Children of Oonte

by sevenofeleven

Chapter 13

Children of Oonte
Chapter 13: Medical problems, Renee's fear and Black Rain.

Mei Nuo leaned against the wall and tried to block out the screams and groans of the dying and injured by closing her teal colored eyes. It was almost too much. The People's Army Brigade fifteen had pushed into CC territory in the southwest and it looked like they were winning and then red black bolts of some sort of magical energy speared the tanks and made them explode. Black flames dropped out of the sky and any person that was not protected inside the metal walls of a APC just burst into flames screaming. Some of the black flames did scorch the surface of some armored personnel carriers too. While the army was trying to adjust to this, several floating platforms attacked from different directions and the army was forced to retreat. Too bad, the People's Army had better discipline and tanks. If the CC did not use magic, they would have been pushed back. The commanders of the army did not believe in magic and it was going to make the war hard to fight. Maybe if they had unicorns, they could have blocked some of the attacking spells?

Mei opened her eyes and hoped that her sisters would arrive soon. Then she went over to the new bunch of injured soldiers. Most of them had some exposure to the black flames but even small burns could kill a person. The wounds would get inflamed and spread. Patients would get really high fevers and eventually die a sweating painful death. Ice packs and anti inflammatories had limited success, they just slowed down the spread of the black flame burns a little bit. Mei wished she could get some of the unicorn mages from the Beijing herd but the military hospital management did not believe in magic too. Maybe she will have to break the rules to save some lives? Mei contacted the Beijing Herd and asked for some healers or at least some mages.

It was cooler outside near the checkpoint and Mei waited for the mages and healers. There was only one mage and two healers but that was better than nothing. Mei greeted them and led them back to the ER Ward. "Can you do something for these people?" Mei asked the unicorn mage, Chao Lin.

"I can remove the dark magic from the people here. I will not be able to heal the damage though," replied Chao Lin.

"That is good enough," Mei replied, at last, some help.

Chao closed his eyes and concentrated and a wave of energy flowed through the room. The room got quiet for a quick moment and then people went back to talking. Mei thanked Chao for his help and then she went back to checking out the new patients with the healer's help. Mei decided to have the healers help out the patients with the worse wounds and try to nudge them closer to healthy.

She did not want healers to focus and get a few people totally healed, she wanted a bunch of people in a better position. Also she was hoping that by helping a bunch of people instead of a select few, she can hide that she is using healers.
That would hopefully get her more healthy people. There was no doubt that eventually someone would catch on and Mei would be in the Hospital Admin section being grilled about her unconventional methods. The head of doctors was not a results oriented person, She was a by the book woman. Mei agreed somewhat with the stance but when lives are at stake and the by the book methods were failing, it did not quite make sense.

Ashley looked again at the schematic, Baton had wanted two anti air turrets. Anti air turrets shoot down enemy aircraft, the CC could not just fly transports near or on the base and unload units, they would have to unload them some distance away. That would give the defenders more time to prepare.

She just wanted to do one but Baton was firm. There was not much Ashley could do to reduce the amount of magic needed. So she got the builder team together and started the conjuring. Everybody on the team was getting tired, Baton had not reduced his demands by much. Instead of four anti air turrets, he was fine with two. Well not really fine but tolerant. Renee had been the bearer of bad news and she took the brunt of his anger. Two hours later the second anti air turret was done. Ashley did not remember too much until morning, she just passed out in the lab along with the rest of the exhausted builder unicorns.

Marc came by the lab and had some info for Renee. He was surprised to see unicorns sprawled all over the place in the lab sleeping but he went to Renee and shook her awake. "You must wake up, something has happened to Abelard!" he said excitedly to Renee.

"Wh wha what?" Renee asked, she was still very tired. Marc told her to go to her apartment and see Abelard. Renee did not need to be told twice, she ran out of the lab to her apartment.

Twilight went through the checklist with Rich. "Looks like we have everything, now we just need people to show up," Rich said, he was liking the world tour and Beijing China was just 3 days away. They were not going to fly over Russian airspace so the trip would take longer. He sent a message through Pnet to Isabela, Renee and Ashley. A half hour later Isabela and Ashley showed up. They did not know what happened to Renee. Isabela brought a framed print of the Eiffel Tower to put on one of the walls of the ship. Ashley had a photograph of some of the squads in the Parisian Resistance also for the wall. Sherman was already on board and he helped put supplies in the supply room.

Renee showed up a half hour later and she looked concerned. She took Ashley aside and asked her some questions about magic. "Abelard is a pony now and I am not sure I like that," Renee said with concern in her voice.

"I don't know what to do. I don't really have a lot of info on Polymorph spells. Also if this was Oonte's doing, I do not want to second guess her," Ashley said.

"When we return from Antarctica, I will see if he can be turned back!" Renee resolved.

"You do know that if you are both ponies, you can have foals. Humans and ponies can't have foals," Ashley explained.

Renee had a pained look and said she wanted children not baby ponies.

"How about we talk about this some more later?" Ashley suggested.

A few days later, Isabela rubbed her eyes again, she was so tired. They had been playing Hide N Seek with CC cruisers and other CC large aircraft all afternoon and evening. Their ship was faster but Ashley went out of her way to avoid contact. Ashley walked up to the pilot's chair to relieve Isabela.

Isabela was starting to long for a horizontal bed, the chairs in the ship were much better than the chairs in a passenger plane but nothing beats a real bed, even sleeping bags would be better. While walking back to her seat, she thought about Renee, she did not want ponies, she wanted human children? She is a pony now, no way she would give birth to a human child. Maybe Renee had doubts about her mothering ability? I wonder what type of pony Abelard is? I will not ruin my sleep with these questions, I will go to sleep. Isabela thought as sleep took her down.

Mei gave the poor orphan a big hug, she did not know the kid's name. No big deal, I will still make this child feel wanted. Now its time to get something to eat. There was something wrong with the sky, Mei could not say exactly but the sky made her feel threatened.

Something in the sky was not right or normal. There were black clouds coming in fast from the southwest but the speed and the look of the inky black clouds made Mei nervous. Again Mei regretted not spending more time with the pegasi from the Beijing herd. She could fly a bit but her fear of heights made flying higher problematic and her concentration would fray and down she would go. The pegasi would have taught her some weather sense too but that can be learned later. There was enough room outside for Mei to unfurl her wings and take off. Time to put some space between me and those menacing clouds, they are kinda scary looking.

She got about five blocks away when she felt the first breeze from the dark black storm system. It felt so cold it broke her concentration and Mei almost fell out of the sky. She managed to recover and find a clear space to land. A few people were standing around to gawk at the clouds but the smart ones were already heading out of the area, Mei followed them.

The black storm was much faster and it overtook them. The cold winds were constant now. Mei felt like she was shoved into a meat locker with the cooling turned up high. She stumbled into a store and walked a bit into the aisles. She was happy that the door closed behind her, that frigid air from outside made her feel uncomfortable and cold. "What is going on? Why is it so cold? This is still summer!" The store owner peppered Mei with questions. Mei had no answers, the thermometer on the side wall showed that the temperature of the store was 80 degrees. There was something in the air that felt cold but it was not the temperature.

Some more people came into the store and Mei and the shopkeeper had to yell at them to close the door. The bright street went from sunny to cloudy dark to nighttime. The automatic lights went on but the street still felt dark. The black rain came down from the dark sky and splattered against the windows of the store. Mei heard people screaming in fear, some were screaming, "Get out of the rain!" The shopkeeper walked up to the door and locked it. Mei asked him why but the shopkeeper looked back at Mei with fear filled eyes. Then he went back behind the counter.

Something about the way the black rain sluggishly flowed down the store's front window made everyone take one step back. Someone screamed, "Look!" People and ponies had been running down the block to find shelter from the storm but they did not make it. They started stumbling and falling and the black rain covered their still bodies with a black oily sheen.

Mei would have been out in the street to help but she sensed that she could do nothing for those poor people and equines. Ten minutes later the sun came up, there was no gradual brightening, it was dark and then it was light. The people in the store just looked out the store window at the bodies lying in the black puddles. Mei was walking towards to door when the first human sat up and opened its eyes. Mei looked at the shopkeeper to see if he was OK with opening the door when someone screamed, "The eyes, they are empty!"

Mei looked at the first body and looked into its eyes, the eyes were like shiny black pearls, cold and hungry. The person's mouth had some black stuff dripping out of it. Most of the humans were standing up or trying to stand. The pony bodies just lay in the street. "You, yellow pony do not open the damned door!" The shopkeeper whispered with deathly intent while he reached for a large club under the counter.

Mei walked to the back of the store with the other trapped folks, she looked for an exit. The store had a door that led to the shopkeeper's quarters. The door was locked but people started banging on the door and the Mei gave the door some good kicks from her strong pony legs and the door's lock broke and they ran into the room. Behind her, Mei could hear glass breaking and the storekeeper curse and then a wet gurgle and some splashing sounds.

The room had a door that was locked that led into a courtyard in the back, can see it through the windows. After the door was smashed they ran into the courtyard. There were no creatures there yet but more would be coming through the store soon. The fences were easy to climb so people just climbed the fences while Mei unfurled her wings and flew up to the roof and looked down. She regretted doing it but she needed to know.

It was not a pretty sight, the ponies that died during the black rain were being torn apart by the strange humans. They did not eat any of the flesh, they would just tear gobbets of meat off of the corpses. One pony corpse was almost bone. A brave group of ponies and people tried to take back the street but the "zombies" had another trick, they spat a stream of thick black fluid on their attackers. Anyone hit with the black stuff would slowly lose consciousness and then the "zombies" would eat them alive or tear them apart.

Some people the "zombies" would not eat, they would just ignore them once they had the black stuff on them. After 5 or 10 minutes people who fell to the black stuff would get up looking for victims. Mei figured that is how they can spread the "zombie" disease. This was a crowded neighborhood, lots of people would become "zombies". The disease did not transfer to ponies. Any ponies who where spit on would get torn apart while they were still alive. The creatures did not wait for the ponies to pass out, they would start clawing away. Mei had to look away, the screams and tearing noises were just too much to hear and watch.

Mei unfurled her wings and flew back to the base in the northeast, she had to warn them what was coming. She also sent a quick message to the Beijing Herd about what was going on. This was supposed to be a nice day off but now Mei was flying for her life and wishing her sisters would show up soon.