Chapter 6
A/N: Erm I'm gonna put a gore warning here... while there is a blanket over the whole thing I want to make it especially apparent here.
even I gagged a bit at certain parts... mainly the dissection bit...
Urp... you'll see.
"Thank you mister…" the pegasus began.
"Whiskey Drops… now Rogue, it ain't like ya, lass, to beat up an innocent buck so tell me, might this fellow have anything ta do with the other city falling out there?" the golden earth pony asked suspiciously. Rogue finished her drink in one gulp and looked at Whiskey with hollow eyes.
"It's a looooonnngggg story Whiskey." Rogue said before she took another drink from him. The owner huffed and went back to running the bar. The pegasus turned to her and smiled gratefully before he took his first drink. He supptered and coughed and choked a bit.
"Wow…" he began with a hoarse voice "They don't make it like that in the clouds." That made several ponies around the pair guffaw in laughter. Whiskey came over with a sparkle cola.
"Here ya go lad, it's more suited for a stallion of your… pallet." He said with a smile. The pegasus took it and had a long drink.
"Mm, carroty… but with a slightly bitter after taste… why's that?"
"Well lad, it's over two hundred years old." That made the pegasus pale "then there's the radiation." That made him push the bottle away "oh it's not enough ta kill ya lad, just put some flesh on yer bones." With that Whiskey walked off to talk with another customer. The pegasus eyed the bottle before he took another cautious sip.
"It's fine Feathers."
"Feathers?" the pegasus asked.
"No, not working for ya? How bout Dash?"
"Good heavens no!" the pegasus cried.
"Gah… Sorin?" Rogue asked. The pegasus frowned.
"Where have I heard that name before…"
"He's a two hundred year old wonder bolt, raised in Clousdale. Anyways, I gotta call you something…"
"Why don't you call me 'Laaadd' like your charming friend over there." Rogue shook her head.
"Nah, Whiskey calls everyone Lad and Lass, I gotta call you something original… too bad there's no cutie mark for me to base a name off… why is that?" the pegasus smiled weakly.
"My destiny wasn't in the clouds…" the pegasus trailed off. Suddenly the door to Whiskey's bar banged open. Gunner of the mare's of war burst in panting.
"Quick Draw had a heart attack!" with that everyone rushed out the door. The flighted ones were there first.
"Out of my way! Out if my way!" the pegasus called before he wormed through the crowd. He checked the prone stallions vitals before he began compression and breaths. Rogue pushed through to.
"What do ya need Doc?" Rogue asked.
"a rainbow defibrillator." The pegasus said.
"Don't have one of those." The pegasus went down from another two breathes.
"Then something to give a strong electric jolt."
"We have the generator panels." Gunner said.
"That'll work!" the pegasus cried before he gave to more breathes. Strike of grey task team returned with those panels. The pegasus took them.
"CLEAR!" with that he placed the panels on Quick Draw's body. With a jolt the old earth pony gasped and began coughing.
"Hey Quick Draw, you alright?" Rogue asked as she lifted the pony over her shoulders.
"Rogue… your friend... just saved my life didn't he…" the old pony asked angrily.
"Yeah he kinda did, sorry Draw." Rogue said before she went into the med hut. She could see that the regular doctor was very busy in surgery with all of his nurses. One of the nurses rushed over with her medical bag.
"Sorry for the delay, I was just about to leave. I'll take him from your hooves." With that Quick Draw was placed on a bed. He began cursing at the nurse, who, after years of working with ex raiders and slavers alike, wasn't really fazed. As Rogue left the med bay she saw that the pegasus was surrounded by hunters thanking him. as Rogue approached the hunter's retreated save whiskey, who shook the pegasus's hoof heartily, before he went back to the bar.
"Hm…" Rogue began standing before the pegasus. "Doc… I like it." The pegasus laughed. They stayed for a few hours before a ragged Quick draw stumbled into the bar.
"Ya alright there Quick?" Rogue asked from her spot across it. The bar was silent, fearing for the mares life. Quick Draw just sneered and demanded a drink for an almost dead buck. Rogue smiled and went back to her drink. Doc shrugged and turned to her again.
"Well, are we going soon?"
"Sure th-" Rogue was cut off by a bang. Quick Draw blew the smoke from his barrel and went back to his drink. Doc and Rogue looked at the hole in Rogue's chest. "Oh." She finished lamely before she fell to the floor.
"GET THAT SORRY SON OF A BITCH OUT OF MY BAR! I DON'T GIVE CELESTIA'S OPEN WET PUSSY IF HE ALMOST DIED! OUT!" Whiskey cried before he dashed to Rogue's side. "Come on lass, speak ta me!" he cried shaking the mare. It was then that she lifted into the air and with a swirl of pink landed on her fours again, before she collapsed to the ground.
"Ugh…." She moaned. The hunter's all looked at each other.
"Has she turned…" Gunner asked worriedly when Rogue din't make another sound.
"No you bitch…" Rogue groaned out. That made the hunter's chuckle. A rad cola was shoved in her face. Doc was pacing, thinking, and mumbling to himself when the others hoisted Rogue onto a chair.
"So… those creatures that you hunt… they're called ghouls?"
"Yeah Doc…" Rogue said quietly.
"And you are one?"
"A special kind of ghoul…" Rogue said warily. "a pink cloud ghoul."
"And that's what causes the resurrection? This special form or radiation?"
"Yeah." Rogue said quietly. A few seconds of quiet led to slight feeling of disappointment before she steeled herself for rejection.
"That is… fascinating!" the pegasus finished, causing Rogue's mouth to drop open and her eyes to widen. "I have to study this! This whole thing is highly intriguing! They don't teach about radiation and it's effect in the clouds… simply astounding…" the pegasus began going on and on about this topic when Whiskey came and set a drink in front of Rogue.
"I don't care that you say you're a bad pony lass," The pair looked at Doc who was using an old pencil stud to write down ideas about radiation. "You have a habit of finding good ones."
"Yeah… I do." Rogue said thinking back to her childhood friends, those hours in the alleys, her first training day, all those times, before the war ended, before her life ended, and her slow death began. With that Rogue moved to sit by Doc and listen to his crazy theories all night.
"I still think this is a terrible idea Doc. Feral ghouls are nasty pieces of work…" Rogue said uncertainly when Doc asked Rogue to catch him a 'live' feral ghoul.
"Oh it'll be fine! It's just one ghoul! Besides! You're a master hunter! How hard could it be?"
"Well," Rogue began, scanning the horizon "First we have to find one… not surprisingly the population of ghouls has dropped as of late. What with everypony trying to kill them." She scanned again, sighing when she saw nothing. "Hey Doc, fly up high and tell me what you see." The pegasus did and pointing to the east.
"There is one about ten miles that way!" Rogue nodded before she began running at an even gate. After a while Doc came down to fly beside her.
"I'm afraid your galloping attracted about half a dozen more ghouls…" Rogue looked back and cursed. With a leap she turned and fired three rounds. Two hit the first ghoul bringing him down. The third blasted a hole through the second ghouls ear. Rogue stood still as she watched with slight mirth as Doc began yelping as the ghouls chased him. They were jumping like fish in a tank trying to catch him while he flew.
"Erm... heh heh… Rogue… I've changed my mind… a dead subject is just fine." Rogue shook her head with a smile before she loaded her gun with a snap.
"Lets begin shall we!" Doc said before he pulled the plastic gloves, lent to him by the medic in the hunter's nook,and released them with a snap. He shoved his gloved hooves into the rotting ghoul corpse and ripped the rib cage apart. "Hmm, most of the organs are gone… this poor fellow has no right lung… I supposed one doesn't need to breath… wait… you breath. I've seen you gasp and pant."
"It's reflex." Rogue said looked around the cottage they had found. They were currently using the kitchen as an autopsy room and the downstairs bathroom as a laboratory.
"Interesting." Doc jotted that down in his book before going back to the corpse. "Male… fully grown… pegasus… you can see the scaring where his wings were torn off… must have been flying away from the city…" Doc sifted through more before he moved to the head. Rogue had been sure to avoid head shots as Doc instructed, now she knew why. Doc pulled part of the skull away and reached in for the brain. He pulled out a shriveled black and red mass before he plopped it in a pot they had found. "Mostly shriveled… some parts appear almost… swollen…" Doc said before he held the brain up and examined it. " This is truly fascinating… the frontal lobe is completely shriveled up! Yet the motor cortex has swelled."
"English doc." Rogue said with a huff as she drank some rad cola. Doc huffed and turned to her.
"The part of the brain that controls thought and speech is shriveled up while the part of the brain that controls movement has swelled… see this red coloration it's not blood but some kind of discharge… most likely some kind of radiation… the brain is still as it was in the old time when this fellow was alive… a sustainable battery only instead of sending signals to the body, while the heart and lungs provide air to make it function, this brain sustains itself by continuously producing radiation." Doc turned then and took a sip of rad away and crunched a few more rad-x tablets. He paused before he looked underneath the brain. "This creature has no sense of time." he said sadly. Rogue looked up then, staring at the pegasus who had grown grim. "And with the occipital lobe so small the only thing this creature knows is light and darkness… endlessly charging without sleep you say? This is why." Doc said gravely holding the brain "Not because they're insane… to them… the war is still going on… to these creatures… a day hasn't passed since the explosion." Rogue stared at the pegasus until she rose and shook her head before she walked away. For two hours she stood in the backyard watching the sky, the faint glow of the sun telling her of passing time. "Rogue! Rogue you must come see this!" Doc called from inside. The mare leapt into action and, upon seeing no danger, went into the kitchen.
"Jeez Doc, you scarred me half to death!" she griped.
"Well you already are dead, wont do much good! Look at this!" he cried excitedly. "This is a piece of the brain I took away to examine the inner brain, You should know that the instinct part of the brain has completely taken over the inner brain, anyways I accidentally spilled a bit of my rad away on the brain and look!" Rouge stared down at the brain. What was once a blackish muck was now more dark grey muck.
"Erm yeah, it's a two hundred year old brain… hooray." She said with sarcastic enthusiasm. Doc shook his head.
"No, it's a two hundred year old HEALTHY brain. That of a thirty seven year old pegasus stallion."
"What do you mean healthy?" Rogue asked in confusion.
"The rad away cured the brains radiation… true the swelling is still there, but it looks to be receding…" he looked down at the ghoul corpse. "All the ghouls need to be released from a feral existence is a rad away bath." Then Doc shook his head "At least in theory… I could be wrong…"
"I don't think you understand how ghouls work Doc…" Rogue said gravely.
"What do you mean?" Doc asked with a gnawing disappointment.
"If a ghoul losses all of it's radiation, it dies… your holding a piece of DEAD healthy brain Doc…" the pegasus's ears drooped in disappointment. "no matter what you do there isn't anything that can bring back the too far gone Doc…" the Doc turned back to the corpse sadly, then he gasped and turned back to Rogue.
"But what about pink cloud radiation! Your come back when you die, as long as your head isn't struck! Does that effect the rate the ghouls become feral?" he asked excitedly. Rogue stared at the Doc for a few seconds before she sighed.
"Doc… you know when we first met… when I was charging with those ghouls… and you shot at me?" the pegasus nodded with confusion in his face. "If you hadn't raised your gun… if you hadn't tried to shoot me… I was almost gone Doc… I slipped away…" the Doc was staring at her in shock. He removed his glasses and sighed.
"So… the radiation simply preservers the body, not the mind… while fascinating it is also highly disappointing…" he sighed before he went to lift the body. "help me dump this will you, it's staring to stink up this place." Together Doc and Rogue brought the body outside. Doc insisted they bury the body. "He may have died many years ago and gone feral but he deserves a proper burial." Doc demanded. Together the pair dug a hole and buried the body up. "Rest in peace my friend." Doc mumbled before he returned back inside. He took up some buff biceps cleaner ('heck YEEEAHHHH It'll clean stuff!') and began scrubbing the table. Soon it was clean of any blood and he pulled off his gloves. "It's times like this that I despise the war…"
"You and me both Doc… I assume all your medical training comes from the factory?"
"I was chief medical officer…" the pegasus confirmed. There was a silence from a while as Doc sipped some rad away. After a while he paused… and looked at the bottle.
"wait a minute… perhaps… if it were some stronger form of radiation… a pink vapor… wait! Rogue! open your mouth!"
"Hey what!" Rogue cried as Doc pried her jaws apart.
"Your teeth are brown! But they appear strong… your guns are weak but your teeth… this is dental fluorosis… do your joints stiffen up often?"
"Mhphms." Rogue moaned angrily.
"Oh right!" the Doc released her mouth. She licked her palette and grimaced.
"Dirty hooves, no thank you, and no, I don't get weak joints."
"How did you become a ghoul exactly?" Rogue stared at the Doc as he pulled out his notebook and jotted down some notes.
"I got a blast back face full of pink cloud." She grumbled.
"And that killed you instantly?" he was still writing.
"Took about three seconds."
"I knew it." He mumbled. "Wait… iodine is weaker then uranium and plutonium… in order from the radioactivity to be stronger… but…" that's when Doc gasped.
"What is it doc? And try to speak English."
"I know what the pink cloud was made of." The Doc said with wide eyes. Rogue couldn't believe her ears.
"So, what's it made of?" Rogue asked as she followed the Doc into the bathroom. He had a few chems he was in the middle of deconstructing as well as some rad cola and rad away.
"It's a very rare metal halogen, named astatine. It has an exceptionally small half life, meaning it breaks down exceptionally quickly, and gives off massive amounts of heat… you have burn scars, your flesh is discolored, vaguely, from them that's how I knew. It seems the zebra found a way to control the decay and forced it into a container with another halogen, fluoride. It's a highly reactive acid. put them together and all that's needed is a fuse… the only thing is that the gas would only have remained for six to twelve days not two hundred years…"
"That can't be right then Doc… the gas made Canterlot near inaccessible… the only way that could work…"
"Is if it was continuously being produced…"
"You're saying they were controlling the reaction? It would have fallen apart by now Doc, there are hardly any traditionalist zebra left in the wasteland." The Doc paused until his eyes lit up with a realization.
"The discharge! In the brain of the ghoul there was discharge! That would continuously be produced as long as the radiation levels remained intact… that discharge was similar to your saliva I noticed… you exhale microscopic amounts of radiation each breath."
"So, how does that help, I'd have to be like… a thousand times my size to exhale enough radiation to created the pink cloud… wait… you don't mean…"
"A dragon." Doc said with a nod. Rogue was flabbergasted. "They are known to hibernate for hundreds of years, and they often snore, exhaling…"
"Smoke." Rogue mumbled in shock "The pink cloud was caused by an irradiated dragon who was snoring?!" Doc nodded.
"Sleeping in the bowels of the city, probably had been for millennium. The zebra knew, don't ask me how, and set off a radioactive reaction in the dragon's chamber. Dragons are known to have impressive resistance due to their scales. It likely felt naught but a an itch in it's sleep when the radiation set in and voila!"
"A pink cloud machine." Rogue mumbled quietly, reminiscing about that day. She'd had another fight with her father about the war, her mother had wished her a good day and told her to stay away from tuna. Circuit wasn't talking to her and Sleazy was nowhere to be found. She left the city after the screening and walked down to her station where she reported to commander Pokey Pierce.
"Hello? Rogue… I know this news must have shocked you…" Rouge shook her head.
"Sorry just thinking back… it had been such a normal day…" Doc was looking at her forlornly.
"I can't imagine what it must have been like… waking up alive… dying by midday…" Rogue didn't say anything, just let her thoughts swirl light the pink she remembered so well.
"Doc, I'm telling you, don't get your hopes up… for all we know the dragon left when the city was shot down… I still think you're insane." Rogue said as she followed the pegasus. Rogue had laughed out loud when Doc asked her to take him to the wreckage of Canterlot, until she realized he wasn't joking, then she got annoyed. "What is it with you and doing dangerous things?"
"For the sake of science my dear friend, science." Doc replied before he took another drink of sparkle cola. He was addicted to the stuff, it was nothing like he'd ever tasted before.
"Gods, of all the things you could be why'd it have to be a doctor… I hate doctors." Rogue said angrily. Doc frowned.
"Why ever?" Rogue didn't reply for a long time but after a while she realized she might as well tell someone about then…
"My father," she began quietly. "he was a doctor… an optometrist." Rogue said with a hitch. "He spent my whole life trying to… fix… my eyes… never asking me if I wanted them to be fixed… they… helped… with the war, being able to see far away, I was a good sniper… the best… so commander Steel Hooves said." Rogue swallowed and shook her head. "We used to fight… all the time…"
"They're my eyes dad!" "I don't want you getting hurt with this war! Besides! They'll never heal if you strain them!"
"It never stopped… we fought again… before I left that day… the last words I said to him…"
"you're a coward and weakling and I hate you!"
"They weren't kind ones…" Rogue finished with a weak voice. Doc placed a hoof on her shoulder.
"I never had the joy of a family… while you might have fought with your father I'm sure there were times you remember that were good." Rogue stared at him as he flew onward.
"Look at me daddy!" "oh no! My little Rogue has been captured by aliens! I suppose I'll have to TICKLE TORTURE THEM FOR ANSWERS!" "No! Ha ha he he! Daddy! Stop it! It's me!" "There's my little Rogue…"
Rogue felt a tear slid down her check and wiped it away, but she was smiling a little.
"I love you Rogue." "I love you too daddy."
"There it is, home sweet bloody home." Rogue said as the crested over a hill over looking the wreckage of Canterlot as well as the zebra town Rogue had tried to slaughter all those years ago, aptly called by the locals today, pink water ridge. The pair could see that, just as Doc had suspected, the pink cloud was mostly gone. "No dragon bones… I told you so." Rogue said before she divested her packs and armor. After unraveling her scarf and pulling her metal helmet brace off she looked at the Doc, who was staring at her in confusion.
"Urm… are you going for a swim?" he asked. Rogue shook her head.
"The pink cloud fuses clothing to your skin, as well as anything else you might be holding, unicorns have the easiest time in these places… also, keep an eye out for old technology, those corrupted frequencies become death traps really quickly. Don't fall asleep, you won't wake up." With that Doc began removing his glasses and lab coat. afterwards he sighed.
"Rogue I have an unfortunate piece of news I should have shared, I would have had I known," he turned to the mare and squinted. "I'm afraid I can barely make you out." Rogue stared at him
"You're blind?!"
"Severely near sighted… I can just see my hoof in front of my face… I can of course make out shapes but…"
"Fuck." Rogue huffed.
"Exactly." Doc said with a sigh. He took a tentative step forward. "For science." he mumbled before he began to carefully make his way into the crumbled city. As they approached Rogue could see the crumbled remains of the gate house…
Foals laughing. Circuit and Sleazy running. Laughing. "Come on Rogue!" the pair disappear through the gate.
Rogue took a deep breath and exhaled.
"I hate ghosts." She mumbled. Doc almost ran into a wall and Rogue pulled him away, holding his shoulder. "You're a loose cannon doc."
"Just find a puddle with a significant amount of pink radiation, I should be able to siphon it." And find a puddle they did. As Doc crouched down to begin his work Rogue watched the area. Suddenly more ghost arose.
The streets bustling. Suddenly shouting. "Get back here you thugs!" Teens. Sleazy Slick, Rogue Ranger, and Circuit Board running from a cop. Rogue stops around a corner. The cop runs past. She goes back around the corner and fires a slingshot, hitting the cop smack dab in the middle of the head, only to be covered by a shadow. "That's a mighty fine eye ya got there, sugarcube."
"Rogue!" the mare snapped out of her stupor to see that Doc was being sniffed at by two pink ghouls. She ran at them with intent of ripping their heads off with her bare hooves when a shotgun was fired, followed by the sound of a long low whistle.
"Lulu! Tia! Down!" called an adolescent male voice. As the ghouls turned away and Rogue could see that they didn't have bottom jaws. They appeared quite docile, almost like pets. Suddenly a shadow fell over her, just like that time all those years ago. She looked up and for second, she could see that mare again, looking down at her with a smirk, before the image blurred and the real pony stood before her. A young unicorn stallion. He had a steel grey coat and black and blue spiky hair. His eyes were blue too, but almost teal, like the ocean. Rogue glared at him in warning as the ghouls shuffled over to his side.
A/N: Alright I admit it,
This new guy may be a TEENSY TINY, EVER SO SLIGHTLY, BIT based off of michone from the walking dead.
I couldn't help it.
Ghouls are a major part of the story.
They're kinda like zombies...
PET GHOULS!
Anyways I'm sure people are wondering what the hell is with Rogue's emotions bouncing back and forth between loving her dad and not loving him.
I wan't to stress something.
Earlier I wrote that she had a great childhood.
And she did. when Rogue was young her parents loved her very dearly and cared for her much.
But like all parents, as Rogue grew her parents started having expectations for her, and those expectations that our families give us sometimes are hard to live up to. Rogue's father was very controlling, he believed that he knew what was best for Rogue, like all parents. And like all young adults Rogue rebelled against this. Rogue was a young adult when she died, about 21 years old. So she was carrying all that baggage around for two hundred years. She forgot one fundamental law about parents.
While it might seem that they're out to get you, parents do the things they do because they love you and they want you to be safe.
As for the issues with Rogue's mother, they're touched on more in part 3 so I'll stick to this last part.
Rogue is free to feel anyway she wants about her parents, and it is true that her father is slightly at fault as we'll see in part three, so before you start calling me out on contradictions light Phoenix Wright, remember this-
Rogue is a two hundred year old teenager, you can complain all you want, she'll just bitch and complain right back. :p