RoMS' Extravaganza

by RoMS

Apr. 2014 - Sweat, Flesh, Blood, And Bones - Prologue "Pull the Trigger"

New Version:

A thud echoed in the darkness, quickly followed by a splash of mud as a man fell on its knees, hissing out its last breath, a small jet of dark red spitting out of a large gap slashed though his neck. As the last shivers ran across the dead shape’s back, a large shadow stood from behind. A knife rested in his right hand, reflecting no light as a thick lid of black clouds hid every star from the blood-soaked edge.

Thunder roared over the biped’s head and a lightning bolt slashed through far in the horizon, throwing his tanned face and brow hair into stark relief. With the last stream of light, his eyes opened, revealing two deep green murderous eyes. Tonight, the hunt was on.

A droplet hit his forehead and, as a new bolt cracked far above the man’s head, downpour crashed over his bareback. The storm quickly enshrouded the land in a thick veil of rumbling water. Freezing and numbing, the liquid rampart strained and bit, tensing the silent hunter’s muscles. Seeking for warmth, he weaved around the vegetation, dead trunks, crooked bushes, and still surviving trees. The harsh sensations gripping his body were as many physical anchors making each of his step a struggle. Trying not to care, he focused on keeping his head down, silent as he was closing in toward a lit fire a few hundred feet in front of him.

A makeshift camp made up by three ragged tents was soaking rapidly under the dreary deluge. The fire was badly protected by torn canvas, giving fumes as the wind was blowing water on its embers. The loud voice of two men talking was muffling the trickles cracking over the hot rocks circling the hearth. Beyond, a third individual was beating out a child with a large leather thong. Each time the hand was going down, the kid’s crystalline voice erupted in a squeaking yelp.

Hidden behind a dead trunk, the hunter narrowed his eyes to a knife-blade width, trying to distinguish the features of the three bandits. The rain, coupled with loud cracks of thunder, dropped a load on the scout’s shoulder. Water trickling down between his muscles, scars, and mud marring his sides, he chose to crawl closer, taking the risk to reveal his position.

Pondering the pros and cons of attacking upfront, scanning the three men for a hint of a weapon other than sticks and blades, his eyes went down on a tiny box left safe under the linen of one of the tents. Splattered with indent scrapping away the black paint, the item was rusty, covered with dust, and hermetically closed with a strange long lock. The dance of the flames coming from the camp fire threw strangely weaving shadows on the nearest side of it.

Stopping by a puddle of sludge, the hunter slipped his knife in, blanketing the red and shiny edge under a thin cover of brown murk. He walked around a tree, entered the camp through the hiding spot a tent’s shadow offered him and stood, heeding at the raucous laughter of the three men, ready to strike when the time would come in handy.

“J’vais pisser pronto, garde un oeil sur l’gamin,” the one carrying the leather strap called, stepping over the child as he wandered away from the camp.

“T’inquiètes, il est pas prêt de bouger l’con,” the second laughed, quickly followed by the third stooge.

To join his words with acts, the man kicked the curled up kid, throwing his ragged boots in his thigh. Sobs burst in response.

Crawling out of his hiding spot, the hunter glided behind the nearest of his preys who was looking down at his friend beating the child by the book. Even though rain drummed over the fabric of the tents, one could hear the third moaning his satisfaction outside the camp, freeing himself from an overweighting burden. Time was running out.

The blow, fast and silent, sliced through the throat, slicing deep through the sinews, throat, and bone. A hand over the dying weight’s mouth, the body crumbled like a castle of cards under the breeze. Its knee hurtled over a rusty pan left unattended on the ground. The metallic thud echoed under the rain.

The second bandit jerked his head on the side, looking straight at the hunter. An indented rusty knife welcomed his stupor, right through his nose cartilage. Blood spurted out. The bandit’s eyes slipped to a red-striated white as they revolved behind his eyelids. Thrusting the blade out, drawing a large jet of red gore on its way, the hunter sought for the third remaining assaulter.

His eyes locked on the tip of a gun a few feet away. The weapon blared a white hot burst.

In a reflex, the hunter slid on the side, the bullet missing by a hair’s width, then jumped over the campfire, bringing himself forward to an arm reach of his target as the second bang echoed.

Pain flared in the hunter’s right shoulder, passing through the articulation, shattering bones, splitting apart the ligaments, and drying the synovial cavity out of its fluid. Carried away by the strength of kinetic, the hunter stumbled over his assailant and both roared in pain and rage.

Both fell back on the side of a tent, ripping its fabric off. A hard floor of dirt welcomed the gunman’s back and the weight of the hunter wrestled all air out of his lungs, kicking him out for a couple of seconds. Groping around in the chiaroscuro, seeking for his knife, the hunter pushed the bandit aside. His fingertips met the cold touch of metal.

Square shaped, the box was sitting there right before him, for he had not come for the urchin but for this piece of lead. Losing his wit, the hunter crawled in the direction of the key item.

A fist struck his back, cracking a few ribs under the sucker punch’s strength. A kick followed and an arm slid around the hunter’s neck, locking his jugular in a deadly stance, tightening.

Gasping for air, the hunter now become hunted struggled, hacking his hands and feet around… trying to reach with his bare hands the face nearing toward his right ear.

“You think you can fuck with me,” the bandit jutted, his raspy voice massacring the language with an outrageous accent. “You piece of shit.”

The foreigner’s arm shifted his muscle gears and slowly, the hunter’s face turned from red to violet.

“You understand,” the bandit beckoned, grunting each time he tried to clench his arms a bit further. “I think I know what’s inside the box!”

“Mah… dick…” the hunter gurgled.

The bandit lowered the hunter’s head in a fit of rage, bashing it over the metal box itself which soon was covered with blood.

“This is mine!” he laughed madly. “Haven’t opened it yet, but you and your fuckhead friends must keep great things inside! Ain’t walking down the roads with shit in a locker! Gonna sell it to the army in Geneva. Will buy food and…”

Eyes shifting away, the hunter heard a scream above his head and the armlock vanished. His head hit the ground turned into mud as the flogging rain had entered the tent through its torn side. Lightning bolts streaked away up above this world of grim, gore, and gashes.

Looking aside, the hunter saw the kid, holding his knife, striking as seconds passed, again, again, and again, down to the bandit’s neck, eyes, head, chest, arms, flesh, and clothes. Despite his little height, twelve years old at most, he was striking down the bandit, rage blaring off his eyes, teeth clenched, flashing with the thunderbolts, crying and smiling at the same time. Hard times called for harsh measures. Yet, it was always hard to see the littlest break apart under one’s eyes, even more when it showed off how powerless one were to stop such a shameful gall.

The kid raised the knife over his head, ready to hit once again the already dead disfigured mess of wounds that could not be called a human anymore. A hand thrust out of the darkness and held this final desperate attack toward the incarnated pain that had dared lift a hand on him.

Acting rabid, the kid shrieked and turned around, biting at the arm holding his hand until blood was drawn. A feminine voice yelped and forced the child away with a slap from the back of her other hand.

“Oh, the fucker!”

“Maria,” the hunter hissed, lying on his chest, his ribs stabbing his lungs and sparking shivers down his spine.

A sliver of moonlight poured from a slit in the night cloudy sky, reflecting over the girl’s face standing a footstep away from the fallen warrior. Tanned by filth, young, yet marred with the mark of exhaustion and trauma, her face peered down at her friend with two piercing brown eyes. Giving a second punch in the child’s ribcage, making him drop his stolen knife, she kneeled over the man and started pressing over his right shoulder. Her black hair soaked as blood spurted out, bubbling over her slender fingers betraying an overwhelming state of famine.

“Don’t die on me, please,” she blurted.

“Eh, careful!” shouted a third male voice.

Maria jerked aside as the urchin struck forth with the knife, his eyes burning with tears. This time a heavy hand fell down on his face. Suckering, powerful, and dry, the uppercut sent the young boy away, making him bit the dirt in a loud thump.

Two young men walked in the light, and looked around, catching on what had just happened. The blue eyes of the one who had cast the child away glowed under the dim light, his once blond hair now brown by a flagrant lack of hygiene. His lips, torn in a rictus of disgust, revealed yellowish teeth.

The shocking sight of their downed friend forced a gasp out of the last human. Small and slender, his black hair had agglomerated in long dreadlocks, covering his ghoulish face enclosing two frightened brown irises. He was carrying the sole weapon of the group, a large shotgun, rusty and scrapped by time and lack of proper care.

The three men wore large hirsute beards, their features, while still apparently young, were scarred with wrinkles of exhaustion, hanger, and never-ending stress… Survival. But from the four of the group, the girl called Maria was the most pitiful. Parchment skin over flailing bones.

“John, help me instead of standing there like a motherfucker!” Maria cried out at her blond dumbstruck friend. “Don’t let Adam die.”

Her daggers-glaring eyes darted at the last one. The scrawny little piece of man’s hand clutched over his weapon, gritting his teeth as he awaited the girl acid statement.

“And you, Kreps, none of this would have happened if you hadn’t let them steal the box!”

The blemish rastaman looked down at his feet, his shoulders dropping a little.

“Yes, M’am,” he muttered.

Kreps’s eyes went up toward where he had seen the box as he had entered the tent, trying to shut his ears from Maria’s pleadings as John and she were actively trying to stop Adam’s open haemorrhage. His eyes twitched. The box was nowhere to be found.

Eyes widening, he tilted his head at the outside of the tent and saw the kid humping away, the box under his left arm, the knife held clumsily in the other. Blood rushed to Kreps’s head and rage burst out his chest.

“Come back here!” he screamed at the young poor boy running away for his life, thinking taking the knife and the box with him was of something useful. “Don’t make me do this.”

Kreps raised his shotgun and aimed at the whining kid, desperately trying to cast himself in the safe shadows outside in the dreadful storm. “Don’t force me!”

Struck by pure terror, the child turned his back and tried to sprint, toddling among the roots hidden by the darkness. Kreps closed his eyes and pressed the trigger. The recoil shot his shoulder back, nearly wrestling the gun out of his hands. The shot rammed the air in an ungodly roar. The gun ejected an empty brenneke gauge as a tree was already shredded to pieces a few inches above the child’s head. He screamed a grating shrill as bits of wood peppered his surroundings.

“Are you crazy?” John urged Kreps from his crouched position.

“He has the box!” Kreps bellowed, starting the chase. “And it’s mine.”

“Stay there!”

“It’s my mistake! I’m gonna repair what I’ve done!”

And he disappeared in the night, rain, and lightning bolts.

“Dumbass!” John raged, drifting his attention to Adam’s convulsing body. “Is he going to make it?”

“I don’t know,” Maria replied between two sobs, her hands covered in gore. “I have stuff in the car.”

“Help me then.”

John ripped off a large shred of the rags he wore and applied a tourniquet on his friend’s shoulder, drying suddenly his bleeding out veins. Adam growled in his half-stupor half-comatose state. He screamed when Maria and John lifted him off the ground and began carrying him out in the rain.

The camp fire had died, plunging their surrounding in the dark. A shot rang far away.

“Such a brainfuck,” John muttered as he turned his head toward Maria, the low hanging head of a passed out Adam between the two of them. “Let’s get back to the car, fast!”

The trip to the car extended up to ten long minutes, accounted by the pouring rain over the heads and bodies, and the booms breaking the drumming filling the air with a deafening silence from time to time. Three times a shotgun had roared in the far away.

Resting over a smashed open road without any marking, the car was a large dark beige four-wheel drive, muddy and scrapped. One window was cracked open and the headlights were non-existent. Large indents marked its front and sides, along with sparse bullet holes.

Grunting, Maria opened the backdoor and John dropped the limp body in the stinky yet dry large trunk, pushing away the mess accumulated in that closed space, scarce dried food, used cartridges, a large bag stamped with a red cross, and a huge metal case.

Maria grabbed the Red Cross bag and rummaged through its content, pulling out gauzes, scissors, bandages…

“We don’t have antiseptic…” she dropped.

“Doesn’t matter, help me bandage that wound!” John spat.

A gunshot cracked not far from the car and the sizzling of a bullet passing by rang in the trio’s ears.

“Stay right here, you sick fuck,” Kreps voice beckoned loudly.

Maria and John looked outside and stared at the urchin, standing in the middle of the road, afraid, clenching his arms over the box, Adam’s knife nowhere to be found in his little hands. On the opposite side, pointing with his shotgun at the child and the ground intermittently, Kreps threatened to shoot once again if he could not make the box peacefully his.

“Drop it,” Kreps shrieked with a tone easily mistaken for a pleading. “I don’t want to do this, but it’s mine, mine alone.”

Shivering from all his might, the child looked behind his right shoulder at the car. Occupied bandaging his gunned friend, John was swearing at the limp shape sprawled inside the large truck. Next to him, Maria, a foot on the inside of the trunk and a hand on the roof rack of the car, aimed at Kreps a small gun she had retrieved from the metallic box.

“No kids, we said!” she rasped her voice. “Not. Anymore!”

“It’s my burden…”

“As much as ours…” Maria supplicated.

“No, it’s mine and mine alone!”

Kreps held up the gun at the child, pumped a cartridge within, and swallowed. “Last warning, drop it, I count up to three.”

“Kreps, don’t do it,” John warned, his eyes still riveted on Adam’s motionless body.

“Three!”

A bolt of lightning cracked open the sky over the five life-stranded humans, midnight toiling on the dead watch dangling around the steering wheel of the car. The winds closed up the night sky, throwing the world into dim oblivious shadows as moon and stars disappeared. Only five pairs of eyes remained.

“Two!”

A bolt of lightning struck open a nearby tree, dichotomizing its trunk into two burning shreds. The rain flogged the faces, blanketing everything under a thick layer of biting-cold water. The child’s sob erupted in the air, his little hands bleaching under the strength he applied over the leaded box. He looked up at Maria, seeking for help. Her grip over the handle of her gun trembled as the last warning rammed the hair like a needle the arm of a drug addict.

“One!”

The boy raised the box as the shotgun bellowed with a loud bang. Yet the flash which closed everybody’s eyes was not the deed of the gunshot but the explosion of a lightning bolt melting the slug mid-air as it struck the box and through it the child behind.

A Doppler Effect stretching to infinite in everybody’s ears, ringing like a carillon of cathedral bells, eyes opened over a horrendous sight.

The box dropped on the ground, glowing blue as a hole had punched through. The kid raised his hands to his torso where a blood-splattering hole was visible despite the nightmarish rain. Shaking madly, he slowly looked at Kreps who, overwhelmed by guiltiness, lowered his weapon, glaring beyond the child in an astonishing horror. He turned toward Maria who, awestruck, had her eyes fixed onto something that first escaped the child’s comprehension. John’s livid face betrayed something was wrong. And finally, the kid settled his teary eyes on what laid behind him.

The slug, bloodied and dripping fluids was stuck mid-air, glowing the same sickening blue as the box. The drip of blood floated in its trail. There was no pain, only terror as all took in the harsh reality that rain had stopped falling, stuck into place as if time had stopped flowing.

The child screamed at the hole in his chest, the rain resumed its path, the blood dripped through the air and wounds, melting down in the mud into a sickening dark brown, and a last crack of thunder wracked the sky. The white bolt descended onto the screaming little piece of human, tearing the sky with marvellous black and violet shades soon replaced with a blinding light.

ⱴĦ – V α ϵ R, E! Ω – Ħⱴ

“You sure it worked?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“In mah opinion, she broke the weather,” Applejack retorted.

“Maybe she just stopped the rain,” Rarity chuckled, then laughed as Rainbow Dash gave her a weird look.

“At least it’s fun, look!” Pinkie laughed, tip-toeing on the guardrail of Twilight Castle’s first-floor terrace, digging out a path through the stuck-in-motion rain and calling out at Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom to join her in her mining quest.

The atmosphere was dark. Thick grey cloud hiding the sky thrust ponyville and the country into a dim ambiance of end of the world. And though the wind had stopped, many ponies had locked themselves behind the safe walls of their houses.

“Eh… maybe you shouldn’t have used your magic,” Fluttershy raised her voice over a butterfly’s squeak, hiding her eyes behind a full lock of soft pink mane.

“Stop,” Twilight said, grumbling over, glaring daggers at Rainbow Dash. “It’s you who asked me to solve the storm problem lickity split!”

“Wow, stop right here,” the cyan pegasus countered. “You teleported us all here and even used the power of the box to deal with that.”

“You asked me to stop the tempest!”

“Yes, because Snowflake and Derpy were sick since they tasted that watermelon you brought from Canterlot…”

“And because you were too lazy to do it by yourself,” Twilight cut her friend off. “And I got this watermelon from the Griffin Ambassador, it was in the cornu copiae he offered to Celestia. Not my fault if there was a spider in the melon.”

Rainbow Dash raised her hoof, wings flapping around and catching dew as she flew past the petrified rain. Pouting, she rubbed her head, searching for a good answer, breathed in, and smiled.

“I…”

A violent slash of white streaked the sky, passing over the heads to strike the tallest nearby mountain, shattering its peak. The explosion was bright blue, deafening, and burning. Blastwaves washed over Ponyville, breaking left unattended windows, flipping over tables, abandoned carts, and barrels. The sky bubbled with blue, violet, green, and yellow lights as rainbows whirled from the mountain, chasing the menacing clouds away, and with it the rain and winds. Then, Ponyville, although partially damaged, stood proud in the bathing sunlight.

“Ah, ah!” Twilight erupted in joy, jumping on her hooves as she had been thrust on the ground by the strength of the blow. “Told you!” Who’s the best princess? Who’s she?”

Laughing, dancing victoriously around a knocked out Rainbow Dash whose eyes were dancing with stars, Twilight stuck out her tongue, her childish instinct taking over… until a high hanging flag with her cutie mark and its pole snapped and fell down her head. Headache conquering the young alicorn, her mutters sparked laughter among her friends.

“I came, I saw, and I don’t believe my eyes…” she grunted.

And her friends laughed even more, unaware that a few kilometers from here, among the rubbles falling from the shattered mountains were more than just rocks.

---

Old Version:

A heavy shape fell on the ground, quaking and gurgling in vain. Next to it, a thing was crawling in the mud, its face covered with a blood which was not its own. Its breath was husky and loud. Mist shrouded what might have been his mouth.

Thunder rumbled.

The pouring rain was beating up its naked back, freezing it to death. Its wrinkled left hand was holding tightly a long and rusted dagger.
Its target… its reward was not far now. A good old feeling swamped its mind. It remembered this instinct, tasted this impression and licked off its lips… It was the thrill of the hunt.
The strange being was ready to strike. His yellowish teeth shined in the dark.

Lightning was coming back and forth and the sludgy shape rose from the dirt. Brownish silt trickled down its neck. The… thing was bipedal, tall and utterly scary for unwise witnesses. Nearly hidden by a long black mass of hair, its two dark green eyes reflected the light of a fire camp fifty feet from there. With his other hand, it kept its weapon from casting any reflection. The time to act had come.

It hunkered down and plodded toward its goal. There between few crooked bushes, two patched tents were set up. The fire was kept away from the rain with an ingenious system of canvas. Even so, the humidity was constantly assaulting its flames, making their warmth disappear instantly.

The stalking foe hid behind a dead tree. Two creatures of its kind were standing in front of the nearest tent. They were talking harshly. Unfortunately, the rain, added to the rolling thunder kept the shirker from understanding anything.
It grumbled. Did it have to act? Did it have to wait? It had no idea, but for sure time was running out. It stretched its muscles. And then started the final countdown. It prepared to leap onto its preys.

Its green pupils narrowed as something caught its attention... this was unexpected.
A third creature had showed up. Its right hand was carelessly strangling a younger one, a child struggling in vain. This pitiful play amused its merciless spectators. Each one of them laughed raucously.

There was no time left. The hunter had to make a move… Now!

It drew out again its sharpened knife and winded like a rodent behind the tents.
The first of the three targets was in its death zone. How could this go wrong? They were expecting nothing in this god-forsaken place. The crooked black haired shadow had a goal, and because the opportunity had showed up, this hunt would end with few new marks on its tally.
None of these three campers, or whatever they were, was also expecting a branch to crack under somebody’s boot, behind their back.

“Fuck!” the stealth form snapped, it was one jump far from its first prey.

The three antagonists turned over and stared into a pair of eyes standing in the shadows. Unfortunately, they struck first… the questions could come later. Bullets flew through the air. They pierced the fabric of the tents, carved the surrounding trees and revealed with the brightness of the triggered gunpowder the face of the creature…
It was a flat face showing a little muzzle and whose small ears were surrounded by this black long hair of it. Its teeth were squalid, evidence of a long-standing self-negligence.
It was, unfortunately indeed, a man.

The hunter’s lungs let out a long hoarse cry when he launched himself toward his first opponent. This one fell on the ground, its throat sliced in half. The victim’s blood would soon mix with the rain and the mud.
The second cringed, holding the guts slipping out of its stabbed belly, mumbling in pain.

The unleashed predator turned back and faced his last opponent. Tall and amazingly strong, this blond haired survivor had already released the youngster and was now pointing his gun toward his companions’ murderer.

A flash lit up the place. The sound of a gunshot echoed between the dead trunks and then the noise of a hard fall on the ground was heard.

Crawling in the dirt, now covered with his own blood and displaying a deep and disgusting gap in his shoulder, the quivering hunter was suffering from miserable hiccups. Worst, he had lost his knife, which had bounced away, disappearing in the shadows.

The hunter, defeated, was now lying on the ground. His opponent, victoriously laughing stuck his boot on his spine and turned him over. He stopped giggling for a mere second when his stare met two green eyes glaring daggers at him. A powerful kick in the wound followed making the agonizing body gasp at the satisfaction of its persecutor.
He started rampaging the deadly-wounded corpse, stomping the one who dared attack him and his now-dead friends.

But even if screams came out of the fainting creature’s blooded mouth, no “pity”, “please” or “mercy” raised up. This resistance unnerved the torturer. His hand reached the black hair of his victim and grabbing them with strength as he lifted up his head. His victim’s face was smeared with silt. And coughing, his mouth was spitting out blood and liquefied dirt.

The trembling body tried to get up but ended to smash again on the muddy ground. Laughter welcomed this failed and disappointing act.

The hunter, still struggling to breath air instead of peat was given a moment of rest. His antagonist had stopped looking down to him and had gone to pick up a chopping knife. He took time choosing his tool, ruffling his blood hair and beard.
For the broken human, lying pitifuly between the tents, death beckoned. The dying man could almost feel a cold breath on his neck and shoulders.

Walking back to the bruised body, delighted in tormenting his victim, the blood bandit spoke in a grave, demented and frightening voice. No doubt he was a male.

“I know what you want. It’s not me or the teenager, but the box!”

The tears stopped rolling on the half-buried face. He frowned, crackling the mud, blood and mucus coagulated on it. Two bloodshed and murderous green eyes rose and stared into those of their tormentor which were blue as a sky they had not seen for eons.

“Man never changes and what he desires is power, power, power… only power,” the standing tormentor deadpanned.

Holding the chopping knife, he drew a large and heavy-looking case from one of the tent, its lock was welded. He made fun of his silent audience… this unarmed and inoffensive so-called hunter which was now struggling desperately to survive few more seconds.

“But it ain’t yours. And I don’t want to know that you and your group of pricks … those… virgin have it.”

He laughed, expecting no answer from his interlocutor, still fighting to not drown in the mud.

“You know, there is a military camp at Geneva, they have food, water… clean water you know, not this junk you and your friends drink every day. And of course weapons… And this box… I haven’t opened it yet, but I think I know what’s inside. And it’s mine now!”

A bolt of lightning struck a closed tree. Sparks flew in the air.

“Unfortunately, you’re alone right now. And it’s alone in the dark, surrounded by the shit that suits you so well that you’ll die. You’ve got Boris’ condolence.”

The bandit pressed the muzzle of his pistol on the speechless young man’s forehead, holding him straight with the edge of the chopping knife on his neck.

Instead of a shot, a squeak echoed. The pressure of the gun fainted. Opening again his eyes, the human wreck saw a fork sinking deep in his executioner’s right leg. Between him and a tent the teen was on his knees, receiving reckless hits from the butt of the man’s gun.
The child face was bruised and dark brown clumps of hair were now stuck to the grip of the firearm.

“You little shitty bastard! What you got was not enough! You want to die now?!”

Hope sparked in the hunter’s mind, watching silently the molestation from his painful position.
It was an opportunity, his last chance to fight. Tightening all of his limbs and using his only arm left, the turned-prey hunter rose again. The molester would have not expected such will from a bag of bruises and bones. The struggle was harsh and inglorious.

The hunter rushed forward to his enemy’s throat. Like a heavily wounded lion struggling to survive, he bit deep in the skin, the flesh and the bones of its rival’s neck, tearing off tufts of his blond beard. The hunter broke a tooth and blood flooded his mouth and his face, blurring his vision. He kept struggling against his opponent’s desperate movements and screams.
Putting his right arm around the molester’s neck, he blocked himself and the still shaking corpse in this deadly pose. Blood was shed. With a snap he stole his contender’s life, a man’s throat stuck between his teeth.

Three minutes passed by until the survivor released his armlock. The sky was clearing as the storm was pushed away by the morning’s wind. “A blessing”, he thought.
His breath was hesitant. He became aware of his wounds, his damaged ribs and of his skin burnt by the acid rains.

Rolling on his back, he brought something out of his pocket, an old and corroded plastic switch. Copper wires were still connected to it. He was switching it on and off, creating a typical clicking sound.
It amused him. A faint scowl of satisfaction appeared on his bruised face.

Blood loss was achieving him. His temple was beating, preventing him from thinking clearly.
He thought that if the pain or the blood loss were not enough to deal the final blow, infections and diseases would get rid of him. He started praying. For three years, there has been nothing to rely on. Everyone had to survive on its own. Groups formed and collapsed as the true human’s nature revealed itself, this unending quest for power, weapons and positions.
Three years of disorder had the foundations of our society first undermined and then swept off Earth’s surface one by one. Chaos set up.

A voice called him. Was it Death, this old friend?

“Verdugo?! Verdugo? VERDUGO!”

Someone was shaking him, trying to keep him awake… alive. Torchlights were aimlessly pointing around in the clearing.

“Fu! We’re losing him,” the voice shouted, calling for someone out of eyesight.

The one talking was a young adult, skinny as someone who had starved for months. His brown hair and beard gave him the look of a without shelter, which was true for everyone at the moment. His blue eyes, hidden behind small glasses, were tearful. He had a scar on his chin.

“Bloody hell, do you see his shoulder!” A thinner male voice spoke.

The so-called Verdugo felt himself slipping away. His vision blurred as eternal rest started invading his limbs. He felt himself falling for a mere second and then… a punch in his terrifying wound woke him up. He screamed out of pain.
A blond haired young man was now squeezing him. At his right the first one was now looking at him with an empty stare. Dark grey ring was circling his eyes. Lots of sleepless nights had indeed left their marks. His beard was nearly tickling his friend’s face.

“Sorry man! Talk please! Say something motherf’cking throat grinder!”

“Shut up Kreps, you’re annoying…”

“Oh man! You scared the shit out of us so badly!” His blond friend stuttered.

“The box, I got it back.”

The last one pushed Kreps, now anger was flooding his eyes.

“You nearly killed yourself for that f’cking box! You stupid cunt!” He slapped Verdugo.

“You’re so dumb Ray, you know what’s inside. We can’t leave such b…”

A tear dropped on Ray’s cheek, disappearing through his badly cut brown beard. He put off his cracked glasses and swept them off. He was shaking and sobbing. He had got back his friend.

The thinner voice, Kreps’s one, started shouting few feet away from their position. From there, his look was the one of a small and skinny punk, his hair was so long and dirty they had pasted up in natural muddy dread-locks. The blond aspect of his hair was in fact now long forgotten.

“This kid is kicking up my balls… literally! He doesn’t want to give up the box.”

“Kreps, tell it’s radioactive. It will calm him down.” Ray replied cynically.

Indeed, once he heard the forbidden word the urchin instantly threw away the metal case. Kreps dumped a flow of insults as the mallet fell on his left foot. He was still having this weird way of pronouncing the “r” and “w”, typical for a German.

“Don’t hit the child, he could still be useful,” Ray ordered, wiping a tear from his eyelid.

“Don’t even touch him… I don’t know what they did to him, but don’t touch… him,” Verdugo whispered.

He pointed hesitantly at the throat-less body next to him, blood was still spurting from the wound. And to support the wounded’s claims, the child tried to bit Kreps’s hand when he approached. Verdugo should have been a really bad example.

On his side, Ray tried to wash and bandage his friend. Wiping off the blood and mud from Verdugo’s face, Ray revealed a washed-out but still tanned skin where these two well-known green eyes were crying tears of salt and blood.

“Eh! Don’t die! What will we do without yah?”

“Everything. Murderers are common these days.” Verdugo sarcastically responded.

A clicking sound rang out from Kreps’ wrist. Few tools were stitched to his sleeves and a small barometer was riveted to his watch. His eyes were nearly glowing from his anxiousness.

“The storm will come back, and with it, the acid rains. We must hurry!” He hissed, mist enshrouded his mouth.

After having the camp scavenged, the group crept out of the forest. A ravaged road was waiting for them. A derelict of a former Mercedes was parked on the roadside. The kid which had not talked yet was following them.

The front door opened. A young girl rooted herself out of the hulk. Her black hair was covering her face, her arms and legs were bandaged under a heavy black leather coat, too large for her thin shape.
She was carrying a gun.

“What happened down there?” She asked after her hazel eyes looked down on Verdugo, nearly unconscious. She gulped back a gag. She was undoubtedly worried.

“Verd’ four hundred four on us.” Kreps said, smiling.

Ray, the current leader of the group gazed at the German.

“No more nerd joke from now on”. He ordered. “Take the steering-wheel. Maria an’ I must secure Verdugo’s state before this crank’d and curs’d walkin’ dead pass’ out.”

Ray had this notorious habit to start speaking fast, making his spelling incomprehensible at some point, once he stressed.

“I’m not dead yet you know.” Verdugo pointed out with his weakening voice.

“You will be if we do nothin’ for ya!”

The group dragged up Verdugo on the quarter-deck. The muted kid jumped into the vehicle and watched Ray and the girl cutting through the nasty wound of their friend. The pain made Verdugo screamed. The young teen covered his ears and closed his eyes.
Verdugo fainted when Maria’s hesitant hand ripped off a rotting piece of flesh. She had never been good with scissors.

“Sissy!” She fulminated.

π ϖ Ϙ Ω Ϙ ϖ π

When Verdugo waked up, he found his wound badly patched and oozing pus. He felt nauseous, his skin was burning and his eyes were still blurred. Acid downpours were not something to make fun of.

“Eh! You’re not dead!” Maria shouted with irony.

“Thanks nurse Obvious!” He hissed slowly.

He felt like a stampede had shattered his body and mind, like after an alcoholic black-out, when hangover is so rooted in your head and guts you only want to throw up. But it had been two years since he had last tasted an ounce of vodka.
Maria was stressed out. She had no antiseptic left, meaning that her friend would die within days if they could not find some in the wreckages. With her fingers she was tangling her black, smelly and rough locks of hairs.

But this kind of worry was not up to the agenda for the moment. A monstrous bolt of lightning struck down a tree, smashing it in half and kindling flames over it. Verdugo’s stare wandered in the car. The silence kid was stoic. He said nothing, just staring outside with his light blue eyes, wide opened. What was attracted his attention was Kreps and Ray in the front, shouting and taunting each other.

Now his eyes had focused, Verdugo could see the massive hullaballoo outside. Rain, lightning, wind and chaos were surrounding the car. Where the fuck Kreps had gone? Everyone felt like they had been transported into a hurricane.

Gusts of wind were punching the truck from every side. Bad day, this was a real bad day. Darkness enshrouded the vehicle while Kreps was struggling to maintain it on its four wheels.

“Did the sun already set? How long did I sleep?” Verdugo asked in a low and weak voice.

“You won’t believe it,” Ray said when Kreps switched on the headlights. “It’s noon… NOON.”

Another tree fell down on the road. Streaks of lightning smashed it into pieces.

Kreps snapped. The wind had struck with such force it had lifted up the car. Without time to think, he just screamed out his powerlessness and braked aimlessly. He crashed the vehicle on the verge of the road.
The impact happened so fast that no one reacted in time.

Maria was the first to wake up, she looked around her. The rain was biting her skin. Kreps who never fastened his seatbelt had been catapulted through the windscreen. He was unconscious thirty feet away from the truck. She lifted her hand to her forehand, in her hand was melt black hairs and blood.

“Oh fuck me!”

“Whenever you want…” a voice rose from the car.

Ray was a lucky bastard, enough at least to have been greeted of a functional airbag. Unfortunately, his glasses had been crushed by the impact and shatters were spread on his face.

“I would prefer having sex with our good old undertaker Verdugo rather than with you, Mister handkerchief.”

“You so mean… Go see how Kreps is doing! A German dying in a German car crash would be patriotically… ironic.”

Maria gave him a finger. She headed to the motionless Kreps’s body. He had two cracked ribs and maybe a commotion. It could have been worse. But now she had two badly hurt people to care about. And in this world it meant death for everyone. Kreps’s pretty face was mumbling.

The storm kept messing around. Ray hardly inspected the car. Verdugo was still laying on its backseat. Like Kreps he was blabbering, but in his case fever was finding its way rather than pain. Bleeding, he did not seem to be wounded… More than he already was at least.

“Eh! Verdugo, Are you okay?” Ray risked himself.

“The child… this muted god-knows-who child stepped on my shoulder!”

Ray hissed, picturing how painful it should have been.

“Don’t worry you’re already a mess!” Ray teased him back.

“Go fuck yourself!” Verdugo added. “Where is he?”

Ray frowned, clueless.

“Who?”

“The child dumbass!”

“I dunno, I broke my glasses.”

Both of them sighed. This teen would give them unnecessary problems.
Maria called, pressing everyone to hurry. She was easy to get stressed. Ray opened the trunk of the car. He took out a tarp and walked toward the only girl of the group. He kindly covered her and Kreps, they were shivering in the cold acid rain.“Where the hell was that kid?” He thought.

Without his glasses he could not see anything. Relying on movements, which were hidden by the pouring rain, it was a nearly impossible task to fulfill.
But his ears caught a muffled sound, like two pieces of metal smiting together. Startled, Ray moved toward the source of the noise. Thunders rumbled once more and intensified as seconds passed.

It was fucking noon! And it seemed like a moonless midnight, with a personal tornado as a gentle godsend. But he did not care in the end. For three years, the earth had been messed up… Since the great uproar, everything had been upside-down. The “uproar”… what an uncanny, unfitting and petty name for incomprehensible events that leaded to the so-called apocalypse.

In fact, Ray remembered. It had been all due to a massive solar storm which had destroyed within a week each consumer or military electronics in the world… leaving everyone left stranded on a black-out Earth. Everybody tried to cope alone, while every mean of communication and transport had been pull out of service. This had leaded to chaos which rapidly had turned into a global civil war for survival and for the ownership of the last scrap of working gadgets. Some nuclear bombs had been dropped, but it had been uncommon.
Mankind succeeded in finding weapons and sowing conflicts and death in each corner of the Earth. The “Great Uproar” turned out to be the last “war” for everyone.

“Okay, back to the kid”, he thought, snapping out of it. The urchin was squatting on the box with a crowbar in his hands. Trying to… to open it.

“You!” Ray shouted, an angry grin replacing his emotion-empty face. “Don’t f’cking dare touch that shit!”

The tearful teen’s eyes stopped on Ray’s angry face. The kid’s weight was enough to blow up the lock. He fell on the grass and dropped the crowbar. They had not catch a glimpse on what was inside yet that green and blue sparks crackled and electricity tensed the ambient air.

“You’ve screwed us all!”

The blowing sound of thunder woke Kreps up, seeing the strange light he swore and grumbled from the pain. Verdugo escaped from the car. He could barely walk.

“Tsss... Don’t come close to it! Our good and kind leader can’t die from irradiation,” he sniggered, shouting to cover the dim noise of rain.

Ray answered back with an exasperated smile. He grabbed the kid and retreated to a safer area. The blue and green light was too intense; impossible to look at the box.

“At least we don’t have the trigger,” Verdugo reassured.

“Yeah that would be annoy…”

A gigantic bolt of lightning smashed the box and everyone felt an unbearable heat.
Everything went white.

π ϖ Ϙ Ω Ϙ ϖ π

Several heavy knocks echoed on the wooden door.

“Twilight… Twilight!”

Lightning was slashing through the sky. The rumbling thunder was shaking the houses’ and cottages’ walls of the small city. The wind struck the windows and ripped out the trees from their leaves.

“TWILIGHT!”

“What Rainbow!?” A voice answered from behind the door. “It has to be important. I was studying with Princess Luna on how to perform lucid dreaming.”

“TWI!!”

The purple alicorn grumbled and opened the door. Unlocking it would be a better description as an alien force pushed it in. A torrent of water crashed onto her face and flooded her hall.

“Okay, I got it… Come in.”

Rainbow Dash urged herself in Golden Oak Library. She closed the door with the help of Twilight’s magic. Rainbow was clearly anxious. She always had this face when she was tensed, visibly wanting to cringe in a corner, hoping to be forgotten.

“What… Rainbow?”

“I need your help! I can’t…”

“Okay, slow down… You’ve just asked me to…” Twilight arched her eyebrows.

“Yes, help me pleaaase!”

This was getting weird. First, like Applejack she was reluctant to ask anypony’s help. Second, she came to the egg-head seeking for help. Rainbow really had to be hopeless. Twilight Sparkle pinched herself.

“I must have messed up some teleporting spell and ended up to another dimension.”

“No, no! I need you!” Rainbow spelled as she understood Twilight’s disbelief, trying to laugh to ease the situation. “You’re the one mastering magic, and this tempest ain’t natural. I can’t put an end to it. It keeps reappearing! It turns me crazy!”

Twilight sighed.

“Here we go…”

Rainbow Dash huddled up.

“Okay Rainbow, I can consider that some storms are magic! But I am not a pegasus. This isn’t my job. I don’t even know how to calm down rain. Face it, sometimes you just have to wait. Cloudsdale may have forgotten to send you the information.”

“You don’t understand. Cloudsdale wanted me to clear the sky today. If I can’t fulfil my duty… I will… I will be forever rejected by the Wonderbolts. You’re an alicorn, you’re almighty! You must do something.”

Almighty? This was awkward. Twilight kicked herself, she should have recorded this. Her eye rose up to the ceiling. “Could she herself be this disappointing when she was not suppressing her own anxiousness? ”She thought. She came up with the idea it was a good topic for a letter to Princess Celestia. She snapped out of her thinking when Rainbow started waking her like a bartender would do with a shaker.

“Rainbow, stop shaking her like a Dragon’s tail! You’ll squeeze her brain out!” Spike remarked while walking down the stairs, yawning.

Spasms plagued Rainbow’s bottom lip. A tearful cyan pony nearly put her front knee to the ground, she begged her friend. Twilight put her hoof on her face.

“Okay, I’ll try!”

Rainbow jumped in the air, a smile on her face.

“Oh thanks you! Thanks, thanks!”

A dozen of knocks echoed on the entrance door.

“Again? For Pete’s sake! Who can it be this time?”

Four mares surged into the hall. The rest of the Mane Six showed up as wet as if they were getting out of a pool.

“Good Celestia! You surely have no manners.” Rarity said, buried under Applejack. “And you, would you please get your hoof away from my mane Fluttershy.”

“Oh my… sorry.”

Once everypony was back on her hooves, they gave Twilight a scared look. She was fulminating; she had been disturbed from her studies. Princess Luna which inhabited her dreams this night had been sent back to her bed in Canterlot in the most informal way.
Rarity gazed at Applejack whose hooves were muddy. She huffed and went outside to wash them off.
Each pony started talking at the same time.

“Needhelpattheboutiquethefieldsaredrowningtheriversbursttheirbanksandthreatentheanimalsandthemarshmallowsdon’tliketobewet!!!”

“Stoooop!” Twilight shouted as her mane turned into flames and her eyes went from her natural colour to blood red.

Everypony gave a step back. Their faces were marked by fear. It took few seconds to Twilight to calm down.

“Okay, I guess that you all have some deal with the storm?”

Rhetorical question of course.

“The wind broke through my windows! My Carousel Boutique is absolutely devastated!” Rarity burst into tears, an art she mastered eons ago.

“The dam ain’t protecting my fields… they are flooded!” Applejack emphasised.

“Mr. Bear asked me if you could…” Fluttershy tried… her voice unable to rise over the unreachable one decibel limit.

“The basement of Sugarcube corner where I store my dear cupcakes is under water!” Pinkie added. “They are excitedly, unthrilledly unhappy!”

Pinkie’s mane uncurled as if Rarity had straitened them. Staring back and forth at Rainbow Dash and her four other friends, Twilight sighed.

“Alright! I’ll do something.”

She stepped outside. Rain instantly slapped her in the muzzle.

“At least I’ll try…”

Coming back inside, she went upstairs. After having the windows opened, she forced the barrier of water and stood alone on the balcony. Everypony was looking at her.
Her eyes went as white as thousand suns and arcs of electricity surrounded her horn. She was muttering something but the sound of pouring rain made it incomprehensible.

Light enshrouded Twilight. She started levitating.

“Okay let it go!”

Lightning struck her horn. Flung through the air, she knocked down her friends as a bowling ball would have done with pins.

“Ow! I didn’t expect that!” Twilight complained, rubbing her forehead.

“What went wrong Sugarcube?” Applejack asked, helping Fluttershy to get back on her hooves.

“I need more power I think. ‘One does not command a storm so easily’.”

“What?” Rainbow Dash enquired about.

“Star Swirl the Bearded tried to master storm magic while he was still living, but he didn’t succeed.

He wasn’t a pegasus.”

Twilight gave a sarcastic stare to Rainbow who looked down. Using her magic again, she brought the Elements of Harmony out of nothing. It was a small trick Celestia had given her.

“More power! Put them on, you’ll help me.”

“Isn’t that a bit… dangerous,” Fluttershy hunched under Twilight’s bed.

“I don’t know. It’s the first time we’ll use them this way… And I wonder if we’re allowed to. I wouldn’t like to mess with mighty beings’ schemes.”

“Ain’t nobody got time for that! Let’s do it.” Rainbow proclaimed. She wanted to make the tempest stop once and for all.

Everypony put their respective Element on and stood on the balcony… Except for Rarity and Fluttershy… Was it the deluge or the frightening thunder? They had their reasons.

Once again, Twilight eyes glowed. Colourful strands of light slowly hooped the levitating group, wrapping each pony in a warm and peaceful embrace. Rarity gasped as the levitating spell brought her outside. Each strip of colour merged above Twilight’s head, forming an unbearably glowing white ball of pure energy.

A hiss came from the sphere, it vibrated and blew up. No shockwave came from it, only a white flash which blinded each of the Element bearers.

When everypony had recovered their eyesight, they could see an absolutely amazing spectacle.

“Is it me or everything is stuck in motion?” Rarity reckoned.

Indeed, every rain drop had stopped… dropping, stuck into the air like if time had been frozen. Twilight swept the motionless downpour with her hoof. She printed her movement in the water, leaving void in the passing. At least ten bolts of lightning were crossing up in the sky.

Everypony in the town went outside. From her balcony, Twilight could see Lyra, Bon-Bon, the mayor. Even animals got out of their nests, burrows or hideouts.
The Mane Six were dazed.

Twilight moved into her bathroom, her friends in her hoofsteps. She turned on the tap. Water ran out.

“I haven’t stopped time… it’s just the storm.”

Everypony heard laughs. Outside Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Spike, quickly joined by Pinkie, were digging in the unmoving rain, hollowing out tunnels like miners in a mountain.

Suddenly, a humming noise intensified, going from inaudible to unbearable. The air was vibrating, blurring like if static was placed on top of reality. Colours seemed to be washed-out. The earth started rumbling.

Suddenly a sole bolt of lightning showed up. It was gigantic. It could have been a god’s deed. For each witnesses it seemed like somepony had drawn out a monstrous sword and sliced it through the air. The white beam collided with the “Dragon’s pit”, the mountain where a red dragon had taken a nap three years ago, until Fluttershy kicked it away.

The impact was apocalyptic. The lightning exploded on the walls of the mountains, shattering the peak in thousands of parts. Bits and pieces flew through the air, crashing all over the valley. A huge rock had been flung into the middle of the city hall square. It sufficed to spread utter panic all over Ponyville.

From her position, the Mane Six minus Pinkie, who was using her pinkie sense to dodge the falling rocks, saw a coming shockwave. A hard slap and few messed up manes later; dust had invaded each street of the city…
Everypony stared at Twilight.

“Eh… Eh… I might have over-done it.”

Rarity raised an eyebrow at Twilight’s bad poker face.

“At… at least it’s not raining anymore.”

Twilight was right; through the dust she could see the sun at the zenith of its arc. The stormy clouds had been swept away by the blast wave.

In the distance, one could hear the sound of one hundred crashing rocks.

Author's Note:

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