Day's End
A cool breeze caused the small form of Witch to shiver slightly. She had stopped crying from the disastrous attempt at a surprise welcome party that startled everyone besides Screamer, who refused to speak with any of them.
They had gone back to the park, specifically the area where they had spent the last night. Smoker, however, was keen on finding Hunter a proper place to rest because he was feeling unwell after the initial effects of the tranquilizers wore off and caught a fever for his trouble. Now everyone else currently hiding in trees, under benches or just lying in plain sight trying to fall asleep and put the day behind them. Still, Hunter’s condition was on everyone’s mind. They had never been sick with anything else than the Green Flu for the past few weeks.
Usually Witch wasn’t concerned about the health of others beside Tank, mostly because she had the incredibly painful migraines whenever someone else was feeling unwell. Witch shivered again. Not because of the cold, but because of the memory of how unbearably painful the migraines were in the past. They had caused her to claw at her skin and at anything else that was close by. She sniffed again at the memory of when she lashed out a Tank. She tore off a large part of his skin on his chest, leaving the circular shaped scar that was currently devoid of fur. That was seven days ago, back when she was still a human.
‘No,’ Witch thought, ‘I was not a human. I was a monster like everyone else.’
The sound of a twig being stepped on close by snapped Witch out of her memories and made her start to look around. She saw that Spitter was on her hooves, illuminated by the glowing stomach acid that dripped from her mouth and sizzled softly onto the dirt. Spitter noticed Witch’s movement and slowly walked over to her.
“Something’s out there,” Spitter muttered, “Might be a good idea to wake Tank up.”
Witch nodded and quietly walked over to the giant form of Tank, sleeping deeply under a tree. Witch poked him with her right wing tips.
“Tank,” she rasped quietly, still poking him, “Wake up.”
Tank stirred slightly before opening his dull yellow eyes, “What,” he asked flatly.
“Spitter hears something, something that might be bad.”
Tank shifted his gigantic right foreleg and slowly began to get up. When he was standing upright, he towered everyone except Smoker at six and a half feet tall. His eyes looked around lazily, looking for whatever he was supposed to be looking for.
Then, Tank heard the sound of a twig snapping not far away. Sighing quietly, Tank slowly moved over to the tree Hunter was resting in and spoke to him.
“Hunter, what is approaching?” asked Tank in the quietest voice possible but still loud enough so Hunter could hear him.
Hunter groaned and turned his unseeing gaze directed at Tank, “The Librarian, The Planner and four others who I can’t identify,” said Hunter as he shifted back to the resting position he was in before, “Now go away. My head is killing me.”
Tank frowned, ‘What do they want?’ he thought. Shrugging, he walked away from the tree and over to Witch and Spitter, who had gathered everyone but Hunter and Screamer. It took a trained eye to spot them, due to how they had managed to camouflage themselves in such short notice. Even Boomer, who was larger than anypony else any of them had seen so far was almost completely invisible to anyone who wasn’t specifically looking for him.
Anyone who could see Smoker saw him visibly relax as Tank calmly walked towards them without a hint of worry on his face.
“Did you find out what it is?” asked Smoker from his hiding stop atop a tree.
Tank nodded, “Hunter says it is just the Librarian, the little pink pony and four others, nothing to be scared about.”
Smoker nodded and jumped off of the tree. A clearly audible thud was heard when he hit the ground. One by one, the other hiding infected emerged from their hiding places. Smoker’s ear twitched as the find sound of whispering was carried on the wind. He could recognise the librarian, but the other five voices that accompanied it were unknown to Smoker. Deciding it was better to make sure they knew he knew that they were there, Smoker called out into the darkened park.
“Hello?” Smoker’s voice carried out like a gunshot in the otherwise silent park.
The whispers he heard earlier ceased instantly and Smoker sighed in annoyance. ‘If they did not want us to notice them, then why’d they follow is in the first place?’ Smoker thought to himself. He called out again.
“We know you’re out there. Show yourselves and save us the trouble of catching you.”
There was more silence until there was some rustling of leaves and harsh whispering and finally the pink pony who claimed to have organized the disastrous party emerged from the bushes.
Witch blinked and stared at the pink pony. Slowly, to the surprise of everyone except Tank, Witch walked towards the pink pony, Pinkie pie, if Tank remembered correctly, and sat down in front of her.
“Hi,” Witch rasped quietly.
Pinkie pie grinned “Hi, Witch!”
Smoker turned to Tank, who shrugged, “We met little pink pony before going to find Spitter, Charger and Boomer at library.”
There was more rustling in the bushes and five more ponies emerged from them, Twilight Sparkle, the yellow Pegasus that Hunter attacked, two others, a orange one and a white one that none of them had seen before and the Pegasus with the rainbow mane.
Charger glared at the light blue Pegasus, who in return, glared at Charger.
“Hello,” Charger said with a noticeable dark tone.
The rainbow Pegasus rolled her eyes, “Hi,” she said flatly.
There was an awkward silence for a moment before the light blue Pegasus spoke again.
“Name’s Rainbow dash, fastest flier in Equestria,” said the Pegasus.
“Charger. My name speaks for itself,” said Charger.
Smoker coughed from the cloud of smoke around his head and spoke, “Smoker,” he said through his coughs.
“Are you alright?” asked the yellow Pegasus.
“I’m fine,” said Smoker as his coughs got more violent.
The six ponies looked at Smoker worriedly as the seven infected waited for the coughing fit to pass. After about a minute of Smoker coughing, he took a deep breath and sighed, stopping his coughs. He sighed and sat down against the tree a closed his eyes.
There was another silence before Spitter spoke up.
“So, uh, I’m Spitter,” she said, “I’ve met some of you before so, hello again.”
“Hello, I’m Applejack and I’m wondering, what’s with the glowing green goop trailing outta your mouth?” asked the orange pony.
Spitter sighed nervously, “Its, uh, stomach acid or fire spit, whichever you prefer to call it.”
Applejack nodded, her eyes focused on the small trail of sizzling goo that was burning the grass it landed on.
The sounds of pained groans drifted in the wind which caused Smoker to jump upright and start looking around. The six ponies were naturally surprised by Smoker’s sudden movement.
“What’s wrong?” asked Twilight.
“It’s Hunter,” replied Smoker as he walked over to a seemingly empty tree, “He’s sick.”
There was another groan from the tree before Smoker launched out his tongue and it wrapped around something on a tree branch. The tongue immediately started to retract into Smoker’s mouth as the unconscious form of Hunter came into view. Hunter was slowly taken from the tree and landed lightly on Smoker’s back.
“This,” grunted Smoker, “Is Hunter.”
Although this was her third time seeing Hunter, it was the first where Twilight got a good look at him. His coat was a navy blue but it was flattened in eight places, two on each leg along with various places where it looked like he tried to tear some of his fur off. Another thing was his right ear, which had a rather large chunk torn out of it. Hunter’s mouth was opened slightly which gave Twilight a chance to look at his unnaturally sharp teeth.
“Um, what’s wrong with his teeth?” asked the yellow pony.
Smoker froze. Telling them that his teeth were meant to disembowel things would certainly ruin their chance of finding a way back. Trying to find an excuse, Smoker spoke very slowly, “The reason his teeth are like that it…” his mind blanked and he turned to the other infected for help.
“Hunter’s teeth are sharpened because he spent a few months in the wild and had to defend himself. I assure you that he didn’t change his diet though,” said Boomer calmly, “Also, my name is Boomer.”
“Why was he out in the wild?” asked Rainbow dash.
Boomer shrugged, “He was studying wolves,” he said, mentally praying that they had wolves here.
That seemed to get them to stop asking about his teeth and the rest of the ponies introduced and infected themselves. They all seemed quite disturbed about Jockey, Pinkie pie seemed extra disturbed with his demented grin as Jockey started to cackle louder when he realised that he was the focus of attention for the moment. Needless to say, Charger walked closer to him and made sure he didn’t do something that required her to chase after him. Rarity seemed concerned about the odd smell in the area before realising it was coming from the infected. She overheard Charger speaking with Jockey.
“Easy, Jockey,” she muttered.
“Hyeeh, hyeeh, hyeeh,” cackled Jockey.
After that the park was quiet except for the occasional pained groan from Hunter, who was still sleeping on Smoker’s back. Suddenly, a quiet raspy voice was carried on the wind.
“Guys? Where’d you go?”
Smoker sighed and called back, “We’re over here, Screamer.”
There was some rustling, then a loud thud accompanied by a quiet, “I’m ok.” Then, finally, Screamer walked towards them, his makeshift straightjacket nowhere to be seen. When he spotted the six ponies he sighed.
“What do you want?” he rasped quietly, “if you’re here to give the shit don’t bother. They won’t care.”
The six ponies barely heard him; instead their focus was on Screamer’s brutally deformed forelegs. Screamer noticed this and his expression turned hostile.
“What? Never seen bone before?” Screamer asked, “Imagine having to live with these.”
“Doesn’t that hurt?” asked Rainbow dash.
Screamer spat on the ground, a small bit of blood mixed into it, “Don’t ask questions about my arms and I won’t ask questions about your choice in hair colour.”
Rainbow dash angrily flew up to Screamer, who in response silently stared at her and held his ground.
“Are you saying something’s funny with my mane?” Rainbow dash said threateningly.
Screamer grinned darkly, his rotted teeth making Rainbow dash recoil slightly, “If you want to know, Rainbows are usually associated with-.”
Spitter cut him off with a slap to the back of his head. Screamer glared angrily at her and backed down, grumbling about something incomprehensible.
“Sorry about him,” Spitter told Rainbow dash, “He’s not in the best mood at the moment.”
“You wouldn’t be either if everyone kept on asking stupid questions about your arms,” muttered Screamer as he began to hover nearby Tank.
There was yet another pause before Witch yawned and decided to fall asleep right beside Pinkie pie where she had been sitting for the past few moments. Tank stretched his back slightly and walked over to her and sat down, also yawning.
“So, uh, where are you sleeping?” asked Twilight as Screamer hovered off to find another tree to sleep in and Smoker propped himself up against the tree Hunter was sleeping in and returned Hunter to his branch.
Spitter shrugged, “probably under a bench somewhere. I can’t climb trees very well.”
Twilight blinked, “you mean you have nowhere to go?”
“Nope, for the past three weeks we’ve traveled place to place trying to find some peace,” said Spitter.
Twilight looked around at the infected; Witch had curled into a little white ball on the grass with Tank watching from under a tree close by. The other infected were invisible and the only reason she know they where there were the tell-tale sounds they were making, like Smoker’s loud cough, Hunter’s pained groans, the (rather disgusting) sounds of Boomer’s bloated stomach, and Jockey’s laughter, which had died down to faint giggles.
All six ponies present felt slightly sorry about the infected lack of a place to stay, especially about Hunter, the one who most likely needed a place to stay the most out of all of them. Twilight decided to speak up about it.
“Well, I have room at my house if you guys want to stay there before you get a place of your own.”
The sounds stopped and Smoker emerged out of seemingly nowhere and walked up beside Spitter.
“We appreciate the offer but, you wouldn’t want all of us there,” said Smoker.
Twilight shook her head, “it’s not a problem, I have lots of spare room in my basement.”
Pinkie pie spoke up, “Ooh, there’s lots of room in Sugarcube corner, I’m sure the Cake’s won’t mind some of you staying there.”
“There is some room in the barn where one of y’all could stay,” said Applejack.
“I do have a spare room in the boutique,” mentioned Rarity.
“Um, I have some spare rooms in my home right now,” Fluttershy said quietly.
Rainbow dash sighed, “I guess I can spare a room in any of you guy’s need it, but in the sky though.”
Spitter smiled, “If you’re really ok with letting us stay at your homes then we’ll gladly stay if it’s not too much trouble.”
The ponies reassured her and Smoker that it was no trouble at all and they went and gathered the other seven sleeping infected. When they were all gathered again, they (reluctantly) split up, Hunter going with Fluttershy, Tank going with Applejack, Smoker and Boomer going with Twilight, Spitter and Screamer going with Pinkie pie, Charger and Jockey going with Rarity and Witch going with Rainbow dash.
Each of them were uneasy about splitting off into this many groups, especially Witch, who usually was alongside Tank, even with the horrible migraines she endured. But, with reassurance from each other, they all left to their respective temporary homes. Never the less, every one of the infected were worried about Hunter, with his illness, and Witch, with her hatred of loud sounds and unpredictability.
It was time to start fresh. And all thoughts of returning home were absent from the minds of everyone.
Everyone but Smoker, that is.
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I would have thought witch would have gone with
but maybe that would be too obvious.
Oh dear.... They're split up, and they can still go loco at any moment...
This ain't good.
If you and SCP are still having that contest, I vote for this one. I really feel a tension in this story, waiting for the bomb to finally go off, so to speak.
Also, who was the idiot who stuck Witch with RD? That's a disaster just waiting to happen.
Finally, Screamer's retort about Rainbows...
2107826
well, Tank is at RD's house
>>Dihinner
Wait, what? I thought Tank was staying with Applejack.
2107851
who is the other Tank that we know of?
the green one?
Oh, right.
"I like turtles!"
2107980 It says up there that Witch is going to RD's, not tanks.
2110085
Rainbow has a pet named Tank.
why does nobody remember that?
Make it Clear that NOBODY REMEMBERS TANK THE TURTLE!
Tortoise you idiot!
TANK THE TORTOISE!
2113462
when have i ever called him a turtle?
2113711 Everyone mistakes for a turtle... he's a tortoise
2113889
indeed
Witch with rainbow?
oh lord