Chapter 32: Tattered Wing
The medical university was a host of buildings, and some of the most modern ones in a city where more than half the buildings were one to three centuries old. Before ETS it had been probably the largest employer in the Lowcountry, with well over ten thousand employees associated with it in some way shape or form. It was also one of a host of hospitals in the city that helped form a combined medical and college district within the city.
"The hospitals are kind of an even split between ponies and humans," Gerald explained as they landed in the courtyard of the university. "Some parts provided shelter to those transforming and other parts quarantined off already existing patients when ETS broke out; though part way through the pandemic they started shifting some of their more hopeless cases over to the pony areas after they learned ETS could cure just about anything."
"So we have both pony and human doctors here now?" Remedy asked as she gazed around at the well lit buildings, noting one building that was surprisingly dark.
"Well, we have a bunch of doctors who are human and a bunch who happen to be ponies, but the lot of them don't seem to understand proper care for ponies yet," Gerald said with a sad shake if his head.
"What about all the students in the area? I went to the College of Charleston which is right by here," Rosetta asked with interest.
"College of Charleston has a lot of the students as ponies now, just like MUSC. All of them going in classes close together and living in dorms huddled up together let ETS spread through quick. This part of the city probably has the majority of the ponies in Charleston, rest of the city is largely human," Gerald explained as be led them to the entrance to one of the brightly lit buildings.
"I don't see any signs of earth ponies having tried to convert anything to farms around here," Remedy observed.
"Humans put a stop to that before it even got started. The day ponies around here are still figuring out what to do with themselves. I know there has been some increased flying back and forth with the pegasi in the last day, with them flying out into the north, but not sure what that's about. Enclave doesn't get too involved with day pony business," Gerald said as the reached the entrance, which had two human guards watching it.
As Gerald talked to the guards Remedy thought about those pegasi. That was almost certainly them in contact with the food drive that her mom had started. She wondered how involved the ponies here were with it.
The guards opened the door to let them all in. As the three passed through it was not lost on Remedy how warily the humans watched them. Even with them working close by the night ponies these humans were still scared. How horrific were these vigilante attacks that they inspired such fear in the whole city? What ideas about ponies, specifically night ponies, were being created by all this fear? Also worrisome was the fact that these humans were doing nothing to stop this from going on. Was that motivated by fear or something else?
They walked through the halls of the building and the sterile smell assaulted Remedy's muzzle. She never liked the smell of hospitals as a human, but as a pony the smell was much more intense. She could see Rosetta struggling with the smell as well. Gerald seemed to have no issue with it though; perhaps he was just used to it.
They came up to a desk area which had two human nurses stationed there. Gerald spoke quietly with one of the nurses and Remedy was tempted to turn her ears to eavesdrop on the conversation, but ultimately didn't. Rosetta on the other hoof definitely had her ears alert and turned in the direction of the two speakers.
"He's asking about the health of some pony, and nurse is telling him the pony is in surgery right now," Rosetta whispered to Remedy.
Remedy just nodded. She had gotten that there was something physically wrong with these Broken Ones by the conversation earlier, if the name alone hadn't given that away. What had happened to make them like that though? They needed to understand these ponies if they were going to try to reason with them.
Gerald directed them to a nearby elevator and punched a button for the forth floor. After a short ride on the elevator the door opened revealing a hall much like the one they had left, but with bits of medical equipment on wheels pushed to the sides of the hall waiting to be wheeled into use.
They continued to walk silently through the halls until the came to another nurse's station. One of the humans on duty pushed a button that opened a secured door past the station that led into more hall. Gerald dipped his head in gratitude to the nurse and continued leading them on their progress through the hospital. Remedy noted that these nurses hadn't even questioned why they were there and seemed very used to just letting ponies through.
She also noted that they stared uncomfortably at her flank and its cutie mark as she walked by. With the whole city afraid of night ponies being a night pony with a skull on their flank likely made her even scarier than normal. She could already imagine them assessing her to be some sort of killer pony. The thought made her grimace.
Gerald came up to a regular door with a basic handle at the end of a hall. He opened it up and as they passed through they found themselves in a waiting room. There were several other night ponies in the room already, including one that instantly caught the attention of both Remedy and Rosetta and made them wince as they looked at her.
The night pony mare in question looked to be younger, perhaps around their age, or close to it. She had a black mane and tail and dull brown fur. On her flank was a cutie mark of a night pony wing that had been ripped to shreds, and her actual wings they could tell, even while folded to her sides, didn't look right. Their were cuts and lacerations that were only partially healed all over her body, some bandaged and some not. A few areas of her body looked like the fur had been burned right off and bright pink flesh tinged with charred black could be seen. She had to be in pain, and looked like she had been crying.
"Any news, Tattered?" Gerald asked the mare that held their attention.
"They don't think Derrick is going to make it through the night. They have been working on him all night long and part of the day, but there is just so much infection that has gotten out of control," the mare, Tattered, said in a near whisper. She was clearly trying to hold back sobs.
"I'm sorry," Gerald said as he hung his head and ears low.
"We knew it wasn't likely he was going to pull through. He had it the worst, we are lucky he lasted this long," Tattered replied without looking up from the floor.
"I know this is not the best time, but I have some newcomers. I can try to find some of the other Broken to have them talk to if you aren't up to it," Gerald said.
"They are resting, doctor's orders. Doctors are all trying to keep from them the fact Derrick is likely going to be dead tonight. They don't want them aggravating their wounds. I am in the best shape of all of us, so it is my responsibility," Tattered said forced determination.
"If you say so," Gerald said with a doubtful voice. He spread a wing to gesture at the couple. "This is Phobia Remedy in the grey, and Rosetta Stone in the blue. Phobia, Rosetta, this is Tattered Wing of the Broken Ones. She will explain what we are all doing here."
"I'm pleased to meet both of you," Tattered said as she looked at both of them in turn, with a cheerful voice that rang hollow. "Addressing the elephant in the room you are probably wondering why I am in the state I am in. That requires a story. Before I tell you that let me ask an question with an obvious answer; what is a night pony's job? What are night ponies supposed to do?"
"We guard and protect," Rosetta said without hesitation, Remedy nodded her head in agreement.
"Yes, that's something ingrained in us. That is the heart of what we are above all other things. Whether it is patrolling to keep others physically safe, protecting ponies from their nightmares, or finding other ways of protecting that is what we are and what we are meant to be. Whatever other interests, hobbies, wants, or goals we have none of that comes before that basic instinct. Whatever else we might end up doing we won't stop protecting," Tattered said.
"Protecting other ways?" Remedy asked.
"We have a doctor here who is a night pony, he protects us in his own way by trying to heal ponies, protecting can be done many ways. I also have no doubt that he would be quick to react if immediate danger threatened," Tattered explained.
"Guess that makes sense," Remedy said.
"Agreed. Anyway, now on to my story and how it ties to what I just went over. By the time I am done you will understand what the Enclave is about and what we are doing here," Tattered said and then drew herself up into a lecturing stance.
"When ETS was still active things got bad here in Charleston. There was rioting, looting, and worse. For those of us who reached full transformation we saw the world as being reborn and this was just a passing thing, but to the humans this was the end of the world. My friends and I did our best to try to help protect ponies and humans from the worst of things at night. There were six of us to start, soon there will only be four out of that original group," Tattered said.
She paused, regathering herself before continuing.
"The night before ETS came to an end my friends and I were out patrolling, trying to do our part, like we normally did. Things had been getting progressively worse with some of the humans. There was this one group of humans, about a dozen of them, that were being just really horrible. They were just walking around town smashing cars, street signs, harassing people, just being general hoodlums. My friends and I watched them for a little while and eventually decided to intervene before they went and hurt somepony or some human."
Tattered paused again as a scream could be heard somewhere within the hospital. She looked at a nearby door with a stricken look on her face and looked like she was going to break down crying again.
"We don't have to do this right now, Tattered," Gerald spoke up.
"No, this is my job, and it doesn't stop because of what is going on down the hall or how I am feeling right now," Tattered said as she leveled her tear filled eyes at the stallion.
Remedy's heart went out to the broken night pony. Tattered Wing was trying to put on a brave face while she had a friend dying not far away. From what she described she already had one friend die, and the way this story was progressing and the evidence before her eyes showed that Tattered had gone through hell. She was starting to see what motivated these ponies; she just had to hear the rest of the story.
"Anyway, back to the story," Tattered continued. "We did what instinct gave us the knowledge to do. We went in, tried knocking some of them over, did a lot of shouting, tried to look intimidating. The things that work on animals or a rowdy pony. Unfortunately those kinds of instincts and skills do nothing to help against humans behaving worse than wild animals."
Tattered looked mournfully at her wings and ran a hoof over one of the more healed scars, still wincing as she touched it.
"I don't need to go into details about what happened. You can see me and see the results. I don't think I will ever fly again. The only reason most of us survived at all was some of the medical students and guards here stepped in. Poor Gail was dead from blood loss before the night was done, now we are going to be losing Derrick," Tattered almost broke into a sob again.
Rosetta looked long and hard at Remedy, and Remedy could see Rosetta imagining the same thing happening to one of them.
"Then the domes of light came the next day and the news that ETS was over and the world would remain primarily human. With that news realization dawned on us that we, and by we I mean all night ponies, had a choice to make about what instincts to follow and which to force ourselves to disregard. We were made for a different world than this, one where the worse we had to worry about dealing with was some wild animal. We weren't given the tools to deal with violent humans, at least we weren't given the right ones. Our instincts as ponies make us too soft to fulfill our duties in protecting," Tattered said as she stopped to take a breath.
"We have a choice, either not protect, or go against our natures and do what needs to be done to stop the most violent and dangerous out there. We can do it, we can collide from a dive at fast enough speeds to shatter bones of our enemies without hurting ourselves. The physical ability is there, we just have to force ourselves to do what must be done. This is what the Enclave of the Night is doing, making a choice that protecting is more important than our gentler natures. Ponies and humans can't be protected by us being soft," Tattered Wing said as she finished her story and explanation of the Enclave.
It was silent for a moment after the Broken One finished speaking. The silence was broken quickly by a human nurse opening the door and looking urgently towards Tattered Wing.
"I have to go say goodbye to a friend. I hope you will join us, but that choice is yours. Just remember you have a choice that needs to be made. If you'll excuse me I must hurry," Tattered said before taking off quickly where the nurse had just been.
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8947553
Typo. Missing word. Fixed now.
...Wow. Even though I know the government worried I want to join them now. Bravo on the writing.
Ah, so we're looking at a case of hearts in the right places but wrong methods. Could be that a few of these ponies could make nice police officers if given the right training.
8948435
I am getting the feeling you want police ponies.
8948839
Well not so much want, but it'd be a logical step to try and take, wouldn't it? You'd get the night ponies to stop being vigilantes, the police force gets some much needed reinforcing, and the night ponies get to follow their instincts.
likely
too many "from"s
This is sure going to make it difficult for peace between the government and the enclave.
Oo, she has a cutie mark of herself!
8960535
Well, of her wing anyway. Sign of regret and pain in this case.
I thought that programming would lead to problems, why would you faceroll a pack of gangers with naught but hope and conviction? They're lucky any of them came out alive.
I think I would have liked a bit more story about what happened to them it maybe a little Dark but no darker than what you've done previously