Julion saw the explosion, and how the MOCKINGJAYs stared at the falling pony, knowing it was Damien, but they couldn't afford the time to take a detour, so he grunted and quickly said, "Go get him, we'll fall back to the bridge and hold our ground as long as we can. But don't expect us to stay too long." he said, before listening to a comm report from a scout. Growling, he motioned to his Commandos, "Come on! We got a group of 500 hostiles with a hundred more moving in on our position!" he ordered before they and Equestria Prime took off, leaving the MOCKINGJAYs alone in an eerie silence very quickly, heading to the bridge the came in on where they would set up defensive positions. ****** Snow's head shot up at the sound of an explosion before seeing a charcoal pony falling from the sky, widening her eyes, she instantly wrapped a levitation feild around the pony, gently slowing them down to stop about 15 feet in the air, knowing that to stop suddenly would have killed them. As Snow lowered the body down to see it was Damien, her head snapped around at the sound of yelling and galloping hooves and instantly took off running down a series of backroads, Damien in tow before finding a safe place well away from the raider, slaver, and Steel Ranger groups converging on the Commandos position. There, she laid him down and tilted her head slightly at his unconscious body as she tried to think of what she could do. An idea suddenly came to her and she closed her eyes before opening them, their brilliant blue now a deep royal purple. Gently, she pulled open one of his eyes and casted a small "magical bridge" that connected their horns. Suddenly, she was in another world. It was a desert, with only cactus and sage as vegetation. Taking a deep "breath" she started trotting along towards what looked like a hill, but as she got closer, the sight repulsed her. It was really a mound of dead...strange bipedal creatures clad in crimson and pads in an armor that resembled a crude form of a Zebra Legionaire's armor. As she looked up the massive mound of death, she noticed a small flickering light, that seemed to be an essence form of the creatures. To avoid notice, Snow took a deep breath, told herself the dead soldiers were not real and slowly made her way up the tedious pile before reaching the top, behind the back of the flickering essence that appeared to be sobbing over the body of what looked like the female variant of the creatures they were on. Snow knew that the essence was dying, she could feel the world around her dying. She had to do this quickly. She gently placed a hoof on the shoulder of Damien's essence, which responded by swinging weakly at her, "LEAVE ME ALONE!" It cried out before collapsing into more sobs. Snow recovered from dodging the blow and sat next to the essence and took a deep breath, forcing herself to talk as she knew she could in this realm, "Damien or whatever you like to be called. Your body...It's dying, you need to snap out of this, if your body dies, so do you." "Why should I care? Do I look like I want to continue on? Through this pain?" "Because I know that you really do. If you truly didnt care, you would have given up long ago and forced your body to end itself. You have a fight in you, don't let the reaper win this. I know you can do it." She replied, to which the Essence didn't respond. She placed a hoof carefully on its shoulder, "I'm gonna to give you a boost, okay? Remember, your body and mind want to live. Your friends are here with you, and they don't want to see you die. If you die, I have a feeling they will follow suit quickly in some form or fashion. Trust me." with that, Snow lightly placed her horn to the head of Damien's essence. There was a bright flash and a falling sensation, only falling up, and suddenly Snow was in the real world. Now, it was up for the essence to decide to continue on, she had given it the energy to at least. With that done, she began administering first aid to Damien's body
Back in the real world, Damien's body shot random yet extremely powerful bolts of electricity across the room that completely burnt through entire walls like it was made out of paper. While the Mockinbirds were in shock and concern about their friend, whatever exposure that the taint was doing to him was doing its job. While Snow administered more first-aid, another powerful bolt barely missed Benedict's head by inches and struck the next room, blowing it apart like a mini-nuke. -----------------------------------------—------------ The essence watched itself hover above the body of a deceased human woman and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dead legionaries. Soon, it seemed to look upwards as the room turned into a bright light. The essence was alive, but the body would be undergoing some changes. ------------------------------------------- Damien's equine body appeared very much the same, but something was very off about it. Taint in high enough quantity a would turn a pony into a Super Alicorn, so why weren't the same changes occurring to him? Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk
The real reason was that taint was simply the non-magical radiation of this world, something Snow could help with. As she worked, she lowered his taint radiation slowly to a more manageable level for his body, he would have some mutations but she could tell they would not be too major, but their effects would be unknown...
While more lightning shot from his body, the amount of damage that it did was reduced almost to nothing but a sharp pinch. On the inside, Damien already began to mutate, but how this would occur during the time period would be impossible. Damien was now in a coma, only he wouldn't wake up from for almost a week. Once he was considered healthy and his body healed enough to an appropriate level, Snow and the Mockingbirds had to leave before the Steel Rangers, slavers and raiders came onto them. Luckily for them, they already had a head start Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk
Snow and the MOCKINGBIRDs gathered up the unconscious Damien once Snow did all she could for him and they quickly got out of there, however, by the time they reached the bridge, the only ponies in the area were the dozens of dead raiders and slavers and about a dozen Steel Rangers. The Commandos had obviously beaten off the attack but retreated after the attackers fell back. Not wanting to risk the groups coming back to them after regrouping, they continued on, following Equestria Prime's hoofprints in the concrete until they disappeared after going to a dirt path, and just continued along the road, trying to find a safe place to nurse Damien back to health
At somepoint before reaching Fetlock on the outskirts of the city, Snow and the Mockingbirds were ambushed by an enormous amount of slavers that had been fighting against waves of petty raiders. Using a smoke grenade as an improvised cover while running inside of an old store, they watched as the Raiders and Slavers fired blindly into the windows recklessly. For a moment, the gunfire stopped as the smoke began to disappear. Then, out walked an Earth pony. Benedict walked slowly out from the door in full armor, his aircraft minigun locked and loaded with enough bullets to clear an entire army if he so desired. As he walked out in his Jet black Riot Gear, the minigun began to spin as the expression of the Raiders and Slavers turned from a feral look to one of absolute terror, their pupils shrinking to the size of a pea. Benedict had the largest grin on his face as the minigun spun quickly. A moment later, he roared like a monster as the minigun erupted into life. And like he had expected, did more than enough damage. Even if these slavers were fitted with power armor, the bullets tore clean through them as dozens upon dozens of slavers and raiders dropped dead within seconds. Steel Rangers tried to enter this battle, only to find themselves being torn apart. The entire support structure of buildings was ripped to shreads as entire buildings collapsed from the wall of death that Benedict was creating. One stray laser beam his Benedict on the shoulder, but all the titan did was laugh it off. "Is that the best you've got?" Benedict yelled. "I have a minigun you idiots!!!" Within a minute, Benedict unexpectedly wiped out almost half of the forces that Red Eye and the Steel Rangers had in the city, as over a thousand bodies of ponies on all sides were scattered like trash. The minigun began to slow down as Benedict took long pants of breath from exhaustion. Snow and the Mockingbirds could now make it to the Commandos with relative safety.
Snow checked Benedict's ammo, and saw that he was almost out. So, she motioned in a way to make sure he knew not to fire again until they had resupplied him. Afterwards, Snow didn't bother returning to the Commandos, instead, she lead them to her house, which like most Mark Co buildings, was in excellent condition compared to the ruins around it. Surrounding the house was a vertible sea of white, a field of her White Hopes, whos hardiness meant they not only survived the Last Day, but thrived in the time since, even, unbeknownst to them, mutating to allow themselves to turn radiation into a food source, however it was at the cost of their former quick growth rate. Leading them through the field of beautiful flowers that seemed to emit an very dim light, Snow yanked one stalk out and showed the MOCKINGBIRDs it, revealing the tuber that was the root that root that resembled a potato. Making a biting motion at various parts of the plant followed by rubbing her belly to show it was not only edible, but quite delicious before leading them into her house. Inside, in an extremely dusty living room, there were 4 couches around a coffee table. Despite the signs of age, the place looked almost untouched. Snow then suddenly disappeared down one of the four hallways, leaving the MOCKINGBIRDs alone for the time being.
Once they had been left alone, Roger and Benedict lifted Damien's body onto the largest sofa while Jack took a pillow and placed it under his head. Ashley then put a wet rag onto Damien's forehead, which felt like it was injected with napalm, to allow his fever to cool down. As they all sat down, while taking some White Hope flowers as a food source, they could only watch an unconscious Damien. "Jesus..." Jack broke the silence. "What the hell has he been through?"
While she was gone, Snow had tidied up her former study in which great advances poured out from when she was in her youth before making herself a remedy that would sooth her vocal cords and should allow her to speak. Looking at the whiskey and white hope concentrate mixture, she quickly downed it and gasped before yelling at the top of her lungs, at first nothing came out, but soon her voice returned and she immediately stopped before clearing her throat and reciting the alphabet. After that, she grabbed some two hundred year old water bottles from her fridge (but she knew due to the sheer purity of the water it would still be okay) and trotted back out into the living room, giving everyone a bottle before taking a seat herself. "Whelp, I got my voice back." she said happily, glad she wasnt mute anymore
"We're happy for you, but..." Jack replied before looking at Damien's unconscious body. "Damien's vitals suddenly dropped for a moment when you left the room, but we managed to stabilize him. His temperature jumped for a few seconds. We also need to thank you for saving his life, he would had died if it wasn't for you. And if you seen inside his mind...well...it's fairly unpleasant."
Snow nodded to both of those, "Makes sense, I linked his essence to mine to give it enough energy to start the healing process and continue it. It was in very poor condition to say the least. And his mind...yes it was fairly disturbing. A mound of dead soldiers of some bipedal species dressed like crude Zebra Legionaires with his essence, or soul, on top of it all mourning over a female body. Any idea what that could be?" Snow fell silent for a second before she realized something, "You know, his essence was that bipedal creature, so I'm going to guess you guys used to be those, and that probably means each and every one of your essence's are still your original species...It would take some exprimentation but to my knowledge of essence, that could mean I might be able to change you back."
"If you seen a female body, it was his dead wife Chloe. It's a long story about how our world has gone to hell...." Roger replied before the rest of the Mockingbirds listened to Snow about essence, and the possibility to return to their human forms. While it excited the group, the possibility was slim. However, it was still worth a shot and the Rangers felt confident that this was possible.
Snoe nodded sadly at the responce, the realization that hit her following made her sigh sadly, her entire family...well, she didn't count Julion, was dead, either by the bombs or old age. But she recovered quickly for the MOCKINGBIRDs and Damien's sake, "So yea, does that interest you guys?"
All of them quickly agreed upon this new choice, but would also lose the majority of their abilities such as flight and magic. Damien's condition however, was uncertain. But in the end, they would eventually agree to return to being human once more.
(Okie-Dokie) 1 week later Being unconscious for a week, Damien's body had undergone some changes on the inside. While there was seemingly no physical appearance on the outside, there was enormous physical changes on the inside. While the taint was purged from his body, whatever remained inside of him gave him more than he bargained for. Whatever exposure he had to I.M.P, it managed to not only keep Damien alive. But improve him to an unknown extent. After a week of nightmares and internal suffering, Damien began to wake up on the couch.
Snow looked up at seeing Damien stirring while the rest of the MOCKINGBIRDs slept in the guest bedrooms of the first floor, she couldnt leave to room lest risk Damien's health failing. She noticed one of his eyes start to flutter slightly, like it was about to open. But she kept silent, waiting for him to wake up fully.
Damien then slowly woke up, his eyes trying to remain shut to block all light in the room. Eventually, his body got the better of him as Damien eventually opened his eyes wide enough to be aware of his surroundings and pulled himself upwards from the sofa. As he did so, the strange rainbow lightning returned after his eye color suddenly turned red for a brief second before the lightning and red eyes vanished. As he pulled himself up, he couldn't help but feel very different. He still felt physically weak, but also felt more powerful than he has ever been. He looked over at Snow weakly and spoke the first thing that came out of his mind. "What happened?"
"To summarize; you almost died, I saved you, then the MOCKINGBIRDs and I carried you here, my house from before the War." Snow told him, which would have caught him off-guard as she wasn't talking before then.
Damien, while still confused and dazed about what was happening, raised his fore hooves like they were his human hands nearby his face. As a light blue aura came out of his horn, his hooves seemed to spark with the same rainbow electricity as before. It felt powerful yet dangerous. Damien looked down at his hooves with a strange expression of awe yet horror as he looked at Snow. "What.....happened to m..." Damien said before he suddenly fainted once more while on the sofa. While stopping himself, the unicorn used his magic to balance himself upright on the sofa.
