One Shot: Raider Hunting

Author’s Notes:

This is a standalone one-shot companion to Medicine & Mail. It takes place chronologically along side chapter three.

This is an incredibly grimdark story, and shows the Wasteland in all of its utterly immoral depravity. Events are not washed over, and the gritty, violent and sexual content is excessively detailed in the dark showing of what they really are. Not for the squeamish or those offended by any of the above content.

Rating: Mature

Contains: Blood; Drug use; Extreme gore (decapitation, defecation, disfigurement, dismemberment, disembowelment); Strong language; Explicit rape (ejaculation, foal-rape); Explicit sexual content (clop, ejaculation); Torture; Extreme violence.

Genres: Action, Clop, Dark

Tales of the Marejave

Raider Hunting

“You might not want to hear this, fellow desert dwellers,

But I’ve got grim news to share with you today.

Raiders are on the move, and nopony is safe.” — The Signal

Gunfire sounded through the broken windows and the cracks of the once-stucco building. The train-like roar of Carrier’s minigun rattled the surroundings from outside the room, and shook dust from the rotting wooden rafters. Screams of pain and ravenous insanity were stifled.

Hunter pressed forward, stepping over the bloodied and tattered remains of the two raiders that he fell moments prior. A single shot each with Executioner, his favorite high-caliber magnum, had silenced the two, leaving hoof-sized holes where their faces had been.

The door across the room led to a hallway filled with the half-collapsed roof. Hunter carefully made his way over the uneven piles of stucco, wood, and decades of dirt and grime. He peered into a room to his left, but it was empty of any movement. He ignored the blood-smeared wall, and the paintings of crude, lascivious scenes that looked to have been drawn by a child. In the last five years of raider hunting, and even in the unfortunate times prior to that when he was forced into such abodes, he’d become accustomed to seeing such gruesome scenes. Frankly, the pornographic material painted across the room was tame compared to what most raiders did with their victims.

The door across from that room had fallen into decay, and the room beyond almost entirely missing. Rocks from the cliff the small settlement was nestled against had collapsed into the space. Hopefully, Hunter thought, it crushed some of these fuckers along with the room.

Another burst of Carrier’s minigun from within a building aside his reminded him to push forward. While the rest of his small group took to the exterior of the settlement and guided every raider they could find toward a suitable chokepoint, ideal for heavy weapons fire and a bloody mess, he needed to flush them from the buildings. Or finish them off himself. Most of them, after all, were too oblivious to the events outside, or just too stupid, to join of their own will. Never for lack of fear, however. Raiders didn’t seem to know what that was. Even overwhelmed by a vastly superior force, they’d continue to rush forward, screaming like they were invincible.

As always, a sharp blade or an aimed weapon saw the end of that folly.

The end of the hall split, with one path leading to what once was stairs but now was only collection of collapsed building materials that opened up to the Marejave. Hunter turned the other way and slowly creaked open the door.

From the last half hour of fighting with the raiders and crawling through the houses, Hunter’s sense of smell had become accustomed to the heavy scent of blood, the rotting stench of decaying flesh, and pungent stench of sex, but his nose was assaulted by a new wave of each as the door swung inward.

Three raiders were huddled about a smaller figure, and the telltale squelching and slapping of wet flesh mingled with the heavy stench of ejaculate and urine told Hunter immediately what was happening. The heavy grunts and screams of vulgar desire hit his ears, and his anger rose.

He reminded himself to act calmly, rationally, and not give in to that anger. He apologized to the poor victim beneath the thrusting bodies, but if either he or the pony beneath the three had a chance at living, he’d have to act properly. He stepped forward quietly, taking careful mind to avoid the pony bones that littered the floor amongst the refuse and dull blades. He angled his position for a quick, clean shot, and leveled Executioner up as a proper view came around.

The first stallion continued violently thrusting his engorged cock down the tiny filly’s throat, forcing a visible bulge each time he lunged his oversized penis down past her small mouth, choking her. He reared back and was squealing in pleasure, his cum spurting deep down her throat, and pouring from her mouth around the massive erection that filled more than her child mouth could handle. The first shot of Executioner rang out, and his head liquefied. The sheer power of the gun filled the room with the mask-wearing rapist’s brains, bone, and bits of flesh. Blood fountained from the body as he fell over, and streams of thick cum spurted into the air wildly from the spit and snot covered penis as his body shuddered in a quick death.

A second shot immediately after saw the furthest of the three missing his jaw. He had been using a dull knife to saw away the filly’s ear, leaving a stream of blood down the side of her head and neck. Blood flowed quickly from the raider’s wound as the pock-faced torturer tipped back and gurgled a scream of pain.

The third raider dismounted from the filly, letting loose from her marehood a thick gush of blood and semen, and let out a squeal of delight. Hunter spun the barrel of his magnum around at the lunging raider, in his pony-bone mask, with his fetish of shriveled and leathered colt penises hung around his neck, and his thick, blood-covered cock erect with a new sense of pleasure and visceral delight. A third shot from Executioner, and the body fell to the floor in two pieces. The throat and neck of the rapist sprayed across the ceiling and floor. The two pieces splattered against the ground and a massive pool of his blood ejected itself rapidly from the gaping wound that was once his throat.

Hunter spit and kicked the head of the decapitated pony away, then stepped through the river of blood mired with thick ejaculate toward the battered and bloody filly.

She was malnourished, having apparently not eaten in days, perhaps weeks, but her stomach was engorged. Veins ran thick over the bloated belly. Her ribs were visible, along with the splotchy skin under the few pieces of her coat that was left intact. She had collapsed on the ground when the raiders no longer supported her weight, and Hunter could easily see why. Her knees were swollen and grossly disfigured. Since she wasn’t chained up like most of their toys were, he figured they crippled her just enough so she couldn’t get away.

The pain she felt when forced to stand on shattered and disfigured knees while they raped her must have been immense. Hunter kneeled down beside her.

The filly’s mane was tattered and most of it ripped out, leaving infected blotches behind. She sniffled and moaned in quiet pain. Her eyes were caked with dirt and she emanated a smell of infection and a sickeningly thick stench of semen.

“Hey now,” Hunter said to her. “It’s okay. The bad guys are gone now.”

The child sobbed, and looked at him, peering through yellowed slants for eyes at Hunter. “Gone?” Her voice was thick and scratchy. The word wasn’t enunciated.

“Yes, they’re gone. They can’t hurt you anymore. I’m Hunter. What’s your name?”

“I…”

Hunter pulled the bandana he wrapped around his face, and splashed some of his canteen’s water on it. Dabbing her eyes gently, wiping caked mud and blood from her face, he spoke softly. “It’s okay, don’t worry about it right now. My friends and I will help you. Now, I need to know—are there any other young fillies or colts around? Did you see anyone else here?”

She looked at him and slowly mouthed some words. Hunter poured some of his water over her lips, and she hacked and spit back, more blood than water. The second time, she swallowed some. “In buh room,” she told him, speaking through a mouth with few teeth, trying to form words with no tongue, “’Ere are my fwien’s.” She hacked and spit, and a thick blot of blood splattered out.

“I understand,” he patted her softly. He rose to his hooves, and began reloading Executioner. “Now, listen, I’m going to have to leave you for just a moment, but I’ll be back, I promise.” The pistol reloaded, he set it back in its holster, keeping the strap loose. He lifted the filly gently, grimacing at how light and bloated she was, and set her down in the hallway just outside the gore and sex-filled room.

“It might get kind of noisy around, but don’t you worry. You’re safe now. You’ll be fine.” He half-said the words to assure himself. She was in a terrible state, and obviously very close to death. He hoped she was strong enough to last. She has to be, after all the hell she’s gone through, he told himself.

He gently closed the door behind him, but only out of appearance did he seem calm. Underneath, his rage at her treatment, and the state of the settlement, had nearly reached a tipping point. It took conscious effort on his part not to rush through the decrepit abode, venting his fury on every corpse eating, mask wearing, filly-raping raider in the desert, starting here. He had been down that road once before, and the painful memories of the massacre he left behind was all that kept him in check.

He pushed through the room, spitting curses at the still-warm bodies of the rapists. He stepped through blood and splashed in deeper puddles of it. Flesh splished under his hooves, and the odor of blood and streams of sperm pushed him further into his rage. They will pay. They will all pay. Every fucking, raping cannibal will pay, he thought to himself.

He glared at the second raider he shot, who pulled himself slowly across the floor, leaving a wide streak of his blood behind him. Executioner fired once, and the monster fell over, stilled.

Hunter reared up and smashed the door ahead, sending splinters into the empty space. Cages decorated the wall of the small kitchen area, half-rusted and covered in jagged spikes of metal and sharpened bone. Most were filled with half-decayed bodies, but two held newly-dead colts. Both had been tortured severely and were malnourished. Visible wounds, scars, and holes proliferated their bodies. What remained of their coats was matted and covered in feces, pus, and dried semen.

He pressed on, determined more than before to see to the end of every despicable monster that did this. They couldn’t even be considered ponies anymore. They were monsters. Every. One.

His group came to this raider hole, with at least some intention of possible rehabilitation for those that were possibly new, or not so far gone. Hunter believed this was the proper way. But in the last minute, his mind had changed. There would be no saving any of these creatures.

Around the corner, over the worn and stained tile, a long room with a tattered roof covered several more cages. Each was filled with bones, which mirrored the decorations over the walls. The windows had been painted over in a thick, syrupy red, and the blood had been used to draw shapes around the bone designs.

Just as Hunter stepped into the room, a door ahead burst wide. Much of the wall came with it, and one of the rafters fell. Screams and squawks came from the dust cloud.

A glint of a long, thick metal barrel and loud screech notified Hunter that tussling within the cloud with some unseen opponent was Carrier. The griffin darted out from the dust, and leveled her gun at it. The minigun roared to life. Bullet fire lit the room in a strong orange glow. The wall opposite the griffin was torn to shreds. Holes hoof sized and larger were left from the ferocious weapon and it emptied dozens, then hundreds of rounds into the space in seconds.

When Carrier released the trigger and the dust settled, the griffin’s target had been torn to shreds. The massive bulk swelled in fits of death, and the once-covered muscles and bones glistened in the morning light. Even with most of its body ripped away a chunk at a time, leaving a filthy slab of meat and splintered bones, the pony appeared massive.

The body shuddered once more, sauntered forward on two and one-partial limbs, then fell from the rubble. Entrails and organs flopped from the beast and sickly fluids spread under the body.

“Carrier!” Hunter called, breaking the griffin from her momentary daze. “Are you okay?”

“Oh. Hunter. Yeah,” she replied, lifting up one badly cut arm and inspecting her old mercenary armor for damage. “That fucker was a beast, though. Think his mom fucked a minotaur or something. Never seen an earth pony that fuckin’ big before.”

Hunter stepped up onto the rubble of the wall that was now bullet-ridden. Peering out into the open space of the settlement, he asked, “Is that all of them?”

“That little piece of shit,” Carrier said, pointing a bloodied talon at a small shack built against the cliff, “Is where some of these fuckers ran to. Might be guns, or might be they’re holdin’ ponies there, and in all the excitement, found themselves overcome by a need t’ fuck somethin’. You know how they get their priorities all fucked.”

Hunter glared back at the hulking carcass of the earth pony, and spit. “Well, I for one hope there are a few more. Ex and I need a few targets. I’ll check it out. There’s a seriously hurt filly in the hallway through this room. Get her to Warming Hoof right away, then bandage that arm.”

He bounded off, galloping to the shack, ignoring the complaints of his griffin friend behind him. He lunged at the door and burst through the rotten wood, tumbling into the room.

A squeal of excitement from just in front of him notified him of the presence of the raider through the kicked up dust. The raider, with his motted blue coat and pony-skull barding, bucked the colt he was dragging, and lunged at Hunter with his point-sharpened teeth bared through a maniacal grin.

Hunter rolled to the side dodging the raider, and slipped out his spear-bladed knife. He dashed forward and plunged the blade into the side of the recovering raider. The blade pushed through flesh and muscle to the hilt between some ribs. Hunter twisted the serrated blade, and kicked off of the raider, creating a deep gash along his side. The raider screamed in pain and tumbled over, then was silenced as Hunter sunk the blade into his throat.

Hunter ripped the blade from the wound, and a spray of blood doused the raider’s jaw. His eyes were wide, and wild, and he kicked and thrashed. Hunter just watched as the raider expired quickly, then turned and knelt near the colt. “My friends are outside,” he told him, “So just go to them. We’ll help you. These monsters won’t touch you ever again.”

The frightened child dashed away, tears in his eyes, through the doorway and into the daylight.

Hunter glanced about the room, and heard shuffling and muffled screams in a room beyond a busted archway. He sheathed his blade and drew Executioner, then stepped in.

The first raider hunched over a mare, forcing his weight on her and ferociously shoving his erection into her. Hunter aimed carefully and fired. The bone mask on the raider served little protection and shattered, along with most of the rapist’s head.

He turned to a second raider, and fired. The bullet ripped through the pony’s chest and exited through a massive hole out of his side, pulling with it guts and a spray of blood. The raider dropped the strip of pony flesh from his mouth and gurgled as blood forced its way through his throat and sprayed in a fine mist about his face. He fell with a sickly splash into his own internal organs and his body involuntarily urinated.

Hunter dashed through the room, but no other exits were visible, and other than the mare, no living ponies were found.

The mare pulled herself from under the body of the dead raider that collapsed on her, and bucked at him as she crawled away. The dead stallion’s still-bulging penis flopped to the ground. She turned on the body and reared up. She screamed, and struck the flesh with all of her might, then again, and again, striking her worn hooves against any flesh she could. The fleshy extremity was mangled and torn into pieces.

Finally, she collapsed, and sobbed loudly. Hunter knelt beside her, Executioner holstered. “It’s alright,” he told her, “You’re safe now.”

After a few kind words and a gentle smile, the mare followed her dusty savior out from the shack. A crowd had formed at the center of the open courtyard, flanked by Hunter’s friends and colleagues, Carrier, and the bloodied, muscular minotaur, Alloy. The rest of the small band’s attack force regrouped together and were giving accounts of the areas they had secured, and the targets they’d eliminated.

The mare rushed toward the throng as they neared, crying. She nearly tackled the colt that Hunter had ushered out of the small shack moments before, and the two sobbed loudly in a deep embrace.

The mercenary group all quieted and held their tongues, letting the tear-drenched reunion between mother and son speak to them.

From beyond the crowd, a shrill laugh erupted, followed by another and a deeper, thicker chortle. Hunter stepped around the crowd and spotted three raiders tied tightly together. They were beaten, bruised, and bloodied. Their coats were all painted with crude depictions of erect penises and severed heads. Their pupils were dots in their yellowed eyes, and the few teeth that remained, were rotten and shaved to a point.

“Ain’t that fuckin’ sweet!” One yelled, breaking into a fit of laughter.

“Come on, bitch! Cunt! Slut! Come here, ah’ll give ya somethin’ to cry about!” roared the fat one.

“My cock’ll tear your cunt-pussy to shreds! Then I’ll cut you, and I’ll fuck those holes!”

They all cried in laughter and shook against each other in their reverie. Hunter glared at them, but it was a scene he’d seen before. The group meant to take them back to town, to put them through years of forced rehabilitation, and try to turn their warped minds into normal, stable pony minds, with a goal and a new purpose in life.

Hunter stifled his desire to see them dead, and walked around the group, finding Warming Hoof shaking his head over the bloated filly. “Doc?”

“Ah, Hunter,” the old stallion sighed. His face was grim, and he shook his head, swaying his great white beard. “Looks like she an’ her foal didn’t make it.”

Her foal? Hunter stared at the expired filly before him. She was far too young to bear properly. She may have just reached her first cycle, he figured, but she was still several years from a proper age. He had just assumed the bloat was from starvation and infection.

Hunter’s anger was lit anew, fueled by a deep regret at not getting there sooner, not being able to help one little filly, when she was just right there.

He stomped his way back to the jeering raiders.

“Better idea!” One screamed. “Brin’ th’ little’un here! Ah wanna fuck him!”

Hunter drew Executioner, and aimed it square at the fat one’s head.

“Whoa, Hunter! Don’t!” Carrier squawked.

Hunter didn’t listen, and squeezed the firing bit. Even before the explosion of sound faded, the raider was dead, his head split in two. Hunter squeezed again. And again.

The three bodies rolled over. The sound of the gunshots and their echoes faded from the settlement, and all was silent, but for the splashing of blood and sloughing of gore at Hunter’s hooves.

“Hunter! Damn it!” Alloy roared. The minotaur grabbed Hunter by his jacket and hoisted the earth pony effortlessly several feet above the ground. “We were gonna rehabilitate them! You know that! They’re still ponies, damn it!”

Hunter hissed, “Not these ones.”

Alloy dropped him and snorted.

Hunter stared at the crowd of his little makeshift mercenary group. They were all brought together, for the single purpose of clearing away these shithole villages, and part of their agreement was the possible rehabilitation of raiders. Death vastly outnumbered growth in the Wasteland, and they all agreed that it could be possible, with the right treatment, and a proper goal, that even raiders who’d all but given up their sanity, could find value in living a decent, normal life. And dozens of such that went around their home now had proven the possibility of it.

Hunter had just spat in the face of nearly everyone there by mercilessly murdering the three raiders. He spoke, his tone even, and calm. “We all know that almost everyone can be righted. But not these ones. You all saw it. We’ve tried to help ones as far gone as these before, and everyone here knows how that ended.”

He left the last sentence hanging for a long while. He watched the expressions of the crowd turn from steeled disappointment to unease and sorrow as they recalled the event he inferred to, of the four raiders that resisted and failed to be treated.

Hunter spoke up again, breaking the silence. “We shall not endanger our friends, and our family, when the truth is so obvious.”

He motioned to the mare and her child, still in an embrace, huddled at the far side behind the crowd. “We have one family saved, today. That is one more family than what the Wasteland would have had we not acted.”

He met the gaze of several of his followers as they nodded. “And we have saved countless others by ridding our home of these monsters. Now,” he said, gazing up into the early-afternoon sunlight, “Let’s clear this place, and go home.”

The trek back to Paint was long, and thoughts amongst the team were heavy, laden with the discoveries made at the end of the skirmish, and the hefty bags of newly-machined firearms. Five more fillies were added to their short list of saved, three heavy with pregnancy in a time in their life too young to bear properly. They were forced heavy doses of hormonal chems to spur on the birthing process, and one admitted to having already failed to deliver twice in her young existence.

Alloy had motioned Hunter into a room deeper in that last shack, and politely requested only his company, and Carrier’s. The room he kept from everyone else would settle in Hunter’s memories and remind him of the foulest aspects of the Wasteland. Where the first room had been a makeshift breeding pit, with hormone-increasing chems, and others designed to allow the raiders to fuck the children as long as they pleased, the room beyond was a ritual den of cannibalistic monstrosity.

Fresh corpses were torn into pieces, their limbs splayed out on the wall fashioned into crude mockeries of the bodies they once comprised. Bones were pulled from the limbs and pressed into the eye sockets. Coats and skin were flayed and hung from hooks in the ceiling. Torture devices, some still covered in young bodies, lined the walls beneath the scraps of corpses. Everything in the room was covered in gore, and all led to an altar in the center. It was built of pony heads. Holes were carved in them with blunt instruments, and candles pressed into the grey matter beneath the bone. The faces were twisted in pain and agony, likely as a result of the surgery that took place while they still breathed.

Alloy stayed silent while Hunter surveyed the room, but Carrier bristled, and her feathers stood on end from head to tail. “I see why you shot those fuckers,” she hissed.

Hunter just shook his head. This wasn’t why, but had he seen this first, he’d probably have used his knife instead of Executioner, letting them feel a portion of the pain they were partly responsible for forcing onto foals. “This place is a travesty to all ponykind, and to everything that holds a memory of Equestria.” With that, he started to drag portions of split rafters into a pile, and the two followed suit, splitting the thick chunks of wood into smaller portions.

An hour later, they left the room, and with the rest of the group, watched as the ritual room, its housing building, and several of the neighboring abodes burned. A stiff wind carried the fire from one building to the next, and when the group left, most of the town had caught ablaze and a thick black smoke rose high into the sky.

As the group neared the fort-city, spirits began to brighten. Many mercenaries began telling cheery tales of the town, and others yearned for the touch of their wives or the sight of their children. Warming Hoof kept to the silent group of fillies near the rear of the group, and spoke soft tales of the gentle, caring nature of the town that lie beneath the fortified exterior that they would soon be glad to call home.

The front gate’s spark-battery generators hummed to life. The thick chain slowly became taut, and the massive, steel-barred gate rose, allowing the weary hunters through. Beyond the entryway, hundreds of townsfolk carried on with their daily lives, giving sad but understanding looks to the team. Hunter’s team of so-called “justice enforcers” was known throughout the town, in contradictorily good and equally bad terms, and they were not the only such group. Paint housed several groups with similar ideology that united in the singular idea of the protection of the town, its people, and the children, but each leader and team varied in its execution. Hunter’s was just the largest.

The group met around a busted stone fountain, the once life-giving water now turned to dust in the well beneath it, and disbanded for the evening. “To your homes, to your children, and to the warm embrace of safety,” Hunter had told them.

He, along with Carrier, and Alloy, made their way to the gift shop that served as the team’s temporary headquarters. Temporary since the founding of the group two years prior, and none of the leaders of the team had any desire to change it. It had become a second home to each of them, bringing them out of the world of violence into one as detached to it as could be.

Knick-knacks filled the dusty, tin shelves, and busted souvenirs of Old Equestria, before the war, before the bombs, and before raiders, filled every empty space. The shop never sold anything, and put no price tags on any object. It just served as a museum for the town, and travelers that traded their seemingly-worthless antiques somewhere in town would inevitably later find that it had been given a permanent place of display in Remembrance.

Monsoon stepped through the saloon panels that separated the shop from her living space. Her deep blue coat was dusty from a day of working in the desert air, and the waves of her thick azure hair bounced excitedly as she walked. “Welcome to the last spot of Old Equ—” she began, cutting herself short when she finally opened her eyes and saw Hunter and the two other leaders. Her face warmed into a wide grin, but her eyes slowly looked over the bloody hunters.

“Survivors?”

Hunter nodded, and stepped forward, making his way around the counter. “Seven, mostly children,” he told her. He smiled as he walked past, and through the doors to the back rooms.

Carrier let out a deep sigh, and followed Hunter slowly. “It’s a good afternoon, Monsoon,” she said down to the mare as she passed. Alloy patted Monsoon’s head gently as he crouched through the doorway.

Hunter had removed the holster and jacket that he took on his trips, and shook dust and ash from his deep brown coat. Executioner was hung in the harness on a peg board, but Hunter removed his knife and placed the blade with its dried blood streaks onto the table.

Monsoon entered the room a moment later, after Carrier had dropped the minigun into its dedicated spot at the far end of the room and Alloy took a seat at the large wooden table. She set a tray she had been carrying at Carrier’s talons, and wrung warm water from a rag on it. Carrier hissed as Monsoon ran the rough rag along her cut feathers and sliced skin.

“What’ll we tell Errant, Hunter?” Alloy leaned back in his chair, and crossed his massive arms over his equally-sized chest.

“Her information wasn’t wrong,” Hunter replied, wiping his blade with a rough pad. “But I think there’s more going on than they know right now. We’ll need to tell her about their movements.”

Alloy lifted one of the sacks of firearms the team had secured at the settlement, and emptied it across the table. Several rifles, and many more pistols clattered over the surface. Most still had the glisten of a newly-machined weapon, and appeared to have never been fired. “Looks like they’re getting something from someone we don’t know about.”

Carrier hissed from the pain of the healing gel Monsoon applied to her arm’s gash, but spoke up, “I doubt she don’t know. Her an’ her bearded mate, they been busy scoutin’ something out west. Prob’ly she’ll tell us somethin’ in the next Signal.”

Hunter nodded, running his blade across a whet stone methodically. “We’ll figure that out later, when we have more information. For now, you both smell like hell.”

Alloy snorted a chuckle. “Like you’re any better, little pony.”

Monsoon flopped a warm wet rag over Alloy’s horns. It stuck to the minotaur’s brow with a thick swop. “You’re all going to make my shop smell like blood and raiders. Have your meeting later!”

The three hunters grinned, and Carrier and Alloy made to leave. Hunter slipped the knife back into its sheath on his belt, and nodded to Monsoon as he walked through to her personal room. A hot basin of water awaited him. Not the cleanest water, in both senses, but it would serve to wipe the raider blood from his body. He’d likely have to resort to a tall glass of Sky Bourbon or Black Pony Whiskey to rid his mind of the rest of the raider activity.

As he stared at the water, lost in his thoughts, Monsoon walked in, and took a soaked cloth from the basin in her mouth. The earth pony mare gently scrubbed the streaks of clotted blood and matted dirt from Hunter. With each rinse of the cloth, the basin’s water muddied. She wiped the sweat and the gore from him silently, and he stood stoic, saying his private prayers to the long-dead goddesses, watching in painful concentration his memories of the day, oblivious to Monsoon’s touch.

Finally, Monsoon dropped the cloth the last time, and spoke up, “Seven children?”

Hunter slowly woke from his daze, and shook his head. “Six children, and one mother.”

“Oh,” Monsoon said, delighted. “It’s so nice to do good for the young ones. Though, I know it’ll be hard for them to adjust. Who knows how long they were there, or what they went through.”

“I know,” Hunter said, solemnly. “I know what they went through. It was horrible, Monsoon.” His voice was becoming increasingly dour, and his face strained into a pained expression. “We’d seen Corpse Eater towns before, and all the nasty, horrible things they did to other ponies, and to colts and fillies alike, but this was on a whole different level.”

Monsoon nuzzled up close to Hunter, and stroked his short beige mane gently.

The tenseness of his shoulders dropped with her touch, and he leaned into her. “Those ponies, I couldn’t…they weren’t even ponies anymore,” he lamented.

He stifled a surging sadness, and clenched his jaw as his anger rose, thinking of the next part of his admission. “They couldn’t be fixed. None of them. I shot them. They were tied up. Defenseless. They just sat there, ranting and reveling in their depravity, and when I found out she died, and they held no remorse, not even one tiny slimmer of sadness, I stopped caring. I didn’t want to help those fuckers. I didn’t even want to think that they could be saved, even a little. I shot them. Then we burned the town.”

Monsoon’s eyes had teared up. Hunter felt that the gentle mare had always harbored more empathy than the rest of the town combined, and all too often the tidbits of the stories he told her brought the sadness from her that he tried to force down and hide away.

She took his face in her hooves, and kissed him. The negative emotions he had been pushing away since the skirmish at the town faded away, replaced by a new kind of sadness. No matter what actions he took or how deeply he hurt, Monsoon always trusted him completely, and her complete and intrinsic belief that he would do the just thing, the proper thing, made him feel a weight on his consciousness heavier than the gravest memories of the raiders he’d slaughtered.

He pressed back and pushed Monsoon against the wall, knocking the basin over and spilling the muddy red water over the dank wood flooring. She wrapped her hooves around him and pulled him in closer, and he complied, letting the raw emotions that she brought out in him take control. He ran his hoof down her side and kissed along her cheek and down her neck.

He nipped lightly against her coat and pressed her forward. She fell to the bedding and rolled onto her back, lifting her legs, baring her soft belly and marehood for him. He felt his sex harden at the sight of her and the strong, inviting aroma of her quickening arousal. He returned to his downward quest, nibbling, kissing, and licking his way. He brushed against her swelling mound and ran his tongue slowly across the slit. Then again, back up, pressing his long tongue hard into her folds, savoring the sweet taste of her desire.

The ache between his legs tugged at him, and his erection pressed hard against his underbelly, bulging and nearly overpowering his desire to satisfy her with one to penetrate. He pushed away the thoughts as best he could, and continued to run his tongue up and down Monsoon.

He darted his tongue in to her as deep as he could, then ran it up her hot sex, and pressed hard against her clit. He focused there, licking in circles and shapes, flicking at the nub or pulling it back between his lips, bringing a moan from the shifting mare. He pressed a hoof gently against her mound below the action of his tongue, and rubbed hard. Her moving became more erratic, and she arched her back and gasped with each increasingly pleasurable sensation.

She squirmed under him, and pressed her thighs tight against his head. A short gasp and her body bucked. She rubbed her quavering marehood against Hunter’s tongue and hoof as hard and rhythmically as she could during her climax, and pulled his head against her body as the waves overtook over senses.

She panted as the orgasm tapered off. She rubbed Hunter’s mane and simply watched him as he continued to run his tongue in the shapes and with the pressure that had brought her to her peak moments before. As the feelings began to increase again, she shifted her body away, rolling onto her stomach. She raised her back legs and swished her tail aside, inviting Hunter to enter her.

Hunter, eager to oblige, made to his hooves and slowly raised himself over Monsoon. He pressed himself against her waiting body, and slid his shaft along her slit. His mind screamed at him to stop teasing, and thrust in, and he knew by her increasing wetness that she was ready again. He stopped resisting the urge, and pressed in. Her marehood gradually opened up as it accepted the wide girth he was forcing in, and soon the tip of his hardened erection was surrounded in intense heat and the softness of the most delicate part of her.

He pulled back slightly, then pressed forward again, inching deeper into her. Then out and further in again. He continued this motion until he could push in no further. She took him in to his base, and was stretched wide by the size of him. As Hunter pulled back, she seemed to pull him in, and when he thrust forward, her tightness filled the stallion with intense pleasure.

She rested her head on the blanket of her bedding and bit into the pillow, stifling her moans. Hunter pressed into her harder, and faster, filling her from tip to base of his shaft with each plunge. Her stifled moans and his grunts coincided with the heavy, wet slapping of his body thrusting into hers. The pressure of orgasm built within him, and as her body involuntarily shook and her legs wobbled from the climax she just began to crest, he felt the telltale sign of his own inevitable peak.

He held back the feeling, wanting for just a moment longer to thrust himself in the lovely mare, forcing down the overwhelming desire to loose his seed into her, eager to ride her orgasm through. A new warmth rolled from deep within her in quick waves as her tightness around his shaft pulsed and pulled at him, and it poured down his shaft. The urge overtook his senses, and he could hold back no more. The muscles along his erection tensed then pushed fiercely. He felt the heat of his ejaculation fill her depths with a long, thick stream. He thrust as far as she could take him, and another burst forth, sending a tingling feeling of immense pleasure across his body. He thrust and thrust again, each signaling another spurt of his semen had loosed itself from him deep into the womb of Monsoon. She filled with it, and it dripped out from her, running down her legs as the last streams of his pleasure flowed into her.

The last of their climaxes subsided, and Monsoon let her legs go limp. Hunter’s hardness slid from her and she rolled onto her side. Hunter pulled her against his body. For a few minutes, they lay there, cuddled together. The room was quiet, and no sounds could be heard from outside in the town. The smell of their sex filled the room, mixed with the light aroma of sunflowers that Monsoon had filled the shop with.

Hunter played the events again in his mind while he rested, shivering with excitement at her pleasure, and then further back, to the few words she spoke upon their return. She had admitted her genuine happiness at the survival of the children his group had brought back with them, and he absent-mindedly mumbled her words aloud.

She turned her face up to his, and then spoke after a long silence. “Do you still think about them?”

Hunter nodded. “Every day,” he told her. It had been five years since his family was ripped from him, but every day he set out into raider territory, and every pony’s face he saw when he pulled the trigger reminded him of their torture and eventual death.

“I know it’s hard,” Monsoon started, “And…no, I’m sorry, I know it’s hard for you.”

Hunter squeezed her softly. “It’s alright,” he said. “I know that, no matter how many of those monsters I kill, or how many mothers, children, and families we rescue, I’ll never find mine. They died five years ago, and they will be forever gone. But I still remember. Every day, I see their faces as clear as the last time I saw them, smiling and running through 144.”

“Do you ever think…” she trailed off, and silence hung in the air for a painfully long minute. Finally, she pulled herself up onto Hunter and stared into his eyes.

He was astonished by her expression. Her face was set in determination, and her eyes shone with a strength he’d never seen in the gentle mare before. Her chest pressed against his, and her heart was pounding, racing as though she’d run across the Marejave just then.

“Hunter, I love you,” she admitted.

It was the first time either had spoke the words, but they both felt it. And they each knew the other felt that way, which is why, after two years of their constant companionship, neither had said them. But there they were, and Hunter was surprised to hear them so proudly proclaimed by the mare pressing against him.

“And,” she said, some of her bravado visibly fading, “I want us to be a family.”

Hunter wrapped his arms around her, and held her gaze. The fierce shine in her eyes returned, and she spoke up again. “I want to have your foals, Hunter. I love you. I have since we met. Let’s be a family.”

Hunter’s eyes immediately watered. All of the regret from earlier, the emotions that flooded over him when she cried for him during his story of the skirmish, and all the years of continual sadness from his lost family, all paled to those few words. He was overcome with a sort of happiness he had refused to let himself feel since his wife and their three children were slaughtered, and no matter how hard he tried to push the feelings down and maintain his composure, he couldn’t. The tears rolled from his eyes.

He pulled Monsoon close and they sought each other in a heavy embrace. She pulled against him and her hooves dug into his skin. He held her with every muscle in his body. For that short while, they pulled on each other with all of their emotions.

“Of course, Monsoon. Of course. I love you, Monsoon.”

Hunter stepped into the dank, dimly-lit tavern, and nodded to Stems behind the counter. Glasses, the behemoth of an earth pony, standing a full three heads taller than Hunter, and close to twice his thickness, pushed open the doorway that led down into the small meeting room Hunter requested an audience in.

Making his way past the spark battery generators, he pushed into the stuffy room. Sitting in a corner, lit by a small crystal held up by a telekinetic field, Errant Signal, the town’s singular source for rumors, information, and the somewhat-infamous host of The Signal—“Everypony’s favorite pirate broadcast!”—tinkered away on the busted PipBuck she had been working on for as long as Hunter could remember. Beside her, a Protectapony was stripped of its internal electronics, and cables were sliced and spliced together into the PipBuck.

Hunter had to focus his thoughts on knowing she was there, since she had the sometimes-unfortunate innate ability to phase out of someone’s awareness. “Errant,” he said, tapping against the door.

She snapped her head up, and the red streaks in her black mane bounced about, kicking dust and webs from the strands. “Oh, Hunter,” she said, going back to tinkering. She used her magic to maneuver a sharp blade at a cable and pulled the edge through it, making a pop as the cable split and sparks fizzled in the air. “How was your hunt? Any juicy details about those raiders you slaughtered?”

Hunter ignored the last bit, as he always had, figuring it was simply her way of trying to coax a few words out for her broadcast. He dropped one of the rifles taken from the raider settlement onto the ground just in front of Errant. “Looks like they’re getting supplies from someone. New supplies.”

She nodded. “Lumi is looking into that right now. All goes well, he should be back tonight, and I’ll put it on The Signal and everyone’ll know what’s really going on.”

“So you do know.” Hunter wasn’t surprised, or irritated. He just said it matter of factly, hoping to prompt the would-be engineer mare into spilling some of the information she was acting on. She wasn’t part of his group, and played with her own rules in this small den of freelance desert terrorism, and communication between the town’s vigilante groups on insider information was always tedious.

She looked up at him with a tired expression. “What we do know is that the Quills just set up over near the Badlands, and they’re hiring up new gun runners. Some of their operation seems to be useful, but we didn’t believe it entirely. They’re too close to those raider scumfucks to be completely clean.”

Hunter nodded, turning back to the door. “Anyone that supplies raiders needs to be dealt with.”

Errant giggled her twisted laugh, and called back after him, “I hope it was messy!”

That evening, Hunter spoke to Carrier, Alloy, and the other two equal-part leaders of their group that were not present at the settlement event that morning, Carbon and Muzzle Flash. “Errant and Luminous do know something about what’s going on, but they’re not doing anything until they have some more information.”

Alloy snorted. “We pulled over twenty new guns from just that one compound. Do they ’ave any idea who gave them those?”

“That new group, the Quills, they think. Probably hear something about it presently.”

Carbon stepped to the radio on the counter of Remembrance, and cranked the volume. The static broke away, replaced by the energetic voice of Errant.

“…got me a glass of Sky Bourbon and I’d suggest you do the same because a doozy of a rumor just came through my door!”

“Sounds like Luminous came back, then,” Carbon said, scratching at the patchy stubble on the few places of his burnt face that any would grow.

“We don’t know yet,” Hunter reminded him.

“…near the badlands may want to barricade your doors a bit tighter now; the Corpse Eaters have been gettin’ pretty rowdy lately. Reports even describe them packing heavier heat than usual.”

Carrier let out a shrill squawk. “‘Reports,’ she says! At least credit us when we nearly get ourselves killed out there, fuck!”

“Can you believe it? The nerve, supplying raiders with guns. As if we don’t have enough to worry about here in the desert.”

“Sounds like that settles it, then,” Muzzle Flash quietly added.

Hunter nodded. “The Corpse Fuckers, as we all are uncomfortably aware, are a blight against Equestrian values. It is because of monstrosities like them that all of the Wasteland has been trapped for two hundred years, wallowing in its own feces.”

Carbon chimed in, “So what’s the plan?”

Hunter pondered the map spread out on the table. He eyed the many pins that dotted the rough outline of the Marejave. Red indicated known raider encampments; green showed surviving towns or trading posts; those without any color pointed to the many towns that were lost to raiders. The unfortunate few green pins weighed heavily on Hunter. “I’ll talk to Luminous, or someone in that group anyway. They’re not likely to let this go on, either, and perhaps our interests coincide enough to work together.”

Carrier laughed. “You know they prefer doing their own thing. What, y’think that sick-fuck of a murderin’-mare wants an audience or somethin’?”

“Perhaps they have more information. Trade routes, distribution channels, holding or manufacturing facilities for the Quills. Anything that we can use to strike a crippling blow.”

Alloy stood from the table, stretching his arms. “Then I suggest we all go gather our troops. Hunter, when you know when we strike, signal us. We’ll be ready.”

Carrier and Muzzle Flash both nodded. Carbon scratched at a tuft of beard and uttered a “Yep.”

Monsoon walked up to Hunter as the rest of the team dispersed, and rubbed his back, whispering to him. “Are you going to go right away?”

“As soon as we figure out what The Signal has in mind, yes. Probably first thing in the morning. We can’t let them continue, Monsoon.” He rubbed her hoof with his. “These monsters are more organized than most raiders. Someone’s leading them. We’ve got to find out who, and stop him, as soon as we can.”

“But do you have to go so soon? You’ve only been back for a few hours.”

Hunter nodded. “We’ll rest tonight, but that’s still one night that countless children and innocents can be raped, tortured, killed, or eaten. We have to go as soon as we’re able.”

He spoke quietly to Stems at the edge of the bar, waiting for Glasses to return, signaling the end of the tentative meeting downstairs. Stems admitted that Luminous returned, along with some other mare in a battle saddle he didn’t know, when the telltale shuddering of the building sounded the ascent of the lumbering pony that was Glasses.

“Ah, Hunter,” he said, nodding his maneless head, “I take it you heard The Signal?”

“Is there anything you can tell me more specifically about all of that?”

“You want in on it, too, eh?”

“We have our own reasons, but we’d like to share information, and see if our combined forces can make a more effective strategy.”

Glasses leaned against the bartop, which squeaked in protest of the monumental weight. “’Fraid I don’t know much ’bout about what all exactly sh’ and Luminous got planned. The new kid down there, sh’ was pulled from them and came back with Luminous, so I wager they got the specifics. For now, I just know we’re t’ be headin’ out for a while, takin’ care of a few small issues.”

“You think they’d mind if I stepped in?” Hunter asked at the same time Stems protested, “You’re leaving again!?”

Glasses’ laughter shook the building. He nodded to Hunter and turned his attention to the stallion across the bar. “Aw, come on, love, you know it’s just a little while. Nothin’ to fret over.”

Hunter heard Stems arguing against the idea as he made his way down the stairs for the second time that day. He tapped the door as always, and Luminous Beacon waved him in.

“Hunter,” he said, taking the last swig of his drink. “What can we do for ya?”

“When and where are you going to strike against the Quills? My team and I want to help.” He eyed the newcomer, an evergreen mare with steely blue hair that curled about her face in a haphazard mop. Her battle saddle was bare, and two high-gauge shotguns adorned the sides.

Luminous Beacon chuckled a bit, before making his way to Hunter and patting him on the shoulder heartily. “What we’re after, your team will get in the way. But,” he said, moving toward the table once more, “I think little Bit here might know another valuable target.”

The mare looked up at Hunter, and he stared into her oddly-colored eyes. One was a bright gold, but the other was grey, and the appearance gave Hunter a slight pause. “I didn’t go to it myself,” she said, looking over the map. She tapped a block that sat at the edge of the penciled in line labeled Corpse Eaters. “But this place should be their main factory. Heavily guarded, I would assume.”

Hunter considered the map. One pin stuck out in the southwest portion of the raider territory that he didn’t recognize. “What’s there?” he asked, tapping at the pin.

Errant clicked her teeth. “Corpse Eater grand central.”

“How do you know?”

She looked at Hunter and then gave a snort of a laugh. “Of course I know.”

Fine, secret sources, Hunter hissed inwardly. “So that’s where they’re being controlled from?”

“Or as close as raiders can get to it,” Luminous responded. “Reports vary, but it could house anywhere from fifty to five hundred of the bastards. And I figure they’re right cozy with the Quills, and heavily armed.”

Hunter nodded. “Then tomorrow, my team will strike them there.”

“Aiming high!” Errant whistled.

“If we crush the organization at the top, they’ll fall apart once more and go back to murdering each other for the scraps. They’ll be easier to deal with that way.” Hunter nodded and gave his thanks to each of the three, then made his way back to Remembrance.

He tapped Monsoon’s broadcaster, tuning it to his team’s channel, and spoke slowly, decisively. “We have a plan. Oh-five-hundred hours, we march. It’s a war.”

Alloy responded first, then Carrier, and finally, Carbon and Muzzle Flash simultaneously. All agreed. Hunter hoped they could rally every able fighter that agreed with their cause, but pushed the thoughts away. I need to rest tonight, he reminded himself.

The valley town was the closest thing to a proper civilization Hunter had ever seen the raiders live in. As he and Carrier scouted at the edge of the cliff overlooking the short drop that led into it, they noted common travel paths between several buildings where raiders took ammunition, food, and construction equipment. They didn’t seem like raiders, at first, and Hunter silently questioned the information.

“We’re still in the Badlands, aren’t we?” Carrier seemed to share in his confusion.

Through the binoculars, Hunter noted that most of the ponies below, with a small smattering of minotaurs, hung a mask of bleached bone about their necks. Some cutie marks were flayed off, or showed icons of types of violence. The generally poor physical condition of most of the residents also served to solidify the fact that this was in fact a raider town.

But it was an actual town, with trade, daily living, and growth.

Hunter moved around the cliffs carefully, sticking to high vantage points along the rim, ticking marks in a small notepad that indicated approximate populations.

He returned to the advance-party’s preset location, a singular boulder that took up tall, resilient against the wind and heat that beat on it every day. Carrier swooped down moments later, bringing with her a griffin’s-eye view of the town, scrawled on notes of her own.

The five leaders mulled over the information of the town and nodded as Hunter’s plan was solidified. The layout of the town was haphazard, but one structure stood out, having been built with heavy steel beams that were visible from a mile in the distance, shining brightly in the extreme noon light. Most of the buildings were constructed of rotted wood and stucco over thin meshes of wire, so the almost-fortified look of that one, built snugly against the surrounding cliff, seemed the most likely position for the group leader.

The plan was carried from the other four leaders to their lieutenants and then down the effective ranks. The three dozen-and-some citizens of Paint pushed forward, and split into three teams, awaiting their respective signals to begin their move.

Sitting at the cliff edge just above the target building, Hunter and Carrier waited in silence. Timing was crucial, here, so they sat, tense. They waited, and watched, and the sun beat down on them. Sweat ran down Hunter’s brows, and Carrier fluffed her feathers to push away the heat.

Then, an explosion rang out on the far side of town, and a chunk of cliff broke off, rolling into town. The enormous slab cracked and split when it hit. The large remnants of it raced down the cliff. Clouds of thick clay-dust were kicked into the air, mixing with the dark smoke of Carbon’s explosive. The landslide crashed into the settlement, rolling over two of the stucco homes before raining an avalanche of clay and debris into the town.

Hunter latched onto Carrier’s harness and she dove down the cliff, holding her wings against her body until the last moment. The thick heat of the valley town below caught under her wings and with a sudden lurch, the updraft halted their descent, just feet above the ground near a side entrance.

The two dashed to the edge of the building and peered through the open windows into the fortified structure, watching the raiders within rush through the front entrance. Another explosion sounded in the distance, signaling the second phase of the plan had started. Gunfire echoed through the valley, and screams followed suit.

“Alloy better fuckin’ take care of my baby,” Carrier whispered. Hunter smirked. The griffin’s pride, the massive minigun she built with her own talons, would be safe with the gentle giant, but that wouldn’t stop her from fretting.

The two crawled through the windows and pushed across the room. Hunter expected it to be as every other raider hovel was, with the theme of decoration being excessively grotesque, but was surprised at how little it differed from any normal town’s housing. Shelves, mostly still intact, lined the walls and a number of sealed cans and glass containers sat on counters and tables. The similarity to his own home in Paint, and the unusually normal décor had him unnerved.

“Hunter,” Carrier whispered. She motioned with her talons and the two snuck around the corner of the room and moved into another, with similarly non-raider furnishings. The most out of place anything Hunter noticed was a messy painting along a bare wall, of geometric shapes arranged in a confusing order with lines of varying thickness moving between them. Characters were scrawled in the runny paint along those lines, but Hunter didn’t know what they meant.

Another rumble shook the house, and the distant explosion knocked a few small firearms from a table near Hunter. The second wave of reinforcements from their group would be on their way, flanking the raiders as they rushed to the area of fighting, splitting the raider forces and keeping the opposition in disarray.

The next room led to stairs that split in opposite directions, so the two split up.

Up the stairs, Hunter spotted a pony staring out through an open window. Hunter slid his knife quietly from its sheathe and inched forward. The raider wore a tattered hide cloth over his shoulders, and the mangy fur of the pony it had been flayed from was the first indication that even in something close to proper civilization, raiders were still monsters.

Hunter rose behind the raider, and brought his weight down, crushing the raider against the window’s edge, then bit into the grimy mane and ran his knife along the creature’s throat. They fell to the ground as Hunter forced his weight onto the thinner stallion, keeping the kicking and bucking of the quickly expiring raider from making much noise.

Hunter pressed his hooves on the raider as he started to fade. Gunfire sounded all around, and maniacal screams and the heavy whump of Muzzle Flash’s anti-artillery battle saddle broke through every few seconds. Hunter spit. Good riddance to scum.

The stench of waste flooded Hunter as he opened the first door. Within, small steel cages lined the walls, stacked on top of each other three rows high, affording the malnourished fillies and mares within little space to turn. The room was without ventilation, and in the stifling heat of the midday desert, he felt like he was stepping into an oven as he crossed the threshold. The buzz of flies filled the room.

Small buckets of water and food were placed in each cage, but the girls held within each were forced to lay and sleep on the rough, hot steel of the cages. Each door was shut tight with thick chains, and most lay, panting, barely cognizant, festering in their own vomit, urine, and feces.

He looked at each in turn, and noticed none were aware enough to meet his gaze or respond when he rattled the cage or spoke to them lightly. Hunter figured it was a combination of constant chem use and this horrid environment. They probably wasted away in that fetid semi-consciousness, barely recognizing the need to drink, or, he hoped, they didn’t feel their constant rape. Many were covered in bruises and infected slices and holes, and more than a few were dead.

He rummaged through the room, but found no key. He wanted to open the cages and let them at least get out of the room that baked them in their cramped confines, but he cursed and spit at himself, knowing the first priority of the mission was not freeing these slaves, and there would be no way for him to get them out alone, in the midst of all the fighting outside, when they couldn’t even stand on their own.

He whispered promises of returning, to which none of the mares or fillies within responded, and returned to the hall. The next room was very much the same, as was the next. He stepped into the last room, and stomped angrily at the repeating scene. As he had in the previous three, he made his way cage to cage, hoping to find just one who was conscious enough to respond.

But unlike the other rooms, the mares and fillies here were bloated with child. The cages were slightly larger, which Hunter reasoned was not for their comfort, but the required extra space to promote a slightly higher chance at making it to term. He stopped at one, overcome with nausea from the sickly smell of pus-filled amniotic fluids. The mare within breathed slowly, and her eyes were rolled back in her head, bloodshot and caked with dirt and grime. A thick, pungent slime rolled from her cage to the floor, emanating from the deformed pink shape of flesh and half-formed pony shapes that slumped from the bloody mess of her marehood. A swarm of flies and sandbugs pulled nutrition from the forcefully-terminated fetus.

Hunter bucked at a table in anger, sending it crashing into the wall behind him. Childbirth was supposed to be something special, something for the family to be proud of. He had always been told that as he grew up, and he never felt so elated as hearing the first cries of his two sons and daughter when they were finally brought into the world.

He stomped his way into the hall, and yelled inwardly at himself to calm down, to remember why they came. It wasn’t too late for many of the others, and when they were done, Paint would help them bring up their children properly, in a good, nurturing environment. He had to push away the desire to break his stealth mission, and he was finding it difficult.

A series of low rumbles broke Hunter from his daze. That was the signal for the final phase of the main assault. It meant that Alloy’s team had joined in, and they were pushing the raiders through the town. Each thundering sound of Carbon’s grenade launcher signaled another check point had been reached. Hunter listened to the rhythm of the explosions, and counted the extra ones that followed: the block explosives that Muzzle Flash was tasked to set notified him of a cleared and demolished building. They were advancing quickly.

He chided himself for allowing his emotions to tamper with the mission. He was behind schedule now. He rushed down the stairs that Carrier had taken minutes prior, and made his way down the stone hall that led into the cliff. The air was stale, and smelled of iron.

He came face to face with a large wooden door reinforced with thick plates of steel. A bright yellow painting that matched the abstract shape upstairs was splattered across it. Light shone from the edges of it, and he heard laughter beyond, stifled through the thickness of the door.

He heard a tip-tap behind him and spun, but too slowly. A hulking earth pony barreled into him and pinned him to the door, echoing a loud thump through the stone hall. The pony was ragged, missing one eye, both ears, and whole portions of his face, but through the mangled features, Hunter saw his excitement.

The door swung open, and Hunter was dragged into the room. The pony slammed Hunter onto his face and fell with his full weight, causing Hunter to scream in pain, and left him unable to move, pinned to the rough ground.

“Well, well, look at this,” came a haughty, heavy voice from in front of him.

Hunter looked up at the surroundings. At least five raiders that he could see, dressed in flesh fetishes and pony-bone armor stood around the edges of the circular room. The minotaur that spoke to him had Carrier pinned to the ground.

“Carrier!” Hunter called, but she only gurgled a response. Her beak had been broken at the tip, as had both of her arms.

The minotaur laughed. His horns were wide and sharpened like that of a wicked blade. His thick braids hung heavily over a broad chest, and met in heavy steel loops with spikes jutting from them. His body was tattooed with scars, and he wore only a thin belt and a strip of ponyflesh that hardly concealed his gargantuan member beneath. He stepped forward, pulling the broken body of Hunter’s closest friend along the ground. Her wings had been snapped in several places, and were tied together with straps so tight, so unnaturally, that the cracked bones jutted from her feathers through her skin.

“Oh? Is she important to you?” The minotaur kneeled in front of Hunter, and hoisted the barely-conscious head of Carrier up. He twisted her wings, causing several pops to echo around the room. She grunted.

“You fucking son of a bitch!” Hunter thrashed and kicked, trying to buck the gargantuan pony from him, but was met with a hoof to his lower back, which sent a jolt of searing pain through him, causing him to cry out.

“Oh, good,” the minotaur laughed. “So glad I convinced everyone here not to tear her apart, feather by feather. I knew waiting would make it better.” The minotaur nodded, and the earth pony pinning Hunter down reached to his eyes, and forced his eyelids wide, tilting Hunter’s head back painfully. He lashed out but couldn’t wrestle free.

The minotaur pulled a rusty knife from his belt, lifting Carrier’s head with his massive hand, and laughed. “Watch carefully, now. You don’t want to miss anything!”

He ran the blade across Carrier’s throat. Feathers fell away and her pink flesh beneath sliced open as he made his way across with the dull blade. Blood slowly seeped from the gash and dripped from her feathers. Hunter screamed, and thrashed, forcing two other raiders to pin him down, crushing his legs with their weight.

The minotaur pressed the knife into the wound and shoved into it hard. The tip disappeared into red flesh, and he struggled to drag it through her open wound. Flesh split and the griffin’s visible arteries pumped rapidly, pulsing in the strong lighting. The minotaur made another pass with the rusted blade, dragging it jaggedly through exposed muscle. He sawed away at the meat of her once-pristine throat. It squelched and blood ran from the newly-exposed flesh.

The artery split, and blood pumped quickly into the air in massive waves. It spilled over the blade and murderer’s hand, pouring down her chest and splashing against Hunter’s face, quickly pooling and splashing. The knife continued, ripping flesh. The white of her spine became visible, and with a hefty twist and a sickening pop, the muscles and tendons around it broke.

Her body fell to the floor, and the last waves of her blood sprayed out. The pool of it ran into the cracks of the room and soaked into Hunter’s coat. He screamed and thrashed. The raiders had twisted him while he fought to free himself, to help his friend, to stop her violent murder, and his shoulders burned with the tearing of tendons under the intense stress.

The minotaur rose, laughing. He hefted her head and showed it like a trophy to every cheering raider there.

Hunter raged, splashing in the blood of his friend, oblivious to the tearing of the tendons in his shoulders. He bucked and jerked, scraping his hooves across the stony ground, fighting to rush forward.

Hunter's mind had gone blank, and barely registered the explosions that split the room and shattered the raiders. Carrier’s head fell to the floor, and he pulled himself toward it, unaware that the three raiders forcing him down had been blown to pieces just above him. He pressed his head to his dead friend’s, then set her down gently.

The sounds of the fighting around him slowly came to him. Carrier’s minigun roared, and the sheer explosive volume of it covered all of the screams of pain and anguish that it brought forth. It tore limbs off the raiders, punched holes through them that saw more their insides against the wall than what was left within them, and it gave the monsters in the den the viscous death they deserved.

Hunter pulled Executioner from his sash, and walked over to his friend’s murderer, oblivious to the screaming pain throughout his body. The minotaur was missing his bottom half. His legs were in hundreds of pieces throughout the room, sliding from the walls and floating in pools of blood. Thick ribbons of purple and pink entrails slid from his body as he tried to slide away from the approaching pony.

Hunter stood face to face with the upper half of the dying minotaur, and watched, just watched, as the raider panicked and poured blood from the tattered bits of what remained of his body. Alloy, hefting Carrier’s monstrous gun, stood beside him and they watched the raider suffer and bleed away.

As the minotaur raider began to struggle to move, his death quickly becoming apparent, Hunter leveled the barrel of Executioner to his head. He pressed the ring of the muzzle to the monster’s face, and pulled the trigger.

Monsoon cried. She cried for Carrier’s death. She cried for the loss of her friend. And she cried for Hunter, who couldn’t.

Five hunters died in the fighting, but twenty-one mares and fillies were brought back to Paint, after two passed away on the return journey. Six were pregnant. The town would be busy helping to shape their tormented lives into something comfortable, decent, and had many losses to mourn.

Thick black smoke rose over the cliffs to the west that afternoon, and it hung heavy in the air long through the next day.