Xenophobia

Chapter 13

*The Battle of Canterlot Part One*

The heavens were falling.

“… t’s not a black thing.

It’s not a white thing.

It’s not a gay thing.

It’s not a straight thing.

Testing for HIV is the safe thing…”

In blood and death ‘neath the screaming sky, Gerald Hanes was alive. He just didn’t know what to do about it yet.

“Have you gotten yourself tested, Robby?”

“Fuck, no. I don’t need a test to know my dick is fuckin’ contagious. I fucking hate that commercial, man… fuck…”

“What’s got you so… uh, verbose?”

“My cousin died in the riot yesterday...”

He was jostled to and fro, and there was straw everywhere: literally everywhere. It scratched and irritated and prickled, but Jer didn’t move. He just lay back, watching the atmosphere burn.

His leg hurt. A lot.

“I’m sorry.”

“No need. It wasn’t your fault. Fucking, Sandusky...”

“The President can’t win this, Mike. We have half the populace on our side.”

“Yeah… but what about the other half, huh? What about them?”

“Screw ‘em, Mikey… Screw ‘em.”

The jostling stopped. All that moved were the buzzing, black artillery rounds screaming through the wilting shield above, and still Jer lay on his back. His head ached, and the gashes on his back had split open again—scraped on the wall of some building he’d bounced against.

Why did he collide with a wall? The memory was hazy, but Jer was certain it explained why the sky was falling, and why he got the feeling that there were bugs around.

Gerald hated bugs.

A green muzzle thrust into view, obscuring Jer’s view of ragnarok.

Oh… a horse? Horses? Pony!

Jer was the sole human witness to the fall of pony land. Sweet.

“Oh my merciful Luna are you alright?!”

“Cymbal,” Jer coughed, spraying blood in the dark unicorn’s face. “You’re early.”

“Yeah, and you fell from the sky!” The muzzle from above shouted, fear tingeing its horsy voice. “What the buck is happening?”

“The sky is falling, man. At least that’s what I remember…”

Gerald felt an itch—all encompassing and comforting and green—spread across his body, and he was lifted into a sitting position. His right leg figuratively screamed in very real agony, and Jer shouted along with it, remembering. He remembered everything.

The magic holding him up faltered, and the anguished human felt the pony holding him flinch.

“Boss! Get a compress or something! The, uh, Boss?—buck!—the boss is bleeding like a gnarseal over here!”

“What about the other one?”

“What do you mean? He’s—No! We don’t have time for this!” Cymbal got in Jer’s face again and smiled nervously. “You’re gonna be fine, Boss…”

“Of course I’ll be fine,” Jer growled, tears of pain coursing down his cheeks. “Who the fuck do you think I am? A royal guard? And since when do you call me Boss?” Pushing Cymbal aside, the agonizing human stood up, and his body immediately rebelled against him.

Spine flared, leg tore, head burst and eyes burned. The pain was unbearable, and it was delicious. Pain meant he could feel.

Gerald was alive, and that meant he still had a job to do.

“Where’s Ray?” Gerald half growled, half sobbed, wobbling on one good leg in the center of a haycart in the center of a city in flames.

Changelings fell from the sky in droves, trailing green fire, and ponies of all shapes, ages, and colors filled the boulevard in panic. Jer recognized the café he’d graced with his presence not two days ago, collapsed in the cobbled streets. Lumps of color lay amongst the rubble, and Jer quickly averted his gaze.

A wisp of pink magic—a remnant of Shining Armor’s pride—landed on Jer’s shoulder, but he ignored it. The sun would soon reach its apex, and all would disappear under its glowing brilliance…

Shit, his mind was wandering.

“Where. Is. Ray?” Jer snarled, turning on the stallion who had seen it fit to accidentally save his life.

“I… Chuckles?”

“He ran toward the courthouse. I couldn’t stop him…”

“Then we need to follow him,” Jer breathed, allowing himself a small, pained smile. Ray was going for the jeep. There was morphine in the jeep. Oh, fuck did he need morphine. “Get ‘hitched up’ or whatever it is you do.”

Cymbal scrambled back to the street and nudged his yellow partner toward the front of the cart. They quickly hitched up, shifting the cart violently.

“How far are we?”

“Fifteen minutes,” Cymbal grunted, starting to turn the cart. “When you and your friend landed in the back of the cart Chuckles kinda panicked and bolted before I could get unhitched.” The yellow pony Jer was unfamiliar with—Chuckles—glowered silently at the drummer as he talked. “We should be able to make up the distance pretty quickly, though.”

“Make it five, and the drinks’re on me.”

“Uh… J-Just pay the tab back in Ponyville and we’ll call it even, Boss.”

“Deal... and stop calling me Boss.”

Steps. Raymond hated steps.

Infinite, angular and sharp they stretched, impeding the progress of many a generation fleeing people. There were always too many to climb—or too few to distance oneself from a pursuer. Exercise-be-damned...

Why the fuck couldn’t these creatures have invented magical elevators or something? Or maybe just a wheelchair ramp? How do the crippled ponies serve jury duty if they couldn’t reach the damned courthouse!?

How the hell was Raymond supposed to get up there alive!?

Stone exploded on the steps below the exterminator and he quickly spun to meet another adversary: firing his pistol blindly. There was a screech and something wet flecked Ray’s face. Not stopping to see the damage, the ex-marksman half-raced, half-limped his way along a small landing to his next flagstone obstacle. Three more flights stood between him and the courthouse, the white and purple mortar building blotting out the magic-scarred sky. Nearly there, now.

A chorus of buzzing filled Raymond’s ears and he ducked instinctually. The air boiled, blistering the man’s back through his suit, and a sledge of flaming manalight passed over him, crashing into the flight above with a splintering crack. Another changeling uncurled itself from the cratered stone, hissing and spitting green blood.

*CRACK*

“Bug number four,” Ray thought, kicking the splintered body aside as he continued upward.

Keeping score: if Jer was still alive, Ray needed a head start… bad. The schitzo bastard was probably awake by now, and without morphine, well… even being a few kills ahead wouldn’t do Raymond much good if Jer still had his gun.

At that moment, the idea of healthy competition was the only thing keeping the climbing human from losing it.

Jer wasn’t doing too hot, and Ray knew it. He’d seen the blood; felt the bones breaking under him when they landed. But he’d had to leave him—HAD to! Gerald needed Company medicine, and he needed Raymond to get it for him.

Dropping the slide from his pistol, Ray counted his ammunition: four rounds left, one still chambered. That left four for the bugs and one for him. A quick glance around found the area around him to be clear, but he was nervous nonetheless. That was his last magazine. He needed to get to the jeep: fast.

Raymond put on a burst of speed, climbing the last two flights in one go while keeping a keen eye above for any more dive-bombers. He burst into the courtyard, winded, to find the grounds deserted. The jeep sat untouched at the east end, and Jer’s bandstan—shit, the fillies.

Sweetie Belle stood next to the now crushed bandstand, craning over the stage edge to look toward the courthouse steps. She was completely exposed to the sky above. Grunting, Raymond jogged over, panning his weapon along the horizon. It appeared that the majority of Chrysalis’s forces were pillaging the lower city, so they were safe… for now.

Hearing his heavy footfalls, Sweetie spun toward him, terror written plainly across her young face. It quickly disappeared once she recognized him, however:

“Ray? RAY!,” the filly quickly scrambled across the grass to him. “Oh thank Luna you’re all right! Scootaloo said she saw you fall! Where’s Jerry? Is he all right? Please tell me he’s okay!”

“He’s fine,” Ray lied, scooping the filly roughly from the ground and scanning the area once more. “Where’re the others?”

“They… They ran up the marriage-building steps. We thought you guy might st-still be there.” Sweetie wheezed through crushed ribs. Ray loosened his grip slightly and made his way to the jeep. Once he made it to their pilfered vehicle, he tossed Sweetie Belle—more carefully, now—under the tan chassis.

“Unclip the rifles,” he grunted as he rounded the front of the vehicle to the passenger side. “The blue lever.” Raymond heard a low, electronic beep and two thumps, but paid them no mind. He tore open the dash-box, rummaging until he found a pair of thick, black serum pouches. The human quickly stuffed both inside his jacket’s inner pocket and checked below for Sweetie Belle.

“Other side—fuck.” Jogging, he made it back to the driver’s side of the jeep to catch the little white unicorn dragging a pulse rifle out from the vehicle’s underbelly, shoulder-strap firmly clenched in her muzzle.

“Rye grt tit,” she growled through the wet nylon, struggling to lift the butt of the heavy firearm. Ray bent down and relieved her of her burden in a heartbeat and turned toward the courthouse.

“Stay here,” he ordered. “I’ll be right back.” As he began to run, the human just barely heard her reply, faint from the pulse still pounding in his head from the climb up:

“Promise you’ll be back? Promise!? Ray!”

No, he couldn’t.

The courthouse steps were considerably less steep than the cliffside path he’d been forced to traverse earlier, and Raymond quickly reached the landing and the ornate double doors of the court proper. The entrance was spread wide, revealing Applebloom and Scootaloo crumpled to the floor. Above them stood a pony the color of an ocean at night: an alicorn with starlight flowing in her mane and a dark blue aura surrounding her sharp spiral horn. That very same aura encompassed the heads of the two fillies lying prone in the green-stained center aisle of the courtroom, their little chests rising and falling rapidly.

Ray didn’t like the looks of that one bit.

Striding carefully forward, the human raised the butt of his rifle above his shoulder, swinging right and downward in a swift, scythe-like motion. The blue alicorn turned, wide-eyed, just as Ray’s gun struck her temple. She crumpled, magic imploding with a loud pop, and lay sprawled on the floor next to the two foals—she was still breathing. Scootaloo and Applebloom still lay there, unconscious, so Raymond neglected to put a bullet through the suspicious alicorn’s skull just long enough to hoist them onto his shoulder. Holding his rifle, Wrath, in one arm, he pointed its muzzle at the winged unicorn’s throat, but hesitated to pull the trigger.

The moon… there was a half moon on its ass.

Shit… ohoho he was going to get chewed out sooo hard for this later…

Ray dropped Wrath and gripped Celestia’s sister’s hind leg, quickly and unceremoniously dragging her down a side aisle toward what looked like a storage closet in the corner. He stuffed her inside.

Running back to the door, he scooped up his rifle and burst out into the smoky, noon sunlight.

He made it to the jeep in record time, throwing both his and Jer’s rifles—which Sweetie Belle was kind enough to drag out—into the passenger seat. Ray then led Sweetie Belle back to the half-ruined bandstand and hid her two friends underneath.

“What’s wrong with them?!” Sweetie cried, trembling at what the human assumed was the thought of her friends being seriously injured. Pushing her under the bandstand alongside them, Ray gave her his best answer:

“Sleeping. Now stay here and stay hidden: I have to go find your sisters.”

Not waiting for a reply, Raymond sprint-limped back to the dune jeep and climbed into the drivers seat. A prick of the thumb later and he was speeding into the scorched remains of upper Canterlot.

Gunshots rocked the streets below.

“Slow down, damn it! I’m trying to kill something!”

“No way *wheeze* are we doing th-that, Boss!”

The wooden hay cart rumbled and jostled through the cobbled streets like a drunken runaway, swerving left and right as Changeling artillery—which just so happened to be the creatures themselves, much to Jer’s surprise—screamed and blasted around them. Gerald squeezed off shots wherever he could. Lifting his arms had become a battle in itself, and his pistol felt like a hundred pound weight in his slick, calloused hands.

Wood creaked and lurched underneath the human, and he felt something sharp grind against in his weighty chest as he lost his balance and landed painfully on his ass. A pained screech from below signaled the gruesome end of an unlucky changeling soldier, crushed twice by the heavy, splintered wheels of Gerald’s ride.

“Two!” the human whooped as he carefully righted himself, heart beating faster at the thought of some mindless competition—a game he hadn’t played in earnest for over a year. “C’mon, gimme a three. Lucky number three…” Jer’s gun flared, bullet grazing the edge of a market stall nearly a foot from a charging, black soldier. “Fuck!”

Raymond was surely beating him at this rate.

Cymbal and his yellow friend made a sharp right turn onto Canterlot’s Mane Street, pressing Jer to the left-hand wall of the cart just as a bolt of green magic seared the air where he’d been seconds before. “Oh shit,” he giggled; a mixture of pain and amusement, “That could have been—hehe shit—could have been bad.” A strong wind rolled down the more open roadway, whipping Jer’s bluish tie directly into his face. He quickly tore the offending clothing free, sending it flapping back to earth behind the speeding cart. “Sorry, Rarity.”

Though the breeze was strong on that side of the city, it did little to drown out what Jer heard next. Over the rattling, wooden wheels of the cart and the beating of hooves on the cobbled street came the wails of frightened children, rising to a hellish crescendo as they drew nearer and nearer to the Equestrian History Museum. Mountainous marble steps stretched upward to an equally gigantic building that looked like a clipping from an old, human travel mag—“visit the beautiful North American Company hub!” Just at the edge of the building’s metal-encased doors huddled a group of children, protected by a familiar purple mare from an ever-closing ring of changeling infantry.

What a day to schedule a field trip.

“Up the steps!” Gerald roared, leaning as far forward as he could to grab the manes of his two drivers, jerking them sharply to the right. Chuckles cried out in confusion, but Cymbal simply kept running, climbing the stone steps as quickly as he could. The cart, driven by immense momentum and slightly less immense horsepower, bounced its way up the steps, garnering the attention of the advancing changelings—four unarmored soldiers led by a fifth, adorned in jagged, purplish metal. Jer opened fire on the armored drone, punching two holes in its breastplate and tearing out one of its forelegs at the shoulder with an explosive round.

The air quickly filled with the sound of buzzing wings, and three changelings leapt straight toward the cart as it made its final lurch to the top of the museum steps, too quickly for Gerald to stop them. Wood shattered, and the cart tilted dangerously, spilling the human onto the cold, stone of the museum foundation. Pain exploded in Jer’s chest, and it felt like he’d had his leg torn out, but he kept hold of his gun as the world blurred around him.

Vision tunneled, his head groaned with voices; voices; voices!

“Mikey, did you hear that?”

*Crash*

“Shit, we’re being raided! Cut the feed! Quick, damn it!”

“Get to th—zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…”

Blessed static in a murky world…

… and yet Jer could still hear the screams…

… so many screams…

Where did they go? Certainly not hell… no, definitely not.

Somewhere he could never follow, more likely.

Tears stung Gerald’s eyes: from the pain or the memories he didn’t know, but it was enough to bring him back to the present. The world snapped back into place; the screams became real; the sky was still falling.

A black shape obscured his view of the flaming planet’s ceiling and he raised an arm, firing his pistol on instinct alone. A pained screech tore at his eardrums and a jagged, runny weight impacted Jer’s stomach, winding him.

“Four,” Gerald breathed, trying—and failing—to lift himself from under a mass of chitin and twitching, swiss-cheese limbs. “Fucking FOUR!”

Something wet seeped through Rarity’s hard work and slicked the bare skin of Gerald’s chest, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was the screaming. It needed to stop. He just barely managed to push the body from his lap—a still squirming drone, glowing organs slithering from a sizeable hole blown in its once smooth barrel—when another changeling slammed into him from the side.

Jer felt another rib break, and suddenly he was sliding across the ground, a snapping, chittering bug lunging for his exposed throat. The human moved to put a bullet through his attacker, before realizing his hands were empty. So he threw an elbow instead, knocking the changeling aside just enough for it to miss his throat, and nearly tear off his ear instead. Ignoring the new stinging pain in the side of his head, Gerald slipped his hands around his attacker’s throat, squeezing with all his might, but the creature’s exoskeleton didn’t give. Screeching in anger, the bug snapped at his neck once more, but was held mere inches away by the human’s squeezing fingers.

Muscles screaming, Gerald thought frantically for a way out. Sweat coursed from his throbbing brow and pooled dangerously close to his eyes, blurring and burning in his vision.

An idea formed, and Jer quickly latched onto it.

Straining to hold back his thrashing attacker, Jer slipped his right hand higher on its throat, working his thumb up the bug’s jawling, across its cheek, and finally into its sky-blue eye socket. The bug quickly tried to close its eye but Jer had already began screwing his thumb under the round, soft curve of the creature’s cornea. The changeling let out a terrified shriek and tried to pull away, but Gerald held it fast against his body.

There was a flash of green, and suddenly he was holding a squirming, screeching mare—white on purple; bleeding; struggling to be free.

Another flash, and he was holding Cymbal, his green coat covered in slick, green blood and orange vomit. Gerald quickly tried to remember who threw up, but was stopped by another flash of green magic. Now he was torturing Pinkie; then Sparky; the ticket mare from the train station; Shining Armor; a toy version of Celestia…

Grinning evilly, Jer pressed harder. There was a sickening pop, and he felt his thumb plunge into a pool of cold, thick jelly. Faux-Celestia screamed in agony, wings flapping; buzzing; flapping; buzzing—Jer was holding a changeling and his hand was covered in ooze and there was still screaming, screaming, screaming!

Roaring angrily, Gerald threw the screeching bug away and staggered to his feet. “Five!” he howled to the falling sky, daring anything else to take a swing at him. He felt nothing, high on adrenaline and murder, and he was loving every second of it—except for the screaming.

THE FUCKING SCREAMING!!!

Whipping his head around, he scanned the area. There had been five changelings—three that attacked the wagon—three dead—where were the other two? An angry grunt to his left prompted Jer to turn around, quickly finding his gun laying next to a dying changeling (number four) and Chuckles beating the snot out of another while Cymbal looked on in horror—“Motherbuckers destroyed my wife’s good cart! I’ll kill you! Then she’ll kill me-he-heeee!”

“Four down,” the human thought quickly, stooping to pick up his firearm. He pointed it at the changeling struggling to escape Chuckle’s clutches, pulling the trigger, only for it to click: empty. “Where’s the last one?”

A spiteful hiss quickly answered his question.

Fumbling at his inner pocket, Jer pulled out two bullets—a set of ten he had kept… for mercy purposes. A magazine slid, slugs clicked, and the human turned, finding about a dozen children huddled behind one of the two columns flanking the museum’s enormous doors—still shrieking hysterically, mind you—and one purple schoolteacher, changeling drone latched to the back of her neck, two curved fangs buried deep in her spinal cord.

The changeling tensed, and the mare underneath it moaned loudly, an odd smile on her face. She spoke, words slow, sounding cloudy; drugged.

“Ooo! Oh, M-Macintosh keep doing that, love…”

“Keeping pony shields, eh? Cowards.”

“Kill them. Kill them both. Fucking do it you weakling!”

“Stay angry, Asshole. Stay angry.”

Gerald took a shaky step forward. The adrenaline was beginning to wear off, and his leg screamed at him to stop. Another step; another.

He was five feet away when Cheerilee noticed him.

“You!” the mare hissed, glaring hot death at the approaching human. “Stay away from us! We don’t want you around, you monster!” Jer could see her deteriorating right before his eyes: cheeks thinning, fur becoming pallid, crazed light draining from her eyes. The changeling—jaws still clenched around Cheerilee’s neck—snarled, and the purple mare shivered in weak ecstasy, eyes rolling back into her head like sunken marbles.

Jer kept walking, and the mare screamed:

“Get away from him! Don’t you dare touch my Snoopy-Doo!”

Gerald grimaced, ignoring her; ignoring the screams, and raised his pistol. He was right on top of them, and neither pony nor changeling moved away. Why didn’t they at least try to escape? Jer got closer, waiting for the bug to make a run for it so he could shoot it without damaging the schoolteacher.

It wasn’t until he pressed the muzzle of his weapon to the small bridge of chitin between the changeling’s eyes that Jer realized that he was now at the center of a hostage situation.

Damn he was out of it. He could have gotten Cheerilee killed just walking up like that…

No matter. He was there now.

Jer pressed his gun harder against his adversary, causing its fangs to dig deeper into the flesh above Cheerilee’s withers. She was raging now—practically frothing at the mouth—and Gerald was almost certain she took a snap at his thigh, but he didn’t have time to think about that at the moment.

Hostage situation…

What did the Company say about hostage situations?

The drone snarled again, dripping blood-laced saliva as its eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. Jagged, tubular ears flattened against black exoskeleton, and Jer could feel hot, cloying breath flow around his hand as he pressed his weapon down harder.

Oh… Gerald remembered, now…

“Six,” the human whispered—a breeze drifting at the edge of a raging typhoon.

As if sensing what was to come, the drone’s horn lit up like a sickly, green flare, heating the air directly in front of the exterminator. Without a second thought, Jer angled his gun to the horizontal and pulled the trigger. There was a flash of heat and light and painful blubbering screams, and Jer quickly closed his eyes as he was peppered with blood and sharp slivers of chitin.

… Weyland-Yutani didn’t negotiate with terrorists, bugs, or tax-evaders… and neither did he.

The wails; the wails; the wails came then, shrill and blaring—some real, others merely perceived.

“MAC! Oh my goddesses, Macintosh!”

“It hurts, Jay-Jay! It hurts so much!”

“Cheerilee!”

“Ms. Cheerilee!?”

“Jerry, why-y-y? Kill meee!”

“Lord, the screaming… the screaming! Make it stop!” Jer fell to his knees next to a weakly writhing; sobbing Cheerilee, fists pounding at his temples. “Get it out of my head!”

So many voices: so many memories. They would kill him—burst his head right open like a ripe melon. Close now, Gerald though he heard the roar of an engine, but he wasn’t sure of reality anymore.Everything screamed; and then nothing; nothing; nothing; nothing; nothing!

Stinging rocked Gerald backward, landing him on his ass, and the world blurred back to reveal a shadow—tall, dressed to kill—standing above him. An arm cocked back, and Raymond was there, slapping him.

Again.

Again.

Burnt and stinging and broken, Gerald caught his former sergeant’s arm. They stayed that way a moment, ringed with children and leaking blood, before Ray spoke:

“Four.”

Jer smiled, eyes focusing on a point that was nowhere and everywhere. “Six.”

“Day’s just beginning,” the scarred human continued, freeing himself and crouching level with his friend. “You gonna clock out?”

“Fuck no.”

“Then let’s go.” He held out a calloused hand, blue eye like a sharp glacier in a field of sweat, scars, and light, buzzed hair.

The former corporal refocused himself, latching onto the outstretched arm—the life preserver cast into Gerald’s personal ocean of screams. “Thanks, Sarge.”

They stood up, and Jer’s world lurched.

“I’m not your sergeant, Asshole.”

“Love you, too, Ray.”

Raymond reached a hand into his jacket and pulled out a black drug-pouch, unzipping it with his teeth—other hand still cinched around Jer’s wrist—and slipped out a pneumatic needle. He looked to Jer for permission, and his partner nodded. Jer felt the needle jam into his upper thigh, punching right through Rarity’s dress pants, and felt a cooling numbness slowly spread throughout his body. The pain dulled, all that remained were the screams and static—but it was easier now, the ignoring.

“Stimulant.”

“Jer, you know what that does t—”

“Give me the stim, Ray.”

Another hiss of gas and icy sting of adrenaline later, the screams grew—expanded—drowning out the static of the downed radio: wailing and roaring inside Jer’s skull.

But he could ignore it now.

“Kill me, Jerry. Please just kill me!”

Jer had a job to do.

“J-Jerreeeeeeeeeee—!”

Corporal Hanes stood up straight, comfortably numb and practically writhing with manic, jittering energy. Excited, he turned away from his former sergeant and took in the scene:

Cymbal and Chuckles stand a respectful distance away, the yellow stallion covered in viscous changeling blood—“Good for him!”

Cheerilee lay not three feet to his left, staring up at him with dull, expressionless eyes. A thin trail of torn skin and burnt fur slashed across her withers—most likely from the bullet Jer used on the changeling sucking her dry—between a pair of broken, ivory fangs still embedded in her spine—“Ooo… that’s gonna be a bitch to remove… Oh well!”

About a dozen fillies and colts trembled behind a Doric column to Jer’s right, all no older than eight by his estimate. He recognized the little pink filly and her friend from before and waved. They cringed and fled to the back of their peers, all of whom were looking upon him with trepidation. A few of the braver ones—namely a tiny pinto colt and a dark purple unicorn filly—were inching towards their fallen teacher. Jer gestured to her and nodded, bringing them running, before turning to survey the damage.

Four changelings lay bleeding out on the marble, laying in pools of their own fluids as their uninjured brethren flew on above. It appeared that they had entered the eye of the storm… for the time being. Jer spotted the jeep at the bottom of the stairs and Ray running back up the steps toward them. His suit still looked rather presentable—“Bastard”—and he was carrying two pulse rifles—“Nevermind!” His leg still appeared to be giving him trouble, so Jer decided to try and meet him half-way. He took a step—his leg was just a dull throb now—and quickly closed the distance, stopping only to bring a heel down on one of the still plaintively squealing changelings with a wet crunch.

A loud crack from his pistol ended the other, trying to scrape its glowing innards back into its chest cavity. A sick smile spread across Jer’s face and he kicked the body of the armored soldier—the first he’d killed at the museum—down the chipped, stone steps of the museum, producing a carnival of clanking, crashing metal.

Raymond appeared moments later, and Jer happily received his generous gift of firepower.

Cold metal slid against blood-slicked hands as Jer looked over his gun—Company standard, M41–AT “Trannie” Pulse Rifle. Weyland sure knew how to make a thing of beauty. Gerald felt a perverse urge to kiss the weapon, but restrained himself, settling for a loving caress as he deactivated the rifle’s safety switch.

He tilted it left and gave the magazine a smack to make sure it was secure—95 explosive plasma rounds in the hole. Oh baby was it time to party or what? A surge of pink distracted the human for a moment, but it was only a large hunk of drifting magic. For a second there he was almost certain… that it, well… nah.

“Drugs’r making me see things.”

Ray slid into place next to him, nudging him lightly on the elbow and they both looked down on the burning pony city. The swarm, like a patch of twinkling, green night moving across the sky, was descending upon the entertainment district to the east: three blocks of theaters, restaurants and museums in the shadow of a looming, fortress of sorts—a guardhouse, perhaps? The southern suburbs stood ablaze, pouring black smoke into the noon sky amongst wispy snow and eldritch flames.

Screams rose and fell to the east, the swarm moved on, and Gerald’s pulse was pounding like a motherfucker.

“Do something,” a voice—weak, so very weak—sounded from below. Jer glanced down to find Cheerilee laying on her side, thin chest heaving. She must have crawled closer… rather foolish considering her condition. The two foals from before sat quietly beside her, looking out over the capitol in pained awe. “Please. You h-have to do something.”

Jer shifted his gaze back to the smoking horizon. “What’s our contract with Celestia say, again?”

“We free creatures, Raymond Schaffer and Gerald Hanes, do hereby agree to serve as escorts and protectors of the Elements of Harmony for the duration of their stay in Canterlot on May the Seventh, 1102 After Discord, to the point of death if the need should arise.”

“Company Shore Directive?”

“Exterminators First-Class of the Independent Earth Anti-Terrorist Coalition are to—when free of primary Weyland-Yutani objective—actively assess all threat of infestation on any and all celestial bodies within the vicinity of Company-mandated shore leave. Authorization to purge with extreme prejudice granted.”

“Well all right then,” Jer smirked, slinging his rifle over one shoulder. “Looks like shore leave just got cancelled.”

“We never had it to begin with.”

“Whatever. Our deal with Celestia is now secondary to purging ourselves a Class IV. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“And if we just so happen to receive any information on the Elements, then we’ll just have to save them for resources’ sake, right?”

“Right.”

Jer snorted, wiping his nose on one sleeve, and spat on his shoe. “Then let’s get the children into the back of the jeep—AY! Cymbal!” Jer shouted, startling the green unicorn—who had also been watching his city burn to the ground, though with slightly differing emotions—into turning toward the two humans. Chuckles stirred from his place next to the other stallion and gave Gerald his attention as well. “You and Chuckles get the children and Purple here into the back of the jeep, got it?”

Both stallions nodded, quickly trotting toward the gaggle of children closer to the museum doors.

“All right,” Gerald chuckled, slowly beginning to walk down the museum steps. An evil smile spread his lips wide, teeth jittering from the adrenaline. “Let’s paint the town green.”