Live and Let Die

by Dihinner

Library Events

The mid afternoon sun gently shone down on the streets of Ponyville. It was a typical Tuesday for most. For others however, little did they know that today would be far more eventful than they had hoped.

Jockey looked feverishly at everything around him. It wasn’t everyday he learnt that he wasn’t going to die. Usually death surrounded him like the bullets on a regular infected person back home in the lower U.S. yes, today was different. He went to a doctor about an hour ago. He cackled upon learning that he could still jump as high as he could to effectively leap onto an unsuspecting target and drag them wherever he wanted.

Unfortunately, Charger had wings, which were used to effectively catch him whenever he tried to ‘ride’ someone or, somepony in this case. Another thing that was learned was that both he and Witch could indeed speak. Tank, Boomer and Screamer were being tested themselves didn’t know this but, Jockey figured that Tank would learn soon enough.

Finally, they arrived at the home of the librarian. It looked oddly familiar to Jockey for some reason…

“The irony of this situation is stunning,” muttered Screamer as he looked at the building, “hey, Hunter, thing you can jump through another window and open the door?”

Hunter turned to him, if he could, he would be glaring at him. Instead, he slightly moved the bandage the doctor gave him over his eyes to prevent anything harmful from getting inside the empty sockets.

Screamer recoiled instantly as he looked into the bloody carved out holes that used to house Hunter’s eyes. Hunter growled at him, not only to be intimidating, but to also let the sound reverberate around to check his surroundings. Echolocation, the doctor said it was. “There are worse things under wraps than my eyes, Screamer.”

Screamer glared at him again, during his time at the hospital, the doctor had noticed something under Screamer’s straightjacket. Disregarding Screamer’s original purpose for it (as one of the early ones to contact the Green flu, he was given it to prevent harm to himself and others due to the effect it has on the mental state) and unlatched all of the buckles and opened some of the locks.

What the jacket was hiding Screamer swore he would never mention again.

His forelegs were brutally cut open, enough so that you could easily see where the bone was and partially rotted muscle tissue. Of course, the doctor found this concerning and tried to clean out the rotted flesh. The doctor also noticed Screamer’s extreme disgust in open wounds, possibly a trait he may have had before becoming infected.

That was when the doctor asked where exactly Screamer and the others came from.

Screamer reluctantly told him of the previous three weeks and his location of origin, which was Riverside, Pennsylvania. He also briefly mentioned the four crazed gunmen shooting everything that wasn’t them. Screamer explained that over the weeks the mutations grew worse, such as Jockey, Spitter and Charger were relatively new mutations and Boomer, Tank and Smoker’s conditions became more deadly.

After telling the doctor, Screamer threatened him with various methods of things he could do if anyone found out he told him. The doctor merely chuckled, “I didn’t plan on telling anyone. Who’d believe me? No, there will be a time where you’ll probably have to confess this yourself. Who am I to do it for you? Now, I believe you’re done and… Charger I believe is next.” Screamer continued to stare and remember the time at the doctor’s off blankly until Smoker poked him with his abnormally long foreleg.

“Hey Screamer, you still in there?” asked Smoker.

Screamer blinked, “what?”

“I’m going to knock on the door. Be ready.”

Screamer looked at Smoker oddly, “ready for what?”

Smoker grinned, “Her panicking.”

Smoker sighed and knocked on the door. After a moment a response came from inside.

“One minute!”

Screamer sighed irritably, “I don’t have time for this.”

Just then, the purple unicorn that the seven had met yesterday opened the library door.

“Sorry, I just had to finish up cleaning up something…” she stared at the seven ponies standing outside, the one that she was most focused on was Hunter, who had his head turned facing down the street. She quickly turned around and shut the door before any of them had a chance to react.

Smoker sighed and knocked on the door again.

“Go away!”

Screamer rolled his eyes and hovered over to Smoker, “look, this is how a professional handles this.” He flew to the door and knocked on it himself, “hello, sorry about yesterday with Smoker and Hunter. I promise that they won’t do anything stupid this time.”

There was no response from inside. Screamer sighed, “Look, we’re here for a book. Think you can help us find it?”

Again, there was no response; Charger decided that it was a lost cause until they were on better terms with the librarian. Smoker tried to argue with her but was cut off.

“How would you feel if someone broke into your house and threatened you with violence just because you happened to look out of your window at the wrong time?”

Smoker sighed, “I’d probably choke them to death.”

“Exactly, now, we need to take care in this situation,” explained Charger, “I’ll knock this time; make sure she doesn’t see you or Hunter.”

Smoker nodded; yesterday she had really only gotten glimpses of everyone except Hunter, Charger and himself. He assumed she was panicking when she encountered Witch but decided that wasn’t important right now.

Charger told all of them besides Spitter and Boomer to head to the park and wait for Tank and Witch while Spitter, Boomer and herself tried to obtain the information the doctor told them they should learn.

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“I am confused, little pink pony,” said Tank, “why are you preparing party for me and Witch? We must be heading to the park to wait for Smoker and others.”

Pinkie pie beamed at him, “oh! You have more friends with you?!” she asked excitedly.

“Friends might be pushing it but yes,” muttered Tank.

Witch watched the two speak as she tried to figure out how to properly eat the cotton candy she was given by Pinkie pie. Sure, she was annoyingly loud but, she seemed to quiet down after Tank told her too.

She liked Tank; he made sure that everything was quiet when she got the migraines. Tank also made sure that nothing disturbed her when the world became bright and confusing. ‘Bright and confusing,’ thought Witch as she took another bite of the cotton candy, back in Fairfield, Pennsylvania, where Tank, Boomer and herself were from everything was loud bright and confusing.

Now, the regular infected people usually didn’t mind the light, unless it was shone right at them. It was usually the sounds of alarms or explosions that set them off. For Witch however, it was bright lights and anything too close. That also included loud sounds.

“We’re almost there!” exclaimed Pinkie pie as they approached a peculiarly familiar building.

“Purple spy’s home is library?” muttered Tank to himself.

The Pinkie pie hopped to the library door and knocked on it. “Hello? Twilight? There are two really neat ponies I want you to meet!”

There was a pause before a strangely mechanical voice was heard from the other side of the door. “Hey, Twilight! You have visitors!”

Tank frowned at the voice, it sounded like the white sphere that crashed last night. Then he remembered that Smoker and Hunter mentioned dumping it at the purple spy’s house, which was the library. Tank sighed; everything seemed to lead back to this library.

There was another pause and Tank swore he heard Spitter’s voice as Twilight opened the door.

“Sorry Pinkie I a bit busy right…” her sentence stopped when she saw the gigantic form of Tank.

“Hello, little purple spy. You are librarian, yes?” rumbled Tank.

Twilight’s astonished gaze fell to Pinkie pie, who was smiling and finally Witch, who had cotton candy all around her face with an odd expression. Shaking her head, Twilight spoke.

“Pinkie pie,” she said slowly.

“Yes?”

“Who are they?”

“Oh, the big guy is Tank and the Pegasus is Witch,” said Pinkie pie cheerfully.

Witch glanced over to Twilight and mumbled something that sounded like “hello.”

Twilight looked back at Tank, who seemed to be amused at what Witch said. He then turned to twilight. “Hello, Twilight,” Tank seemed to have some difficulty pronouncing her name and continued, “Sorry for the misunderstanding. Life has been… hard for us in the past,” rumbled Tank. He then smiled, “but, Witch likes it here. So that is good.”

Twilight nodded slowly, Tank was huge, abet not as tall as Smoker, he easily was the one the attention mostly fell on when he was nearby.

Suddenly, a strange chirping came from inside the library followed by Spitter rushing out side as fast as he elongated legs would carry her. She then proceeded to spit out a rather large amount of fizzling green goop from her mouth and onto the ground where is fizzled for a good five seconds before seeping into the dirt. She grinned weakly as she wiped the remains of it from her mouth with her left foreleg.

“Sorry,” she said weakly to Twilight she then turned to Tank, “hey, Tank, how are you doing?”

Tank looked at Spitter oddly, then shrugged, “I am doing fine, who you really should be asking is Witch.”

Spitter glanced at Witch, the doc had told her that her and Jockey could speak. Now it was time for her to test that statement. “Hey Witch, what’s that on your face?” asked Spitter as she noticed the cotton candy.

Witch stretched out her wings, which were white with streaks of red going down the feathers on the tip, and yawned, “Its cotton candy,” she said in a quiet but harsh voice.

Spitter smiled; even though her voice was harsh sounding (probably the result of crying nonstop for the better part of three weeks) Witch had indeed proven herself she was capable of speaking, which meant Jockey could also. “Nice to hear you speak, Witch.”

Witch nodded and went back to staring off into space. Spitter turned and was met by a bright pink pony’s unnaturally large smile.

“Hello I’m Pinkie pie, what’s your name?” asked the pony fast and hyper voice.

“Uh, Spitter?”

“Nice to meet you Spitter, are you one of Tank and Witch’s friends?” asked the hyper pony.

“You could say that,” muttered Spitter.

Then another two ponies, Boomer and Charger, exited Twilight’s library in search for Spitter, who ran outside because the substance they called ‘Spitter Goo’ had started to leak out of her mouth, which meant either spit it out, or let it burn its way out. They too were surprised to see Tank and Witch outside.

“Tank, Witch? What are you two doing here?” asked Charger.

“Little pink pony brought us,” replied Tank.

Pinkie pies smile even grew even bigger than it was a before when she saw Boomer and Charger. She excitedly told then who she was and asked for their names. Twilight would have normally smiled at Pinkie pie’s usual energetic attitude at meeting new ponies if something wasn’t telling her that these five ponies were hiding something. Something that was very important.

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Hunter was crouching low to the ground, about to pounce his unsuspecting prey. His low growls reverberated off some nearby rocks. His target looked around fearfully as its flock of ducks quacked at the sound.

He vaguely remembered what Screamer had told him before he ran off.

“Hunter, whatever you do, do not kill, harm or otherwise injure anything,” said Screamer.

Hunter nodded and ran off, which led him to his current position. Smoker was in charge of watching Jockey. By watching he meant hanging Jockey off a tree with his tongue while he took a nap on the grass.

By this time his scared prey had frozen where she (Hunter assumed it was a she because of the way it sounded) stood. Hunter crouched even lower to the ground and prepared to pounce. About half a second later, he let out an unearthly screech and leaped from his hiding spot at his prey.

Author's Note:

please point out errors in spelling/grammer.

Comments

[The Eccentric Mister E]

Tank is Heavy Weapons Guy?

[Supergumgum]

Spitter turned and was met by a bright ink pony’s unnaturally large smile.

You forgot the p in pink.