Tiger Moth awoke to the sound of nothing, but near her face on the bed was a yellowed and ancient light powered by a spark battery. The light illuminated the old wooden table it sat on and the mattress the the pegasus was on. As she sat up, she looked around at the grey concrete walls and sniffed the air, smelling wet concrete and old wood. However Tiger Moth did not remember how she had traveled from her master’s shack to this strange room because the last thing she remembered was going to sleep in on the floor.
Another light turned on in the room and drew the Tiger Moth’s attention to a shadowed pony that was sitting in a chair beside the light. “You’re awake, good.” said a slightly muffled female voice, which made it hard for the pegasus to identify exactly who it was. But Tiger Moth could hear the raspy voice of a ghoul.
Moth held a hoof up in an effort to block the light that now illuminated her slightly longer than normal chrome yellow fur. She tried to look under the hoof at the pony, but only saw a dark silhouette. The pegasus finally noticed an odd feeling she had since she woke up. Moth slowly brought a hoof to her neck and felt the area where a heavy explosive collar should be, but wasn’t.
“Yes,” the silhouetted pony quietly laughed as the deactive collar landed on the floor and the light was aimed at it. Which allowed Tiger Moth’s eyes to adjust to the light a little better and notice the ghoul had bright ruby red eyes. “You’re free from the bonds of servitude.”
“Why?”
“You’re free, he’s not. Does the why matter?” The pony said as the light was aimed at the other end of the room where the albino unicorn named Ivory was tied up on the floor and passed out. “Let’s just say… he was planning to sell you to some unsavory characters.”
Moth kept rubbing her neck where the collar had been for quite a few years. Strangely, she felt incomplete without it. To her the item was more than just an explosive collar meant to keep her in line. The collar was something that she hated despite the fact that she once told a pony she didn’t mind it.
Tiger Moth looked down at the explosive collar and turned it over. A few strands of her long fur had been caught in the locking mechanism and were still there. She tilted her head some, then looked over at Ivory. “You’re letting me go just like that?” Moth asked quietly while rubbing where her cutie mark once sat, but was now marred by a thundercloud and lightning bolt brand, the mark of a Dashite. “What of the Enclave? They still want me.”
“That’s your problem, not mine,” the masked pony replied. Moth looked over at the corner and noted the purple hat and cloak covering her, but they were ripped up like they had been shot many times. The pony tossed a set of saddlebags to Tiger Moth. She caught them and looked inside. The detonator for the collat was inside along with a small revolver, eighteen rounds, a bandage, and some food. “I have a job for you.”
“What is it?” Moth asked as she pulled out a box of apple cakes, causing her stomach to growl and remind her that she did not eat many meals in the last few months. The pegasus was much thinner than she had been when she was captured by Ivory.
“You know of the Oakwood alicorns?” The ghoul looked down at her rotted pale gold hoof and did not wait for Tiger Moth’s response, which was a nod. “Well, the green has fucked up the main island pretty bad. Normally somepony would put a bullet in her head to stop her from making it worse, but I’m not asking you to do that. There’s an object of mine that the Steel Rangers on that island have taken: a saddle that is precious to me. Get it back and we’ll call our deal done.”
“What of Ivory?” Moth asked as the albino stallion slowly awoke and started to squirm in his bindings when he found out his legs were tied together.
“I will leave that for you to decide,” the ghoul said with a nod.
“What’s going on? Where am I?!” Ivory shouted as he flopped around on his side. A red glow illuminated the inside of his bag as he tried to pull it off, only to choke himself from the rope around it. He stopped struggling and gulped. “Wh-who’s there?”
“Shut up, Ivory!” Moth snapped. Then her eyes widened and she quickly covered her mouth as her ears drooped. “S-sorry…” she whispered above a breath.
“Moth?” Ivory’s voice was annoyed and angered. He tried to look at her, but couldn’t find her beyond the general direction of her voice. “Untie me now and I won’t hide your food rations.”
Moth looked over at the ghoul with the bright ruby red eyes, then the collar in her own hoof, and finally Ivory. “Can’t we, um…” She quietly hobbled over and laid down next to the bone white unicorn, draping her wing over him. Moth leaned down and whispered to Ivory’s ear, “can’t we do it just this once with you tied up?”
“No,” Ivory shook his head. “I don’t like this. Untie me at once!”
Moth’s chrome yellow hoof instinctively reached for the rope, but stopped when she remembered something the ghoul had said. “You’re going to sell me, aren’t you?”
“Wh-what? Where’d you hear that? No, I, um, I love you.”
“Liar!” Moth stomped her hoof on Ivory’s foreleg. The force of the blow caused her hoof to dig into the flesh and nearly caused the bone to crack. “You’ve never said that to me. Not once!”
Ivory cried out in pain, partially drowning out Moth's reply beyond liar.
The ghoul watched the two of them and slowly sipped from a bottle of Stalliongrad Vodka. She adjusted the light a bit with her other hoof to illuminate the part of the room Ivory was in. Tiger Moth released the pressure on Ivory's leg and looked at the explosive collar for a long moment while thinking what it had meant to her. All the years she had worn it and done things she didn’t want to do because she had to.
“Moth, untie me right now and I will forget this ever happened. I swear to Celestia.”
“No,” Moth slowly shook her head as her ears folded back. “I’m not listening to you anymore, Master Ivory. We… we’re done. I’m done being your servant.”
“Who’s been keeping the Enclave away, hm? Me or you?” Ivory replied as he looked at Tiger Moth, but couldn’t physically see her. “If you run from me, there’s nothing preventing them from coming after you.”
Moth’s ears drooped to the side of her face. She sat down and ran a hoof through her short coal black mane. The ghoul in the corner of the room took another sip of her vodka and observed. She noted Moth’s nervousness in her wing twitch and the fact that she was biting her lower lip as if contemplating whether or not she should let Ivory go.
“I’ll give you full meals from now on,” Ivory said with a faint tremor in his voice. “Y-you can’t keep me tied up forever. If I die, you die. Remember?” Moth looked down at her collar and quickly placed it around Ivory’s neck, locking it into place with a slap of her hoof. The bone white unicorn’s eyes widened in shock. “H-how’d you get it off?”
Moth took a few steps away and opened her bags. “I’m not telling you,” she replied as she dug through the bag.
Her hoof touched the detonator as Ivory said, “n-n-now Moth, we can b-be reasonable about this…”
Tiger Moth smirked as she pulled the detonator out and held her hoof over the button. “No, Ivory,” she shook her head. “I think it’s time we part ways.”
“Huh? You’re just going to-” Moth looked away and pushed the button, causing the collar to beep. Ivory did not have any time to react before the signal triggered the explosives inside the collar.
The dark room was illuminated for a split second by the explosion that turned the unicorn’s head into a red mist that coated the floor around him and nearby wall. Ivory’s body twitched and flopped around for a few seconds as if he were still alive before it went still and bled out. Tiger Moth’s ears rang loudly from the explosion in the confined room and she did not hear the ghoul clapping her forehooves together.
“Well done,” the ghoul rasped and continued to clap her hooves together, but her voice was muddled and indistinct to Moth.
“What?!” Moth shouted as she staggered and slumped to her haunches, rubbing her ear with a forehoof. “Speak louder!”
The ghoul rolled her eyes and almost shouted, “I said, well done!” her old and tired voice was still muddled to Moth, and sounded as if she were underwater.
Moth rubbed her ears again and tilted her head towards the ghoul. “I can’t hear you. You’re going to have to speak up.”
The ghoul facehoofed and slowly shook her head. “I swear… that green alicorn is brighter than you.” She set the hoof down, took a deep breath, and shouted as loud as she could. “I SAID WELL DONE YOU DIPSHIT!”
“Oh!” Moth started a bit and shrank back. She dropped the detonator and rubbed at her ears. “My ears won’t stop ringing and I can hardly hear!”
“Fine,” the ghoul pulled out a map of the island along with a pen. She marked off a couple areas along with writing the names down. Then held it out for Moth.
The pegasus took the map and finally noticed her rescuer was a ghoul. Moth tilted her head a bit as she turned the lamp on the pony, but the ghoul’s body was mostly hidden underneath a ripped purple dress that showed another uniform underneath. Tiger Moth recognized the large automatic rifle next to the ghoul as the one Ivory had carried and was named Fallen Angel. She had no idea why the weapon was named that, nor why an alicorn had given Ivory the weapon when there were alicorn kill marks stamped under the name on the stock. But the weapon’s origin did not matter to her at that point in time.
“Who are you?” asked Moth with some concern in her voice as she took a step back. She looked down at the map and noticed that there was a small circle along with ‘you are here’ near the eastern town on Cedar Isle.
“Does it matter?” the ghoul asked with a tilt her head and Moth was glad that the ringing had died down. The ghoul had long since covered her face with the ripped mask. “I saved you from a lifetime of servitude in exchange for you doing one simple task, bring me my saddle.”
“Why don’t you just go get it yourself?” Moth folded the map and stuffed it in her bags. “I’m a Dashite and a pegasus. They won’t just let me walk in there! I'll get captured and probably tortured for information.”
“You don’t get it, do you? I can’t go either.” the ghoul unfolded a rotting pale gold wing and pointed at it. Most of the feathers were gone and the wing looked like it belonged to a sick pony. “I’m a pegasus like you. But you’re alive and can hide in plain sight with a few tricks. I cannot, because I’m dead and stick out.”
Moth had pulled the bags on and tightened them while the ghoul was explaining herself. She slowly nodded and gulped. "I won't... turn into you, will I if I spend too much time on the surface? It's been a few years for me and I'm so... thin."
The ghoul rolled her eyes. "Why does everypony fear being a ghoul? Sure you're dead and rotting, but you're still alive."
"S-sorry..." Moth's ears folded back as she took a few steps back and bumped into Ivory's corpse. In a cry of shock, she stumbled backwards onto her back.
The ghoul shook her head. "You're like all the others. Weak, frail, and afraid of dying."
"I am not afraid!" Moth snapped as she rolled to hooves and pointed at the body. "I was just surprised is all." She set the hoof down and slowly stepped towards the door.
"Remember my deal," the ghoul rasped. "You get my saddle and bring it to me. I've marked my house and where I think the saddle is being held. If you don't do this, I'll make you wish you never killed your master."
Moth looked at the blood soaked floor around Ivory. "Where's Ivory's gear? I need his caps."
"Why do you need caps?"
"To buy things with, barding, ammo, food, and things like that." Moth's stomach growled loudly as if to make a point about her wanting food. Another, but smaller, bag landed near her hooves. She quickly scooped it up and did a quick count before placing it in her bags. "Fifty caps is all I get?"
The ghoul nodded slowly. "Yes. You shouldn't need more than that."
"Alright, but what's this saddle look like? I want to know which one is the right one."
"Rusty, a six barrel gatling gun on the left, a rocket pod on the right and an ammo bag in the center." The ghoul nodded towards the door as she turned the light on it. "You should probably go now while the way is clear. Stay on the green path."
*** ***
Tiger Moth trotted along the green path past an open door. Something caught her eye, causing her to back up and look inside. It took her a second to adjust to the light of the room and what she saw nearly made her drop the small revolver in shock.
The concrete room was not very big but the contents were far more important than its size. Working vending machines lined the right side of the room while the left held a tattered couch that had been turned over at one time. Despite the grime, Tiger Moth knew the vending machines were working because of the humming they emitted.
She glanced up and down the concrete tunnel before stepping inside the room. Moth slowly walked by each machine and read the labels; Sparkle-Cola, a glass faced machine with some food, a revolving refrigerated food dispenser that was dark, another Sparkle-Cola machine, and finally a cigarette dispenser that had been broken into and was not running.
Moth set her bags down and went through them, but found no bits. Her stomach growled loudly again, causing the chrome yellow pegasus to pull out the box of two hundred year old apple chips. As she set the revolver down, she started eating a few of the chips.
Her ears twitched right and left in an attempt to find any intruders sneaking up on her, but she could not hear anything beyond her own munching and the Sparkle-Cola machines. Moth found it odd that the machines were still running, but chalked it up to earth pony engineering.
She reached for another chip and her hoof dug at the bottom of the box, causing the pegasus to look inside it as her ears folded back. Moth was still hungry even though she did not know why. She assumed, like any other animal that eats food, that she had not eaten her fill.
The pegasus tossed the box to the side and stared longingly at the food inside the glass faced food dispenser. A box of snack cakes was on the last spiral and ready to fall down. The panel on the right side of the machine asked for Moth to make a selection. She smiled and entered the code for the snack cakes, but the spiral only moved the box an inch before it stopped.
'So close and yet so far away,' thought Moth as she set a hoof on the glass. She glanced at her hoof and then her reflection as a thought occurred to her. 'Wait a minute... glass, hoof, glass. Hoof to glass!'
She took a step back as well as a deep breath. With a nod, Moth spun around and drew her hind hooves in, then kicked out with as much force as the starved pegasus could muster. Her two hind hooves slammed into the glass and pushed it in a little, then sprang back with a rattle as the machine rocked back and forth. Moth quickly turned around as a grin formed on her face. Her ears perked up and swiveled forward, and her eyes were wide with delight.
The machine rocked back and forth for a few moments before teetering on its front legs, groaning as it slowly tipped towards the floor. Moth's eyes went from delight to shock as her jaw dropped. "No, no, no!" she shouted and quickly hovered up to push it back into place. "Whew, that was close," the chrome yellow pegasus wiped her brows off and landed on the floor, closing her wings. The snack cakes did not budge.
As she glanced around the room, Moth slowly scratched her chin in thought. She seemed weaker than she remembered despite carrying all of Ivory's gear and pulling his sky wagon around.
Moth did a double take and looked at the couch. It looked like a pull out bed type that had been mangled and destroyed, but the metal appeared to be laying in pieces. She hovered over and inspected a long piece of angle iron that looked like it could bash a pony's head in relatively easily.
Moth smiled at the metal as she hovered back over to the machine. "Well, here goes nothing!" She took a deep breath and swung the angle iron in her hooves. As it struck the glass, the force of the blow reverberated through the metal and into Moth's forelegs. She lost hold of it as it bounced back and hit her in the chest, causing the pegasus to collapse on the floor and breathe heavily.
The glass, however, was unbroken. It stayed unscathed as if mocking Tiger Moth and saying that the snack cakes were under a secure guard.
Moth was not amused. After recovering and quickly checking her chest for blood leakage, she stood up. "Why won't you break?!" Moth screamed at the glass and her reflection as she slammed her forehoof into the glass, causing only a rattle.
The room was quiet save for the humming of the machinery. Moth sighed deeply and gently banged her forehead on the machine, shutting her eyes in despair. The box of snack cakes finally tumbled out of the holder and landed in the collection tray with a clunk.
"Hm?" Moth's ears twitched at the noise as her eyes fluttered open. She stared at the box of snack cakes for a few seconds as if they would disappear at any moment. Then it slowly sunk in that the box of cakes were indeed real, and that they really were ready for her to grab.
Moth snatched the box up and dug in, happily eating the few cakes that were in there. Almost ten years ago, she would have never even touched the food lying around the wasteland, nor would she have touched the water. She wasn't sure why she was banished, but had assumed it was due to something she had seen, heard, or done.
As her hoof scraped bottom, Moth looked down at the box of snack cakes. She frowned, tossed the box to the side and hovered over to the revolving food dispenser. A quick check revealed that it was not running nor did the food look any good as it was black from mold.
Moth checked the Sparkle-Cola machine to its left and found that each and every option was sold out. She frowned and checked the cigarette dispenser. Despite the glass being broken in, Moth's cobalt blue eyes spotted a single pack all the way in the back of the machine as if it had been left behind after a rampant smash and grab. She carefully landed on what glass there was and slowly reached a hoof as far around the shards that remained as she could.
Her hoof barely reached the pack and spun it around. Moth frowned as she leaned farther inside and, after some trouble and a few scratches, finally managed to pull the pack out. She flipped it over to read the label.
"Lucky Stars, huh?" Moth said to the pack and herself with some confusion. "I guess you are pretty lucky to survive without anypony seeing you." She flipped the pack over again to make sure it was still whole before she placed it in her bags.
Moth took another look around the room. Then pulled her bags on and picked her revolver up in her teeth before heading for the door. But, she stopped when she got to the other Sparkle-Cola machine and worked her jaw a little around the trigger.
'Eating all of those cakes made me thirsty,' Moth thought as she she licked at the revolver's trigger. She looked at the revolver in her grip, then the machine and let out a deep sigh as she shook her head. 'I'd be a damned fool if I shot that vending machine without checking it.'
Moth walked up to the machine and slowly looked at each of the selections. All but one had the red light on indicating that the slot was empty. Moth quickly pushed the button on the unlit slot and waited for her cola.
Nothing happened.
She frowned and pushed the button again, but again nothing happened. Moth groaned as she pushed the button a third time and finally noticed the machine was asking for her to insert bits. The pegasus lightly banged her head on the machine like she had done on the other and, for a fourth time, nothing happened.
With a resigned sigh, Moth stepped back and headed out the door. A drinkless pegasus with a terrible thirst for a Sparkle-Cola. She stopped just inside the hallway, slowly looking up and down it again before walking in the direction she had been going.
*** ***
Moth felt a pain in her stomach as she neared the waiting room's exit. Forcing her to stop and clutch the area as she groaned in pain. She shut her eyes, ignoring the trashed receptionist's desk that she leaned against. Moth barely even registered the carpet under her hooves.
Her stomach did flips as the pain grew worse, causing her face to turn a shade of very faint green. She stumbled over to the mares restroom and turned on the sink. Moth stared at the sink as it groaned loudly and shook violently. Her ears folded back as the faucet started hissing air and spat out a dark brown blob of rust.
Then fell silent.
"Great," Moth sighed deeply. "Just what I needed. A faucet that doesn't produce water."
She quickly checked each of the stalls and found they were either broken, or held no water. Moth shook her head and walked out into the reception area.
As she looked around the dusty room with the boarded up windows, her ears swiveled in an attempt to hear any intruders. Moth thought she heard the giggle of a few foals, but passed it off as her imagination because she had not seen any living pony in the facility other than that ghoul. On the left side of the room were a few chairs and tables that had been pushed together to form a bullet ridden barrier.
Moth gulped and hesitated walking towards it. 'What if there's some foal skeletons there?' she thought. Then quickly shook her head when she noticed that the scrape marks near the barricade were recent. Perhaps as recent as a few days at the most.
Moth took a deep breath and slowly walked over to the bullet riddled barrier. She peered over and wasn't sure why, but she grinned upon seeing the freshly decaying corpses of two earth ponies and a unicorn. But her grin faded into a frown when she saw they were not wearing any barding.
However, before Moth could examine the bodies any further, the waiting room door was slowly opened with a noisy squeak. Luckily for the chrome yellow pegasus, the door blocked the intruder's view of her. Moth hopped over the barricade and landed next to the unicorn with a muffled clop of her hooves. She quickly laid down as low as she could while trying to silently untie her bags.
A grey donkey wearing a set of brown leather barding pushed the door slightly farther open with his nose. He glanced inside what he could see, which was the wall, and listened with his long ears. After a few moments, he crept into the room and shut the door before looking around the waiting area.
Tiger Moth slowly, as quietly as she could, pulled her saddlebags back on. Her revolver was firmly clenched in her teeth ready to fire if need be.
As the donkey trotted over towards where he thought he had heard a sound, Moth slowly moved against the hastily made barricade. The donkey looked over the table at the dead bodies and his nose wrinkled from the stench in the small area. 'I thought I heard something over here,' he thought to himself.
He did not see Moth, who had pulled herself underneath another table. Moth did not know who the intruder was and neither was she going to take the chance they might be Enclave. However, the thought never crossed her mind that the Enclave suits had their own versions of the Eyes Forward Sparkle that allowed them to see if there were any life signs nearby and they’d never actually follow her down to the surface.
The donkey listened for a bit and waited. He heard nothing beyond his own thoughts and breathing. So he turned around and trotted behind the receptionist's desk where there was an active terminal Moth had missed in her haste. He removed a piece of paper from his bags and sat down while setting the paper next to the terminal.
Moth looked around her hiding spot with her ears back. She could hear the pony typing into a terminal and mentally scolded herself for missing it, but was glad to have done so because now she had the drop on him instead of the other way around.
Eventually, the donkey clapped his hooves together and grinned as the terminal booted up, displaying various entries and other data. "Alrighty then! Let's check out what this entry says."
His hoof came down and pushed the button to bring up a security entry.
