The Blood Ravens Last Flight

by Nobodyslament

Chapter 11

I had begun an annoyingly slow pace to the hospital. I would have run, had I not been worrying about disturbing Scootaloo’s injury. I was whispering to her still, trying to calm myself more than comfort her if she could hear me. Nobody seemed to be in the market today, all the stalls were abandoned, with their wares locked down. The hospital itself was right beside the market, and the doors open without a sound.

The hospital had only some of it’s daily hustle about it. The nurse’s station was manned, while doctors calmly walked their rounds. I walked up, not wanting to create a disturbance, and quietly checked into the hospital. “Ma’am, if I may, I would like a room for a trauma patient.”

She looked at me, then to the filly in my arms, then back to me. She carefully grabbed a pencil, and wrote down what she was seeing, before addressing me. “Very well, please put the filly in room two-zero-six and come back here, Nurse Redheart will be there shortly.” As much as I wanted to stay with Scootaloo I knew I couldn’t stay. She had more than likely noticed I am a big xeno, and assumed I had done this. I nodded and took Scootaloo to the room irected, while pointedly ignoring the two large ponies nonchalantly trotting behind me.

The room had a deceptive peace about it. Not deceptive because it wasn’t actually peaceful, but deceptive because it had the peace of death, not of healing. I walked back to the room where I met the nurse, when a purple force field enraptured me. Without the ability to move much I focused my frustration into words. “Well, fuck me then.”

Twilight slowly moved into sight, a mix of rage, worry, and confusion plastered her face. Her tone of voice was creepily calm, while maintaining a level of passive-aggression as to scare me. “What the buck is going on Marx? I get a letter from you, delivered by Scootaloo, saying that no one should leave town. Then, after spreading your message, a giant thing falls out of the sky. Scootaloo disappears for a few hours, and now, I get a letter from the hospital suggesting a giant two-legged monster beat up an innocent filly. Actually, I take back my first question, because now it’s a demand. What did you do?!”

I didn’t falter, which amazes me to this day. “Simply put, my former brothers showed up, I told them I was going to live here, and they tried to kill me. Scootaloo didn’t listen to my letter, and saved my life, then got hurt because of it. If you’ll let me go, I really want to check on her. If that’s okay.” I left the last words dangling, as if they were a threat. Twilight stood her ground, and before long I felt the aura of power around me fade. “Thank you Twilight, now if you’ll excuse me.” I left, leaving Twilight to figure out any philosophical queries she now had by herself.

Scootaloo was still asleep, with no nurse in sight. I slowly picked her up, and made sure she had a blanket wrapped around her. The bandaging had held, and was keeping the wound in a state of disinfected glory. I shuddered at the thought of an infection with this race, their medicine seemed second-rate, and I really didn’t want to take any risks. Twilight showed up in the room a second later. “Pass her here Marx, even if you still have an explanation to give me that’s a bit more in-depth, I can’t let Scootaloo stay hurt because of it.”

I sat back and cleared a path for Twilight. She had enough power to fry up both me and Scootaloo, and no one should meddle in the affairs of those who can melt your skin. Twilight got to Scootaloo and took of the covers. Summoning up some parchment and a quill, she began taking notes. “Bandaged very well, bleeding stopped, though evidence remains.” I looked and saw that the bandages did indeed have flakes of blood on either side, I left all comments to myself and continued to watch. “Alright, removing bandages.” The bandages complex notes lasted almost half a second against Twilights power, unraveling to the mere whim of her power. “Wound is, oh Celestia,” She gagged seeing Scootaloo’s bullet hole.”Wound is clean, though goes all the way through the hoof. Healing spell to be administered will have to be given at full strength, if I misjudge wound, it will take multiple times. First try beginning now.” She set down everything in an orderly pile and touched her horn to Scootaloo’s injured hoof. I got up to watch at a better angle.

The horn glowed a bright color, washing Scootaloo’s hoof with a purple light. Slowly, the wound healed, and closed to a state like it was in before it got ventilated. I watched silently, waiting for her to say something. My wait was short. Not, because Twilight, or even Scootaloo, talked, but because Twilight fainted. I caught her, and put her on a chair, and because a rest would be a dumb idea, a nurse showed up right then. She looked between the three beings in the room, and screamed. Scootaloo woke up and screamed too, which caused even more screaming from every party except me and Twilight. Finally, I had had enough. “QUIET!” Everything instantly gained a quiet, foreboding atmosphere. “Ma’am, could you check on this filly now? Miss Sparkle did what she could, but I know not how to deal with injuries of your species.”

That seemed to snap the nurse out of it, and she got to work. Scootaloo, however, it just confused. “What do you mean Miss Sparkle, do you mean Twilight’s here? Oh no, she found out I forgot to turn in that book didn’t she. I knew I shouldn’t have checked out a book about the latest ponies in history! It was a bad omen. I’ll go get it as soon as this lady stops telling me to calm down.” Indeed, the nurse had been poking her, and attempting to calm her down. Scootaloo then seemed to catch a second wind. “Wait, weren’t we doing something, I remember getting a note from you, then I got worried and went to the field. You were playing something with a few of your friends, then I saw you were hurting them, and they were trying to hurt you. So I ran into the ship, where a nice marine explained something about it to me that I didn’t understand, and I watched you for a while.”

Scootaloo didn’t notice the nurse’s face. “Yeah, you got the last of them and I let out a big cheer. Then the guy got up and knocked you down. He pointed one of those dangerous things at your head and seemed like he was gonna hurt you, so I tried to jump to you.” She suddenly smiled. “But instead of jumping, I flew. Can you believe it daddy, I flew, I really flew.” Her words suddenly caught up to her. “I-I uh mean, Mr.Marx. But I flew to you, and decked him right in the schnoz.” She accentuated this point by punching the air. “After that, I flew back to you, and my leg hurt a lot. Now I’m here, and you're looking at me funny.”

I smiled and took off my helmet. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright. You were hit by a very bad person, and he left with all the others. Twilight healed your hoof a bit, but she got very tired from it and fell asleep on that chair. I gestured towards where Twilight slowly moved, apparently waking up. I glanced back towards the nurse. “If you’ll pardon me, does everything seem to be well with Scootaloo?”

The nurse seemed to overcome her confusion. Or, at least, the confusion was buried under so much more confusion that she didn’t care anymore. Nevertheless, she responded. “Well, Twilight here managed to get the basic work done. The hoof should be fine. I can’t really give an estimate for how long she’ll be here though. What with the magic healing, she could be here anywhere from two hours to a week.”

I nodded and watched Scootaloo wrestle with the controls for her bed. Eventually, the nurse went to check on other patients, leaving me and Scootaloo with a comatose librarian. We chatted for awhile about aimless things with no real meaning, the topic of Rainbow Dash came up and I was instantly inducted into her fan club, of which Scootaloo was the founder. I would have minded a lot less if a certain pink pony didn’t appear and put a rainbow wig on my face at the same time, but it was still a fun evening. After maybe thirty minutes, Twilight woke up. I myself had been deep into a story about the time me and a brother had a bet of who could confuse an orc the most and was utterly surprised at her voice. “Everything get a bit better while I was out?”

I looked over at my purple friend with a huge smile etched into my features. “Much much better, thank to your magic my friend. How goes your own recuperation?”

She looked between me and Scootaloo for a bit before saying anything, and that something wasn’t even an answer to my question. “Marx, when are you going to tell her?”

Scootaloo looked confused. “Tell me what? I got some of this nasty hospital food stuck in my teeth?” She began furiously assaulting her teeth with her hooves, trying to expunge the imagined material.

That got both me and Twilight to share in a deep, hearty laugh. Scootaloo looked ready to kill, so I ended it off and told her. “In all today’s excitement, you forgot to check your flank.”

Scootaloo just looked at me as if I was a madman. “Check my flank?” She slowly maneuvered herself to get a look at her flank “I don’t see anyth-” It clicked, her eyes went wide, her wings beat a little bit. She opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, letting loose a scream that could be heard for miles. “I GOT MY CUTIE MARK!!”

I had to keep her from jumping out of bed. Indeed, posted across her, was a cutie mark I would be proud to have. It was not forthright in the skills it invested in, because it held so many. A desire for knowledge, seeking inner strength, even the protection of friends, all pertained to this cutie mark. I almost cried when I looked at it. She held the insignia of the Blood Ravens, and none could take that away. I smiled down at her. “I think everyone should hear about this. Twilight, would you be so kind as to gather up anyon-I mean, anypony, you see fit. Also, get Pinkie here, this requires a party.

Twilight was frozen beside the door. That is, until it opened, and about a dozen ponies rushed inside. I was lost, and it appeared Twilight was as well. Her tone had an exasperated, almost defeated feeling. “Pinkie, should I even ask?”

Pinkie just pushed a blue maned pony on stage and smiled wide. “Well, I got a three itch on rear hoof, two twitch of my mane signal. That’s my Pinkie sense saying there needs to be a party in the hospital, ASAP.”

I just shook my head and exited the room, I wasn’t in the state of mind for a party. I put my helmet on my waist and, ‘liberated’ a piece of paper and a pencil from the desk to leave a note. With that done, I walked to my house.

I opened the door to the armory. I went and put beautiful on her rack, before heading to the back of the room. There was a little shelf there, with an enormous barrel behind it. I knew that the stuff was bad news, but I grabbed the barrel anyways. I moved it to the kitchen and started to hunt down one of the few cups I had. I grabbed one of some cartoon Scootaloo watched, and filled it with my chosen poison. It was an old Space Wolf brew, possibly one of the oldest. Vurces had about four barrels of the stuff when I traveled with him. We drank after every time one of us got hurt in battle, it was kind of a tradition. I sipped it and and started to talk, knowing he probably couldn’t hear me. “You know Vurces, I think you would of liked it here. You would find it, what was the word you used? Quaint, that’s it. It’s a very quaint little planet. I’m torn a bit now. On one hand, I couldn’t avenge you. I know I couldn’t have saved you from those khornate bastards, but maybe vengeance was possible. Then, on the other hand, you led me to a retirement in death.You always said they picked the stubborn old bastards for champions so we couldn’t retire.” I went to take a sip of the highly alcoholic brew, drained it, and refilled the glass. “You always made that joke whenever we reached a new planet, I think I know why now. You weren’t joking, you wanted to retire. A first for a champion. Well, I wish I had found out a bit earlier, or maybe that we could have swapped places. I have more duties now, but hey, only in death do my duties end.” I chugged the glass, and finding the pain from memories to strong, resolved to have another. Pretty soon, the barrel lie empty, an I was out cold on the floor, in a mixture of a coma, and pure restful sleep.

Author's Note:

Hey everypony, how y'all been. Yes, there will indeed be two to three parts of this. I know for sure the plot of the second part, and there will be about a chapter of two for an interlude before that happens. I intend to finish up a loose end that's been annoying me (Can you guess it?) and go into an in-depth introduction for my take of Discord. So read comment and review my faithful friends, and soon we might see this journey's end.

Comments

[Colorful spark]

i've enjoyed this story since its been up and i must say great job

[Nobodyslament]

1779721 Thank you very much, I always like some feedback.

[McCrowley]

I feel empty The first fanfiction I continually read is now wrapping up What now?!

[Nobodyslament]

1911654 If I may suggest a few. If you like the warhammer feel read Emperors child in Equestria, the story background pony is also very good, finally I suggest progress. I'll out them on my favorites so you can reach them on my page. Second;y my second major work is in the chute, so there's that. Finally, thank you so much. That comment may not seem like much, but it makes me feel hella good.

[McCrowley]

1911694 i loved ECiE But it got cancelled And I will check out your next work as soon as I can

[Subatomic Seal]

Blood Ravens insignia eh? That is possibly the most badass cutie mark ever.