Living in Ruins

by Hegamonia

Chapter 3

As soon as the needle exited my skin the fluid felt like liquid fire was injected into my veins, only spreading as the burning sensation made my leg go numb, I tried moving it but the muscles were completely slack, not even a twitch came from my leg. Once it moved to my head and the burn was everywhere a searing pain erupted in my forehead, mouth, and inside my chest, and if I could scream, it would definitely damage eardrums from the loudness. Blood poured out of my mouth as certain parts of my teeth fell out, grew longer and sharpened, the taste of iron quickly becoming something like eating a salt cube dipped in lemon juice, then dusted with sugar, tasting bitter and salty, but also slightly sweet with a hint of spiciness. The amount of pain was so great that I was able to shake myself and tip the chair to the point where it hit the ground on its side, giving me a good look at my life blood as it changed color from red, to yellow, to green, then finally settling on dark blue, almost black, blood. When the pain finally died down I was gulping raggedly for air, I couldn't tell where Twilight was but I could hear our captors hoofsteps echoing across the hard stone floor, to where they landed in front of me, and looking up and seeing him smile made me shiver, he picked me up with his magic and set a mirror in front of me. Half of my face was covered in blood, my eyes were now catlike pupils, but still retained their golden color, and my mouth had two rows of both blunt and sharp teeth, my tongue wasn't even close to being qualified as one, it extended about two feet out and had a second jaw in the front, which had one row of razor sharp, pointed teeth. I stared, and stared, and stared at the sight, my mind simply not registering what happened to my mouth, and my horn was twice its original size, and split into four pieces about two-thirds of the way up, where the bits separated and formed points with a ring around those separate horns halfway up, similar to a focusing lens for a laser. Everything else seemed to be alright, the most obvious one being my new horn, even though I couldn't see if anything below my neck was changed due to the chains, but he wasn't finished with me. He dragged the chair I was tied to and pulled it over to a darkened hallway, and took a right, it wasn't very long until we came upon a smallish room lit by fluorescent lighting, the harsh white light casting from the ceiling leaving no shadows, and I quickly saw several old blood stains on the wall. He let go when I was positioned in the middle of the room and he trotted over to the entrance, asking "Hungry?" I shook my head no but my stomach disagreed, heavily, he just chuckled, left the room and closed the door, the chains binding me releasing when it was securely locked. The chains were covering up a few other mutations, the most glaring was my hooves had some sort of substance on the bottom, it felt hard but malleable at the same time, as if someone had put clay on them and forgot to put it in a kiln, and when I poked it with my other hoof, it seemed to be part of me. Another one was that while my coat was still on, it was much softer and shinier, and my skin hardened into some sort of superdense metallic alloy that was soft when poked but could solidify majorly when struck. I looked down and heard my stomach growl, even though I had a full stomach minutes ago. I fell out of the chair and stood up to stretch my legs, then walked up to a wall and felt around it, or tried, my hoof stuck fast like superglue, and with a little force, came off. I experimentally put both of my front hooves on and scaled the wall, finding that it became much easier to climb around the more I did this, and practiced for a little bit before a section of the wall caved in on itself and I smelled... food, not like carrots, lettuce, cheese, tomato etc. but live meat, living, breathing flesh and bone, whatever you want to call it, to me now, it was food, and two parts of me were in disagreement, one side was saying that this was food and the other was saying that this was life, and all life is precious; I just moved toward it to (hopefully) find something to sate my hunger...

(Control Center of Complex)

"oooo- what do we have here?" The white stallion said, as he watched a pair of his test subjects get unleashed upon poor Plasma Stream. He eyed his first one, a well-built unicorn with a dark green coat that was given a different serum, and his second one, an Earth Pony, but mutated beyond what would be considered massive, he wanted to see if his pets would be able to subdue him or not. Plasma was strong, he'll give him that, resisting the sedative in that way requires significant brute force to pull off, something even his pets couldn't do, but he considered that and discovered that their brains, while altered into a predators, were still able to do higher cognitive functions, and for that they could ascertain how dangerous an opponent was before they fight him, but hunger can do a lot to someponys reasoning, making them desperate and therefore make mistakes or they get much smarter in order to more likely secure food. Right now, he didn't care and wanted a show, so, he sat back and said "Well, my sweet, sweet Plasma, The Joker will make sure you die with a smile on your face!"

(Plasma Stream, maze)

I was quickly getting to the scent, and based on the smell, it was certainly alive, and I was partially disturbed at how I knew that, but the rumble in my gut told me to head towards the closest area of food, and for a unicorn, an empty stomach is a perfect distraction for concentration. I ended up so close that I could hear it right around the corner from it; turning, I saw that it was a pony, without anything for me to just grab and go, however it was definitely not a normal farming earth pony, this one looked like he was at least eight times my size. Had I been in a more lucid mood I would have realized that fantasizing about eating him was not normal for an herbivore, but that thought was shot down by the instinct to eat, something that takes priority over all other. His back was turned to me and he was looking for something else so I sprung up onto the ceiling and quietly snuck up on him, but, fate would have deemed me unworthy and a large glob of saliva hit him right on the head, but when he looked up I was already on top of him, barely allowing a scream come before I snapped his neck and had the meal my gut was dying to have, and not one to disallow it a feast, I dined. Mutilating the body was fairly easy, since most of the pony was soft and squishy, easily being cut by my teeth, I dug through the thick skin to get at the real treats inside; the body's heart, liver, and lungs, all of which were very large and muscular, the next to go was the musculature of the body, and a quick heating spell rapidly cooked the rest of the pony for me to feast without fear of bacterial agents in the muscles, the spell also burned his coat off, leaving me with just the flesh. I looked over one of the legs and saw just how much meat was on the bone, this pony was at least eight times my size and I managed to kill him in one swift strike, but right now it didn't matter, I was still hungry. Funny thing about my teeth is that they had enough strength to theoretically grind bones into dust, or pulp as the case would be, as I dislocated the joint and ripped it out, then consumed the leg, bones and all, minus the hoof. I just ate, and ate, and ate, and by the time I felt satisfied the only visible portion of the pony was from the chest up, the stomach and intestines, the bladder and the kidneys, but the real thing that I wanted now was he head, inside the skull. I moved over to the head and cracked the cranium open with my second jaw, then used the hole as leverage to split it apart, revealing the absence of any sort of edible matter inside. I trotted over to the bloodied corpse and finished off what was left; now, it was just a head with organs below it, a pony four times my size killed and eaten in a matter of minutes, and looking myself over, it seems to have gone directly towards filling out my frame, giving me my normal appearance back, and a little bit extra. Unfortunately, the other found me first and rammed me through a wall, then stopped as I punched through another wall before hitting a third one, cracking the clay and leaving a dent in it. I pulled myself out and got slammed again, this time flying through the wall with the pony still charging before stopping and letting me fly into something metal, he backed up for a moment when I landed on my hooves and just shrugged it off. In that moment, I got a good look at him, and saw he was twice my size, unlike the other one, but was practically identical in every way. I waited for him to make a move, and did not have to wait long, he charged again but I sidestepped and threw a potshot at his gut, and never realized that it actually hit him much harder in a different location than I intended until after he was on the ground with his eyes closed, and a hoof-shaped hole in his chest and a fountain of blood came out. I trotted over and noticed that my rear left leg was mangled, several cuts along the length and it was bent in awkward angles in two places, I looked over the body, and my sto- wait, I was still hungry? After that massive pony was eaten? I must have a far faster metabolism than I thought, so I began butchering and consuming the body. This time, I found out that the pony was a unicorn with his horn chopped off, so his Fluker organ was still inside, it was filled with the pony's mana reserve, and since his horn was chopped off, he could generate it, but couldn't regulate it, so it grew to the size of my hoof, and was a sphere, so he must have been in unbelievable amounts of pain and agony, I wouldn't wish this on anypony, no matter how bad they were.

By the time I finished I heard the sound of clopping hooves, but could not get a scent of whoever was coming towards me. Out of my hunger stupor I could think far more clearly, and backed up from the noise and hid in the shadows, then a familiar voice chimed out "still hungry I imagine? I want you back for this part, we're gonna have our little draw, oh! and I see your leg has healed up quite nicely, you can thank me later" Some sort of green gas flooded the room and made my vision go blurry, soon after I felt woozy and fell asleep...

Author's Note:

first drug injection and test for Plasma, still looking for ideas on what happens to Twilight and the rest for Plasma Stream, and I changed it up so you can vote for the vials being filled with harmless liquids (colored sugar water for example) or have it give them something they will not like

Comments

[Hegamonia]

oh and I forgot, you can vote on the Royal guard finding and rescuing them next chapter, but if you do that, then he pulls out his 'surprise' and sends them away, changing how this ends, becoming a bit of a prequel for another story
READ THE AUTHORS NOTES FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!