains of the postmodern era. Back then, it was a protected natural park. No one really knew how it had survived the various disasters, but it had survived and now, it was the only natural space that had not been created by a geoplant nor cultivated despite a soil polluted by lead and mercury.

It also was the place where all the surviving animals had taken refuge, out of horses, that humans had been able to keep domesticated. Known to be dangerous, peopled with wild beasts and Transients, it wasn’t a place where it was good to go deep into, when alone and defenseless.

“This person is the only one able to operate guns which would allow us to measure up to Chrysalis’s androids, the Butterflies.”

“Is it a Master of Elements? I thought you were looking for soldiers.”

“No, she’s no Master of Elements. But she has known one very well, and she taught her everything she knew.”

“You mean… someone like a cousin?”

“For example, yeah…”

Unsure of why, from the moment she had said these words, Soarin had felt his heart beating faster, and the bells of his memory ringing again. Maybe it was coincidence. Yes, nothing but sheer coincidence. In fact, nothing could let him believe she was still alive. The last time he had seen her, she was running toward a mined shack in order to help fighting mates. Then, himself had suffered from the consequences of a deflagration, and his own mind had met with nothingness…

“You knew her very well, so what do you think? Would the Everfree Forrest be a place where would hide First Lieutenant Rainbow Dash?”

Comments

[Midday Giggle]

MY FREAKING GLOB.

OH THIS IS SO INTENSE!!!

[Dusk_Writer]

“You knew her very well, so what do you think? Would the Everfree Forrest be a place where would hide First Lieutenant Rainbow Dash?”

Dun dun DUUNN

[rainbow awesome dash]

OH MY GODDDDD!!!

[RotiKhaase]

OH MY GOD,THIS IS SOOOOOOOO FRICKING A M A Z I N G!