Fallout: Equestria - Operation Cauterize (FO:E Group Collab)

by Interloper

Rating: mature
Tags: Adventure, Crossover, Dark
Length: 24008

As war descends upon the Equestrian wasteland once more, cities from Canterlot to Fillydelphia recoil from the Grand Pegasus Enclave's final solution: Operation Cauterize.

The sky is falling. Cities are burning. Great cloudships are descending from the cloud layer and with them, upon wings of fire, a black-carapaced scourge. Hundreds upon hundreds of pegasi and their war machines fall upon the hapless inhabitants of the Equestrian wasteland. Promising peace and charity, the Grand Pegasus Enclave delivered only war - a war that will burn across Equestria, from Canterlot, to Manehatten, to Fillydelphia, and beyond.

For most, this war will be their end; but for many, this war is where their stories will begin - stories of blood, and fire, and carnage. These are the stories of the souls who fought and bled during the war that became known as: Operation Cauterize.

This is the Fallout: Equestria group short story collaboration for our 2000 member celebration!

The name of and links to each author are provided at the beginning of every short story.

Want to participate? See the prompt, rules, and more information over at the Group Collab thread!

Cover art is: [FoE] Battle of the Cathedral by TheOmegaRidley

Submissions will be added to this collaboration upon completion.

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2014-12-10 04:30:38 UTC

Tart Hunt

Tart Hunt

By thatguyvex

           In the Wasteland most ponies struggle to feed themselves day to day. The lucky who manage to live in a halfway competent settlement can manage to get by without looking like a scarecrow, while many others survive off of the most meager of sustenance. Even the lucky ones tended towards being a tad on the thin side.

           So it was a mystery to many just how it was physically possible for Raspberry Tart, former ‘mayor’ of Friendship City, to have reached the prodigious girth she did. The raspberry red mare was not merely fat, nor rotund, but truly obese. She didn’t so much fill out the blue and white checkered blouse she wore so much as made the poor garment look as if it was straining under the weight of the world to keep her massive frame contained to any degree.

           While these rolls of fat meant that Raspberry Tart moved akin to a whale in labor, it did have the side effect that she floated on water surprisingly well. Useful, given the boat she’d been fleeing the burning Friendship City in was now sinking like a brick. A brick that had been shelled by mortar fire. Then attached to another brick.

           The mortar fire part was actually accurate, as the explosions that had rocked the small outboard motorized craft had been from a series of mortars lining the shore just north of Friendship City. Raspberry Tart didn’t have time to think about who’d done the shelling. Probably not the Enclave. The reclusive, militarized nation of pegasi favored energy weaponry in copious amounts, and Raspberry was fairly sure they were still busy trying to burn her former city to the ground to really pay her little escape boat much mind.

           Good thing, considering she’d been the one to bring them in. Sort of a moot point, however, given the fact that her boat was now capsized and doing a wonderful impression of a floundering fish as it bubbled beneath the waves. Raspberry saw that most the crew ponies had dived overboard, along with the few refugees that’d gotten aboard, but none of them seemed fit to come to her aid.

           She would’ve bellowed in protest but there was seawater getting into her mouth every time she tried to do more than get two syllables strung together. Mostly she just made choked, half sobbing “Helps!” that came out more like “Garrrrrgle!”

           She was failing her flabby hooves to the best of her limited ability, but swimming had not been a high priority on her list of acquired skills over the course of her life. A life that, tragically to her reckoning (perhaps less so to others), seemed in dire jeopardy despite the buoyancy of her body.

           Then a pair of wire hard and thin hooves wrapped around her neck. She thought somepony was about to try and throttle her, as if drowning wouldn’t do it fast enough, but the hooves didn’t close around her windpipe, but instead just firmly managed to get a hold around her upper chest and neck (to be honest it was hard to tell where one began and one ended on Raspberry Tart) and held her up. She felt a body behind her, keeping her floating, and there was the sensation of kicking as the pony that had a hold of her began to swim for shore.

           A reedy, but calm voice spoke, “Stop flailing. You’re making this harder.”

           Raspberry Tart recognized the voice immediately. With her head now firmly above water she could finally speak.

           “Wetwork! Get me out of the water! I can’t swim!”

           “That much is obvious,” came the hitstallion’s deadpan reply, “Try going limp. That should help.”

           She ground her teeth together in annoyance at his flippant tone, but she did as she was told. Wetwork was nothing if not competent, and her last remaining henchpony after the debacle with that damned Stable Dweller, so she did as he said and just relaxed her limbs, letting him drag her to shore.

           And hoping that the rest of the day would somehow manage to go better than it so far had.

           “Gentleponies, take a seat,” said the bright yellow pegasus mare wearing an Enclave officer’s uniform with Major stripes on her lapels, “There’s not a lot of time so this briefing is going to be fast.”

           “With the whole damned force in the middle of this shitstorm I’m shocked we got pulled from Fillydelphia,” said 2nd Lieutenant Boldflight, easing into one of the chairs as the members of his squad took seats around him. His crème coat clashed with the stark black chair, as did his neon pink mane, styled in a simple slicked back manner.

           “What’s up pulling us from the front just when the rain’s turning brown out there?” asked Corporal Bombing Run, the waif thin red stallion grimacing, rubbing a hoof over his own buzzed teal mane.

           “It has to be important, whatever it is, so just hush, Bombing, “said PFC Gale Force, her own bulky gray frame making her seat squeak a bit as she settled down, her short cut black mane falling over one of her violet eyes.

           “Um, shouldn’t we just let the Major explain things?” asked the last member of Boldfight’s squad, PFC Fresh Rain, her diminutive purple body making her look like a foal compared to the size of her squadmates, a fact not helped by the rather unmilitary length of her dark ocean blue mane.

           Major Firestarter cleared her throat and said, “Quite right, Private. Let me make this quick, Boldflight. We have a priority alpha order from Colonel Autumn Leaf and I don’t have any other insertion squads trained to handle a search and eliminate mission. Everypony else is either posted to hit Filly, or is being deployed towards Canterlot and Manehatten. We’re stretched more thin than I think command expected.”

           “I heard we lost Raptors over one of the settlements to the east to some kind of aerial sonic attack,” said Bombing Run, growling, “These fucking Wastelanders have a lot more ordinance than intel ever led us to believe.”

           Fresh Rain shuddered, “I heard rumors that there’s some horrible monster attacking our ships, like a zombie with bat wings that breaths a cloud of pink poison!”

           “Don’t listen to rumors Fresh,” said Gale Force, giving the smaller mare a sidelong smile of encouragement, “This is the first serious fighting for a lot of us, so ponies are going to make up stories and exaggerate. Just you wait, in a day or two we’ll have this all sorted out and these savages won’t ever be a threat to the Enclave again.”

           Fresh Rain gulped, but nodded, “Then we can start helping the poor ponies down here.”

           “Yeah, that too, I guess,” Gale Force said with a shrug.

           “In any case,” Major Firestarter said, voice going steely and commanding the squad’s attention, “The fact is you four are my only available squad to carry out this alpha order. This is your target-“

           She gestured at a slide projector screen, clicking a button on the wall, and a picture appeared from a projector on the ceiling. It showed a morbidly fat mare sitting behind a desk, apparently yelling at somepony outside the picture. Her mane was piss yellow an done up in a ludicrous bouffant bun.

           “Is that a pony or a jelly donut with legs and eyes?” asked Bombing Run, blinking.

‘I can’t even see if she has legs,” said Gale Force in a voice dripping with a mix of wonderment and disgust.

           “I thought ponies down here were starving all the time,” Fresh Rain said, confusion clear in her small voice.

           “Pipe down!” Boldflight said, sighing and gesturing for the Major to continue.

           “This… mare,” said Major Firestarter, “Is named Raspberry Tart. She was involved with part of the preparation for Operation Cauterize, but apparently is now deemed a liability by the Colonel. You’re orders are to locate the target and eliminate her as quickly as possible.”

           No pony in Boldflight’s squad questioned that. They were special operations, trained for such missions. They weren’t as elite or prestigious as the Wonderbolts, but each Enclave regiment had at least two or three special operations squads like Boldflight’s to handle anything from dangerous recon, to sabotage, to seek and destroy missions. They were trained not to ask questions, so they didn’t. Whatever this mare had done to get on Autumn Leaf’s wrong side, it wasn’t Boldflight or any of his squad’s job to ask why she was being selected for elimination. It was just their job to see it done.

           Bombing Run and Gale Force looked bored at the prospect. Boldflight saw the hesitation on Fresh Rain’s face, but had expected as much. She was actually one of his first choices for his squad for her skills as a medic and tech specialist, but knew the harder aspects of the work would be tough on her. But she’d manage. He sensed she would take to the work well enough once she got used to it.

           Then again he’d never honestly expected to put her to this kind of work, as Operation Cauterize had come as a bit of a surprise to most of the pegasi in the Enclave’s forces. A widespread attack on multiple Wasteland locations in an attempt to pacify and reduce the ‘dangerous elements’ that occupied much of what had once been Equestria. After all hardpoints of resistance had been eliminated the Enclave would begin reconstruction and revitalization of the Wasteland… but first the slavers, savages, and other dangerous ponies who lived in the Wasteland had to be dealt with. Apparently Raspberry Tart was now among that number.

           “Your target was last seen fleeing the settlement called Friendship City,” said Major Firestarter, pulling up a map on the slide screen, showing a top-down topographic view of the area, “Aerial surveillance shows that her boat was sunk by savages called ‘Raiders’ by the locals along the north shore, but we caught a shot of her being taken to shore by another pony.”

           The slide changed, showing a zoomed in view of the shore. There the fat, balloon-like form of Raspberry Tart could be seen being pulled from the water onto a rocky beach by a tall, thin stallion in a suit.

           “We don’t know who the stallion is, but his life is also forfeit if he’s aiding the target. Raspberry Tart takes higher priority, and if the stallion doesn’t get in the way you’re not under strict orders to eliminate him as well, but don’t waste time or effort on negotiation. Take him down if he seems a threat. The pair was last seen traveling south, keeping to the ruined buildings. They’ve probably gotten past Friendship City, or what’s left of it, by now. You’ll launch from the Phoenix Wing while we’re at a high altitude above the city. From there you’re to track the target down. Radio in one the mission is complete and a Vertibuck will be dispatched to extract you. Any questions?”

           “Yeah, if the mare dies of a heart attack while we chase her does that count as mission complete?” asked Bombing Run with a gruff laugh.

           Major Firestarter sighed, “I’ll take that as a ‘no’, then. Boldflight, you’re dismissed. Good hunting.”

           She saluted with a wing and Boldflight and his squad returned the gesture. They then filed out of the briefing room to get geared up for what Boldflight hoped would prove a quick and simple mission. He wanted to get back to Fillydelphia, where the real fighting would be taking place.

           Wetwork eyed the burned, crumbled remains of what he suspected had once been a warehouse, across the street from where he hunkered down behind a wall of rubble. Behind him the labored wheezing and huffing of the mare he worked for caused him to narrow his pale yellow eyes.

           “You need to be quieter,” he said in a small whisper, “The Raiders are still on our trail, and you’ll lead them right to us.”

           Raspberry Tart puffed out her thick cheeks and glared at him, her own voice barely capable of being called a whisper as she grumbled, “I…huff…can’t…huff…keep doing…ugh…this…”

           “You’ll have to,” he told her bluntly, “Breath in through the nose, out through the mouth. We need to keep moving, though. It’s clear for now, at any rate.”

           He suspected the Raiders that had shelled the boat were trying to lay claim to the entire area, especially Friendship City itself. It seemed the Enclave’s attack was making everypony with a bit of firepower and ambition come out of the woodwork. He didn’t care, if not for the fact that his employer was not a mare suited to treks across the Wasteland. It made the job at hoof rather… difficult.

           Wetwork had worked for Raspberry Tart for many years, and had not once regretted the choice. She paid well, gave him interesting work, and he had had a comfortable enough life in Friendship City. He wasn’t happy the town was gone, and had little love for the pegasi that had destroyed it, but he had understood Raspberry’s role in the affair and accepted it as part of her doing business. He wasn’t certain even she had expected the city to get hit as hard as it had. No matter, what was done was done, and his job was now to keep his employer alive.

           He was, if nothing else, a professional.

           He pulled back from the hill of rubble and gestured for Raspberry Tart to follow him as he slowly and carefully slinked around the edge of the rubble pile. He was a lanky stallion, tall, with bandy, beanpole legs. His sleek dirt brown coat blended in perfectly with the Wasteland terrain. He’d been forced to ditch his poor suit earlier. Too waterlogged. It left him naked safe for the bandolier he kept his 10mm silenced pistol holstered in with several spare clips of ammo and a small set of saddlebags filled with provisions and a small number of anti-pony grenades. Even the grenades he felt were a bit of an excess luxury for his line of work. An assassin, a professional hitpony, didn’t need a lot of firepower. Ideally his targets never saw him coming.

           It made things problematic, however, when faced with the prospect of a protracted fight with Raiders. So far he had managed to drag Raspberry Tart in a zig-zagging, evasive pattern that’d thrown off pursuit, but he could feel the net closing. The Raiders weren’t giving up, and he knew it was only a matter of time before they were caught, especially with his slow moving employer.

           “Follow me, stay down, and try to control your breathing,” he told her as he led her across the street. Beyond the ruined warehouse he knew there was a set of stairs leading to some ruined transit tunnels. They wouldn’t take them all the way to his intended destination, but it’d lead to an old shopping mall where a mostly intact highway went by that would take them to where Wetwork knew they needed to go.

           “I…guh…I don’t see,” Raspberry Tart gasped, catching her breath, sweat trickling down the rolls of her neck, her eyes blinking blearily, “I don’t see why we’re going this way. Wouldn’t it have been safer to make for Manehattan?”

           He glanced back at her, but only for a second before he resumed scanning their surroundings as they moved, “No. Manehattan is a battleground now. The bigger buildings might seem to give more cover, but you’ve seen what those airships can do to a fortified city. The big buildings in Manehattan are just larger coffins. We need to go south.”

           “Why?” asked Raspberry in a whining wheeze, “Why can’t we just hole up somewhere and wait for all this to blow over?”

           “Because it probably won’t blow over,” Wetwork said simply, “The Enclave is playing for keeps. This whole area is dangerous. We go south. I have a metro station down there where I’ve fixed up a railcar. Emergency escape in case things ever got too hot in this region. Tracks go all the way to the city of Dise. Safe enough for now, if we can make it to the station.”

           That seemed to pacify Raspberry Tart, or perhaps she was just too tired from the exertion of walking to bother complaining more as she started to huff and gasp more with each step. Wetwork worried she would pass out before even getting to the first set of transit tunnels.

           His worried glance back at her gave him the warning he needed to spot the Raider sticking her head up from behind a ruined dumpster, aiming a rusty hunting rifle. Wetwork shoved himself back at Raspberry Tart, sweeping her legs out and rolling the huge mare over just in time to get her out of the way of the Raider’s shot, which rang out in the ruins of the Wasteland like a ringing dinner bell

           “Bwahaha! Found me a big pig! Gonna eat like royalty tonight!” cried the Raider mare, toothy grin wide as she shouted at what Wetwork presumed were nearby comrades, “C’mon boys, come an’ git it!”

           Wetwork wasted no time, drawing his pistol in a pale yellow aura that matched his eyes as the small stub of his horn lit up. He was weak in magic, perhaps as weak as a unicorn could be, but he still had enough to levitate the pistol, take up, and fire with a soft ‘pfft’ of noise from the silencer. The bullet hit the Raider mare in her dirty beige neck, blood spurting and the mare’s calls turning to a gurgling scream as she fell.

           “Move!” Wetwork shouted at Raspberry Tart as the mare struggled just to get her pudgy legs under her. He went to her and grabbed one of her hooves to help her up, but she pushed him aside.

           “I can damned well run you idiot!” she snarled, “Just kill them!”

           “Too many,” Wetwork said simply, already gauging from the sound of whoops, whistles, and guttural yells that at least a dozen Raiders were galloping their way. He could maybe account for half that, on a good day, when he didn’t have an overweight madmare to look after. He was an assassin, not a warrior badass.

           Despite the deadly severity of the situation he didn’t bother pushing Raspberry Tart along faster, instead keeping a careful eye on the way towards the Raider’s shouts and hollers as he backed up in her wake. Raspberry Tart grunted and wheezed as she waddled along at something resembling a fast trot, her head sagging.

           They just made the gaping open doorway into the warehouse when the lead Raiders tore around the corners of the ruins down the street. Wetwork knelt down, aimed carefully, and fired off three shots in short succession before the Raiders even turned to notice him and Raspberry. Unfortunately the metallic, rusty armor one burly stallion wore kept him standing, and another of Wetwork’s shots went wide. The third struck a smaller stallion using rubber tires as shoulder pads squarely in his head and he went down with a stream of blood and brain leaking from his skull, but that didn’t even make his comrades pause before they turned towards the warehouse and charged forward, all the while firing away with an assortment of broken down, scavenged firearms.

           Fortunately the classic poor aim and worse weapon maintenance skills of Raiders proved the saving grace of Raspberry Tart and Wetwork as bullets skipped off concrete and rust stained metal walls around them. Raspberry Tart let out a surprisingly high pitched and feminine shriek as a near miss clipped her ear and she worked double time to throw her bulk through the warehouse doorway. Wetwork was right behind her, taking a couple of more pot shots at the Raiders that he didn’t bother to stick around to see if they hit.

           The door of this entrance was broken in half and laying half buried in two centuries of dust on the floor, so Wetwork didn’t bother trying to put it up as a barricade, instead just pointing across the warehouse’s extensive area to an exit on the far side, past a small patchwork maze of rotted crates and rusted barrels.

           “That way, fast! Faster!” he said, putting a hoof on Raspberry Tart’s flanks and shoving for emphasis.

           “Hey, hooves off the goods!” she bellowed and shuffled along at what Wetwork was belatedly realizing was her fastest pace.

           Wetwork suppressed a groan, maintaining as much professional calm as he could under the circumstances, “Keep to cover and don’t stop moving for anything.”

           Raspberry Tart didn’t respond, perhaps too winded to, or perhaps finally realizing due to the small trickle of blood from her nicked ear that her life was truly in danger, now.

           As she trotted amongst the fallen crates and turned over barrels, keeping her bulk low as she kept waddling at full speed, Wetwork stayed pace behind her, and turned to poke his head around the top of an old Stable-Tech crate to aim at the doorway. The Raiders came on, lacking caution or tactics. They smelled blood and thought they had easy prey to run down with numbers. They were right, but Wetwork was intending to make them work for their meal. It was still possible to get away if they just made it to the transit station. He knew the tunnels well enough to lose pursuit, and his grenades would be doubly effective in the closed in spaces down there. He was refraining from using them now until he needed a way to keep the Raiders down so he could reload.

           Which was to be soon as he unloaded the last of his pistol’s clip at the Raiders as they rushed through the doorway in a disorganized mess. He hit the lead Raider two more times, but that damned metal armor, combined with a surprisingly thick motorcycle helmet, kept the 10mm rounds from brining the large stallion down. Another Raider caught two of Wetwork’s rounds in her chest, which her thin leather armor couldn’t withstand, and she dropped with a choking scream, but that still left nine or ten Raiders who spread out in the warehouse and started firing at Wetwork.

           He ducked his head behind the crate, keeping his body pressed flat to the dirty and cold warehouse floor as bullets splintered wood above him. With practiced ease he bounced a grenade out of his saddlebags with a hoof and pulled the stem like pin on the apple shaped weapon with his mouth while he reloaded his pistol with his magic. His magic wasn’t strong enough to do both actions at once, so the second the stem was out he tossed the grenade with his hoof, just aiming in the general direction of the Raiders.

           “Fuck! Boom boom!” shouted a mare, or maybe it was a stallion, hard to tell with her guttural  voice.

           Wetwork heard Raiders scatter and he wasted no time turning to bolt deeper into the warehouse. The grenade went off a moment later and he heard, to his satisfied smile, at least one Raider scream in agony. He bobbed and wove his way through the maze of crates and debris, quickly catching up with Raspberry Tart near the far side. She was dragging herself along like a drunk, feral ghoul, her gasping, ragged breaths of air making her sound like the neurotically animate corpses that sometimes plagued the living of the Wasteland.

           “Not far,” he said encouragingly, “Stairs to the transit station are just outside. Keep moving.”

           “Stop…huff…fucking…uggh…saying that!”

           Wetwork refrained from commenting as he was too busy turning around to double-tap a Raider who’d charged headlong after them with a large, metal blade seemingly fashioned from a skywagon bumper. The bullets didn’t stop the mare, apparently the one with the guttural masculine voice, as she crashed her dark, burned orange body into Wetwork. The body slam sent his thin frame sprawling and he tucked and rolled with the blow, despite losing his breath in the process.

           “I like mah stallions nice ‘n blood ‘fore I ride ‘em good!” said the mare, her fetid breath nearly making Wetwork gag as she advanced on him, messy, stringy brown mane framing her mad grin.

           “No thanks,” Wetwork said between gasps to get his breath back, “I prefer to buy a mare dinner first.”

           He’d lost his grip on his pistol from the slam, but he spotted it to the side and levitated it up with practiced speed. His magic might’ve been weak, but he’d practiced long hours to make his limited use of it smooth and fast. He doubted the Raider mare expected him to regain his composure, or his weapon, so quickly, if the surprised look on her face was any indication before he put a bullet through the side of her head.

           More Raiders were coming, however, so Wetwork had no time to gloat or feel accomplished. Instead he turned and ran for the exit, which Raspberry Tart was having trouble getting her bulky body through. With a sigh Wetwork put his head down and shoulder rammed Raspberry Tart from behind, pushing her through the door with an almost cartoonish *pop* of noise as the mare went face planting into the dirt outside.

           This door was still intact, and Wetwork slammed it shut behind him just as the Raiders were getting to that side of the warehouse.

           “Gah, pfft,” Raspberry Tart was spitting dirt from her mouth, “You’re doing this on purpose!”

           He met her accusatory stare with a level one of his own, “Yes, I am, so we don’t die. Now-“

           “I get it! Move,” said Raspberry Tart, not in a complaining tone but one of tired resignation as she forced her quaking, fat legs to support her as she moved at a quick waddle towards where a arched stairway leading down into the ground was, one of the many public transit stations that had ferried ponies all over the heartland of Equestria before the end of the war, and now were like a endless catacomb of tunnels beneath the ruins of the civilization they once served.

           Wetwork heard the banging on the metal door, amused that the Raiders didn’t immediately realize the door wasn’t even locked. Taking advantage of the moment he pulled out another grenade, bringing him down to just two left, and he pulled the pin. He tossed it at the base of the door just after it swung open to a roar of anger from the lead Raider.

           The following bomb was quite satisfying, and Wetwork followed Raspberry Tart down into the dark depths of the transit tunnels leaving behind another two or three less Raiders in the world.

           “I’m picking something up, .56 klicks southwest,” said Fresh Breeze, monitoring her power armor’s E.F.S system that was boosted by the Skywatch Active Scan array mounted on her back, like a little black backpack with a rounded dish on it. It boosted her suit’s scanning range by more than 200%, but required expert hooves to maintain and read the more vague readings the system gave.

           “What have we got?” asked Boldflight, his voice coming in clearly in her power armor’s communication system despite the fact that he was flying nearly a hundred meters to the east, part of the squads wide patrol net as they looked for signs of their target.

           “Hard to tell at this range,” she replied, “I’m getting a lot of heat signatures and blurry motion. Sound amp is picking up concussions, could be explosions. I think there’s a fight going on over there.”

           “There are fights going on everywhere Fresh,” said Bombing Run, “We got anything more specific?”

           “None of ours,” she replied firmly, though her gut was churning with nervousness and fear. This was her first time, like so many of her fellow pegasi, seeing the surface world. Up until a short time ago Fresh Breeze’s life was one of boring patrol and drills, and endless blue sky and white cloud.

           She’d barely fired an energy weapon outside of firing ranges and training simulations. She’d never seen a pony die, let alone killed one. Now her mission was to kill a pony. She tired to rationalize that it was for the greater good of her people, and that when she joined the Enclave military she’d done so prepared to do this. She’d badly wanted to serve, to put her talents to use for her people, since she hadn’t really been wanted at home. Foalbirth was carefully monitored and controlled in the Enclave for the sake of keeping the population under control. An… accident like Fresh Breeze had been was uncommon. She often wondered why her mother had bothered to keep her if all her mother was going to do was complain that Fresh Breeze was alive.

           Joining the military had seemed a good way to get away from that and put her ‘unwanted’ life to good use.

           It still left a bad taste in her mouth, though, that her first real mission was to assassinate some random pony for reasons she wasn’t even allowed to ask about. It left an even worse taste in her mouth seeing the Wasteland for the first time.

           It was more horrible than she had imagined. No light, no green, no life… just an expanse of dead, gray ruins, like the endless hide of some decomposing corpse. Could this land truly be saved, even with the full might of the Enclave? Fresh Breeze doubted, but she wanted to try. This was what she and her fellow soldiers had trained for. To save this land for the good of all ponykind.

           Even if it seemed like a lot of ponykind that called this wretched place home seemed to want nothing more than to fight back and kill like mindless savages. Fresh Breeze had heard the trickle of rumors even up until her squad deployed that the Enclave was taking heavier casualties than it had anticipated.

           In a way Fresh Breeze was glad she only really had made friends among her squad and had been a pretty shy pony during training. She hated the thought of her fellow soldiers dying, even if she didn’t know many of them on a personal level. How much worse would it be to lose a friend to this fighting? How many families were losing loved ones right at this very moment?

           “Fresh! Look alive girl! I asked you if you can tell how many there are down there?” snapped Boldflight’s sharp tone. Fresh Breeze dipped in the air in surprise and quickly righted herself, cursing under her breath at her foolishness in letting her mind wander. While on a mission, no less! She felt like a first year rookie!

           “J-just a second, sir!” she said and carefully started to examine the readings in her helmet’s HUD. Multiple overlays of images and data scrolled across her eyes as the sensory gear she wore streamed information into the reinforced plastic eye pieces of her power armor and Fresh Breeze let her mind focus both on keeping a steady flight path while analyzing the information that was before her; including distance, sound recognition patterns, heat signatures, bioelectric signals, and motion detection.

           “It looks like maybe eight ponies,” she reported, “Eight to ten, hard to tell.  I think it’s a chase. There are two ponies fleeing a larger group. Lots of gunfire… I just detected what I’m pretty sure are grenades going off. They entered a large building, sir.”

           “Okay, there’s a chance the fleeing pair may be our targets. Or it could just be Wasteland riff-raff getting caught by their fellow savages,” said Boldflight, “Either way we’re moving in to check it out. Bombing, form on my wing. Gale, form on Breeze. We’re using the Thunder and Lightning pattern. We’re not here to talk, so weapons hot.”

           Fresh Breeze stifled a fearful gulp as she made sure her Novasurge plasma rifles, one mounted on each hip of her armor, were primed and heated to fire. The magical energy rifle’s green gems began to crackle with barely contained power, just waiting for her mouth to tighten on her trigger to fire. The Thunder and Lightning pattern was a pretty standard air-to-ground attack method, one that was widely practiced but to Fresh Breeze’s knowledge not often put into use outside of the rare ground patrols. It revolved around one flight element using explosives and heavy weapons fire to flush out a ground enemy from cover, the ‘Thunder’, so that the next flight equipped with more precision weapons could take the enemy down, aka the ‘Lightning’. Bombing Run and Boldflight would try to flush the Wastelanders from cover so Gale Force and Fresh Breeze could take them out.

           Take them out. A cool sounding military phrase for ‘kill’. Fresh Breeze took several deep breaths, praying for strength. This was it. Real combat. Moment of truth.

           She wished she didn’t have to pee all of a sudden.

           Granted the power armor was equipped to… handle that kind of thing, but she was too scared to even think about it.

           She focused on the task ahead of her, reading off the distance to the target area and updating her squad as the four of them flew over the Wasteland ruins, gradually lowering their altitude for the attack run.

           “Six hundred meters… five hundred… four hundred… sir, the two lead ponies have fled from the back of the building. They’re breaking for some kind of hole in the ground. Three hundred meters… more grenade explosions…”

           The building was in visual range now amid the thick ruins and it looked like some old dilapidated warehouse. Fresh Breeze, using her helmet’s image zoom and enhancer was able to catch sight of what had to be their target mare, because she’d never seen a pony so fat and robust, along with another stallion run and dive down some kind o ancient staircase built in the ground. At the same time a little over half a dozen wretched looking ponies in rag-tag armor charged out the back of the warehouse, where the grenade explosions from before had destroyed the back door, and they galloped for the same stairs the target had fled down.

           “Two hundred meters,” she said, and Boldflight cut off her next intonation when the hundred meter mark was reached.

           “Light them up!”

           Bombing Run and Boldflight were ahead of her and Gale Force, so Fresh Breeze got a clear look as Bombing Run’s grenade launchers fired, the circular drum-like ammo chambers rotating as he let loose a barrage of fragmentation rounds. These rounds landed in front of the charging Wasteland ponies and exploded in quick succession, sending limbs flying off of one poor stallion while shredding the face of another mare. Boldflight fired his side mounted machine gun, the heavy .50 caliber weapon stitching a line of explosive rounds along the back of the enemy group, sending another pony spinning to the ground in a fountain of blood.

           It wasn’t even a matter of the ‘Thunder’ driving the enemy into the open; they already were. The effect was devastating, causing the Wastelanders to falter in their charge and hesitate, milling about in confusion at the sudden attack from above.

           “Leave one alive, Gale,” said Boldflight, and Gale immediately opened fire with her sniper rifle, two quick shots. One took a mare cleanly in the hind leg, sending her crashing to the ground. The other tore right through a stallion’s head, blasting brain matter across the dirt.

           Fresh Breeze didn’t even realize she hadn’t fired at all until they were already past the group and banking upwards. She’d been so shocked by the sight of ponies actually dying in front of her that all thought of biting down on her own trigger had fled her mind entirely. She hoped her comrades wouldn’t notice, but they had.

           “They flaming skies was that!? Fresh Breeze, open fire!” shouted Bombing Run.

           “I… I…” she stammered, then screamed as bullets tore past her, clipping one of her legs. Her armor protected her, but the impact still startled her and would leave as nasty bruise. The remaining ground ponies who were still standing had turned their weapons skyward and were firing at the pegasi who’d just strafed them.

           “Bombing, switch to flagbangs, we don’t want to kill our one prisoner,” commanded Boldflight, “Fresh Breeze, disengage and climb to one hundred meters until I order otherwise. Gale, form on me, let’s finish them off.”

           His voice didn’t carry any anger, nor scorn… just disappointment. That cut deeper into Fresh Breeze than any amount of yelling would have, but she knew she deserved it. She’d just utterly failed as a soldier, let along one who was meant to be part of an elite team like this flight. Though a few bullets snapped past her, she climbed quickly as she’d been ordered, and watched as her comrades finished the job with expert skill and efficiency.

           Bombing Run swiftly looped around and let loose another barrage of grenades, these ones exploding in bursts of sound and light that didn’t do anything to the Enclave pegasi with their sound dampening and flare compensation built into their armor, but left the Wasteland ponies stunned and disoriented. Gale Force and Boldflight rapidly dispatched the ones who were still standing with skillful shots, Boldflight switching to use his one magical heat rifle that ended the fight with a solid red beam that turned a stallion in rusted metal armor to ash while Gale’s sniper rifle did for the other two.

           It was over all too fast and while her comrades landed Boldflight’s voice reached her, “Come on down Breeze. We still got work to do.”

           She tried to keep her head from hanging down as she landed. Gale Force was using synthetic rope to tie up their one surviving prisoner, a piss yellow mare with a dirty brown mane, who was cussing up a storm while Gale bound her tightly.

           Bombing Run trotted right up to her as she landed and shoved his face right at hers, “The buck was that up there!? You forget where the trigger is?”

           “I’m sorry,” she said, standing at attention like she was back on the drill field with her instructor tearing into her for having a buckle on her uniform out of place, “I won’t try to deny it, I… hesitated.”

           “Damn straight you hesitated. Buck me, you’re lucky these Wasteland ponies are such little bitches, otherwise you’d be putting us all in danger,” groused Bombing Run.

           “Bombing, that’s enough,” said Boldflight, approaching them, “Go help Gale interrogate our prisoner. See if you can find out where that staircase leads. I’ll talk to Breeze.”

           “Yes sir,” said Bombing Run, but with a tone that said he wasn’t done dressing down Fresh Breeze yet.

           Boldflight turned his attention to her after Bombing Run trotted off and though the faceplace of his armor hid his expression his voice was steady, projecting both calm, concern, reproach, and disappointment all at once.

           “What happened up there Fresh Breeze?”

           “Sir, I, ugh… I can’t explain it any other way other than I just froze up. I’ve… I’ve never seen ponies die like that, and I just froze up. I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.”

           “See that it doesn’t. I understand what you’re going through. Me, Gale, Bombing, we’ve all run ground ops at one point or another. Each of us has seen at least a little action against the ponies down here before. I shouldn’t have expected you to take to this easily, and I regret your first real mission down here is during Cauterize. You should’ve started with simpler patrols… but we’re here, now, on a mission, and I need you at your best. I need you to follow orders, and to fire when I tell you to. I’m not saying this to be hard, I’m saying this because hesitation like that can get you killed, and I want all of us flying home when this is done. Do you understand?”

           Her eyes had strayed to the bodies of the Wasteland ponies, whose torn forms and crimson blood were splattered across the old, ancient pavement and dead brown dirt. She swallowed, hard, and nodded, “Yes sir, I understand.”

           Boldflight gave her a pat on the shoulder, metal shot hoof clanking against her armored shoulder, “Good. Now, let’s see what we can learn from our prisoner.”

           As it turned out, not a lot. The dirty yellow mare was nearly incoherent with rage and Fresh Breeze quickly discerned the mare’s mental and physical condition were so deteriorated that it was a miracle she could even operate a firearm. Fresh Breeze had occasionally questioned the Enclave’s claims that the Wasteland was nothing but a filthy place of disease and degenerate ponies, but looking at this wretched excuse for a mare led Fresh Breeze to believe every word she’d ever heard of this place growing up.

           The Wasteland was sick, and its ponies were just as bad. The Wasteland needed the Enclave to save it!

           “Sir, I don’t think this… mare,” Gale said the word as if she didn’t think it applied, and that a term like ‘scum’ or ‘fungus’ might be more appropriate, “Knows anything of value.”

           Boldflight nodded, “I agree. Fresh Breeze, deal with her, and let’s move on.”

           Fresh Breeze felt her blood turn icy.

           “Sir?”

           He glanced at her, then gestured at the tied up, raving Wastelander, “We’re not to leave any witnesses, and she might have friends nearby she might go get to cause us problems. Finish her.”

           He didn’t add the ‘that’s an order’, but it was there, in his tone, and Fresh Breeze knew this was her test, her ‘second chance’ to demonstrate to her commander and her team that she had what it takes to be part of this elite squad.

           “Bitches,” the yellow mare was ranting, “You’re all just bitches! Untie me and we’ll see who's so fucking tough!”

           Fresh Breeze felt like she was in a dream, or rather a nightmare, as she found herself walking forward, each step leaving her feeling colder and colder inside, a tightness gripping at her heart as she stood in front of the tied up mare. The mare turned angry red eyes on her, and despite the madness and rage there, Fresh Breeze could also see fear.

           Fresh Breeze aimed with one of her energy rifles, pointing the green, spear-like tip at the mare’s head. The mare went silent, eyes wide, teeth grit, and her chest heaving with fast, fearful breaths. Each second that ticked by felt like the slow grind of an hour as sweat beaded on Fresh Breeze’s forehead.

           She didn’t even realize when she’d pulled the trigger. It hadn’t taken more than a simple bite of her teeth on the firing bit. A second’s half-decision and a little movement and the rifle flared once with baleful, deadly light. The green bolt slammed right into the mare’s face and Fresh Breeze felt a deathly, icy cold in her gut as the mare screamed, once, a horrible, distorted scream of agony as the green energy overtook the mare’s whole body.

           The Wastelander literally melted into a puddle of green goop in front of Fresh Breeze.

           She didn’t know if only seconds or minutes had passed before Boldflight’s hoof found her shoulder, “When we get back, you can hate me, yell at me, let it all out. Right now, I needed to know you could do this. Now, let’s get moving. Seems like our only option is to follow the targets underground.”

           Her voice sounded distant to her own ears, like it was somepony else talking. Her mind felt… numb, blank, but it was still operating on some kind of autopilot now. She felt herself distancing herself from this whole affair. That green puddle of sludge? That wasn’t a pony, and never had been. She was just a soldier following orders. She wasn’t a murderer. She wasn’t a killer. She was a soldier. And soldier’s had jobs to do. She had a job to do. So she did her job, and felt like her mind and heart were in different worlds entirely as she did so.

           “Sir, we don’t need to go down there,” she said, “The signs above it label it as a metro. I remember enough history to know that’s an underground transportation system. Those tunnels are going to be a maze. However I can use my sensory gear to scan the surrounding area and pick out the nearest possible exits. If we spread out and you all link your armor’s E.F.S to mine we can cover a wide area, spot our targets whenever and wherever they surface, and converge on them then. All without need to risk ourselves in close quarters in unfamiliar, underground territory where we surrender the advantage of the air.”

           Gale Force actually chuckled, “Shit, sounds like a half decent plan to me. I know the last thing I want to do is crawl around down there in the dark.”

           Bombing Run nodded, “Same here. Explosives and close quarters don’t mix. Good plan, rookie, almost makes up for your cock-up earlier.”

           Boldflight looked at her for a few more moments, then said, “Alright, we’ll follow your suggestion then. Everypony, link your E.F.S to Fresh Breeze and let’s get airborne. We’ll catch these roaches when they crawl out of the ground.”

Wetwork very slowly and carefully crawled back from the stairwell, letting himself completely fade into the blackness of the metro system’s underground station. He’d all but stilled all breathing and movement once he’d realized it was those Enclave pegasi that had attacked the Raiders, and he’d only dared stay long enough to get a hint of what they were there for.

           He’d originally sent Raspberry Tart ahead to hide in a old utility closet, fully intending to engage the Raiders as they came down the stairs and leading them on a merry chase into the tunnels, losing them and circling back to pick her up once he was sure the Raiders weren’t going to be easily finding them again. But then the pegasi had showed up and slaughtered the Raiders. He’d remained hidden by the tunnel exit just long enough to listen in on them and watch them depart.

           So, the Enclave was after them? Probably looking to tie up Raspberry Tart as some kind of ‘loose end’. Wetwork had been aware of her deal with the pegasi to give up both Friendship City and a certain Wasteland mare who’d been on some kind of one-pony crusade. He didn’t really care, though Friendship City had made for a good home and it was rather shortsighted of Raspberry to screw it over like that, in his opinion. But he was a professional and his employer didn’t ask for his opinion, and ultimately it wasn’t his job to look after Friendship City, or anypony other than the one who paid him for his services, and Raspberry Tart was paid up until at least the end of the month.

           Some ponies, Wetwork knew, would question his loyalty, or even sanity, by the simple fact that he didn’t leave Raspberry Tart in that utility closet and head off on his own. After all, he’d have a much easier time surviving without the obese mare in tow. But Wetwork had heard it said that some ponies thought it was important to hold onto at least one ‘virtue’ in life, to keep one steady in a world as hard and nasty as the Wasteland. He didn’t know if he believed in that, but if he was going to claim a virtue, he considered his to be ‘professionalism’. He would not, ever, break the trust of his employer. He would remain loyal to his work, one way or another, because if he wasn’t a professional… then how was he better than any other thug or half-wit mercenary?

           Besides, while he knew very few ponies that would share his opinion… he rather liked hefty mares.

           Being stuffed in a utility closet was not Raspberry Tart’s idea of a good time, and every passing second she felt herself become more and more convinced that Wetwork had abandoned her. She was just about to throw the door open and take her chances on her own when the closet opened up and there was Wetwork’s tall, lanky, big chinned from, looking as dour as the day she’d first seen him.

           She honestly couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen Wetwork smile. Which was an odd, stray thought, for her. What did it matter if Wetwork ever smiled? He was her personal assassin. Her old cyborg bodyguard Gizmo had had more range of expression and he’d been more than half made of metal! Raspberry snorted aside the odd thought of Wetwork smiling and said, “So are we safe yet?”

           “No,” he said simply, and stood aside to let her exit the closet. The utility closet was situated in a dilapidated hallway that had more dust than air floating in it and led directly to the old dead escalators that led down to the landing where metro trams would have in ages past ferried ponies all across the Equestrian urbanized countryside.

           “Well if I’m not safe then what you doing here?” she snapped, casting wary glances around, “Those Raiders need to be dealt with!”

           “Oh, the Raiders are no longer a problem,” Wetwork said, giving her a level stare. She found his pale brown eyes annoying. Why was he so… so brown? He was irritatingly plain looking! Ponies by nature always tended to have great variation in their colors, but Wetwork seemed to defy all sense and convention by being brown on brown, with more brown! Why did that bother her? Her confusion only added to her ire.

           “Well are you going to explain yourself or do I have to spell it out for you to fill me in on just what you’re babbling about?”

           “What I mean is that the Raiders have been killed by others,” he said, “Specifically a squad of Enclave soldiers.”

           Raspberry felt relief at hearing that, grinning widely, “Well about damned time they did something useful! Ha, hope they burn out all those worthless Raiders, and Red Eye’s stupid city while they’re at it! Gah and I hope they find that irritating little bitch of a Stable Dweller! All of this is her fault!”

           Wetwork blinked, once, “You may change your mind when I tell you they’re actually here searching for you. It sounded to me like they  orders to eliminate you.”

           Fear instantly replaced relief and Raspberry found herself equally terrified for her well being and enraged at the notion that the Enclave was spending resources to hunt her down. It wasn’t as if she was any kind of threat to them! She spat, cursing the day she’d ever heard of the Enclave. If she was lucky the Enclave and that Stable Dweller mare would just end up chewing each other up. Raspberry Tart would’ve been perfectly happy never to hear of either ever again. But now she was being hunted! And her only remaining protector was a far too calm looking stallion who was barely armed!

           “Damn it all!” she scuffed the ground angrily with a hoof, “Why’d all this have to happen!? I had it so good before, now I’m on the damned run for my life all because of some uppity pegasi and a dumbass crusading bitch with more guns than brains!”

           Wetwork cleared his throat, “Ahem, be that as it may, whatever reasons or ponies you want to blame for our current situation, the facts are the facts. We have a squad of pegasi hunting us, and from what I heard they’re going to be watching any nearby exists to these metro tunnels. However that doesn’t change that our best way out of here is still the train I fixed up at the station south of here. We can’t reach it underground, all the tunnels from here to there are blocked, but we can get most of the way while still staying hidden down here. The rest of the distance we’ll have to chance on the surface.”

           “Why don’t we just stay down here for awhile, until these pegasi get bored and leave?” asked Raspberry, not liking the idea of another run on the surface at all. The last run had left her breathless and sweating and extremely afraid her heart might just up and quit on her. Some back part of her mind said this was what she got for indulging in so many sweets, but if a mare’s good at cooking and has the resources, why not indulge herself? That was the whole point of becoming the unquestioned, rich, powerful kingpin of Friendship City! To indulge in any delight she felt like. What else was life good for?

           Perhaps a little more time on that old Stairmaster she’d purchased from a merchant years ago might’ve been prudent…

           “They won’t just leave,” Wetwork said to her question, “If we stay down here too long they’ll eventually come down after us, but chances are they have more rations than we do and can just starve us out. I’d rather not take that chance. I don’t like the prospect of a fight with them, but there’s nothing for it. If we want out of this, we got to risk it. I’ll do everything I can to protect you and ensure you get to that train.”

           The way he said it was in that same, calm, cool, professional manner he always talked, but for some reason the words poked at something in her. Some long forgotten part of her that she’d left shelved for who knows how long? Feeling… gratitude, it was like dusting off some old pre-war book she hadn’t read in ages. It felt off, and musty, and underused as she took a deep breath and said, “Thanks, though you’re just doing what I pay you for, right?”

           He nodded, “That’s correct. Shall we get moving?”

           She coughed, pulling at the collar of her blouse, assuming the sudden heat was just from the stuffiness of the old metro and the residual strain of the run from earlier, “Yeah, just don’t walk so damned fast, I’m tired.”

           Raspberry Tart had rarely left Friendship City for anything. Her experience with the Wasteland at large was limited to her early years, and back then she’d done anything and everything she could to amass wealth as quickly as possible so she could get out of the Wasteland and set herself up in some halfway decent settlement. Nothing had been beyond her. Scavenging, robbery, gambling, running cons and hustling wares, Raspberry had done it all. Murder hadn’t been her thing until she’d had enough caps to hire other ponies to do the dirty work, but even in those early days she hadn’t been beyond a little violence if it meant getting ahead.

           She’d actually been in okay shape back then, too, though she’d never been much of a fighter. After all, why fight when you could ambush, lie, and steal to get what you wanted? The one place she’d never gone was selling her own body, but really that was only because she liked being in charge too much. She’d tried pimping other mares for a little while, but those bitches whined too much about her keeping too much of her own cut, and really the business just didn’t earn as much caps as good old fashioned drug trafficking and arms dealing. Friendship City had been the proverbial gem mine once she’d gotten herself established there, and the town had been hers quickly.

           A damn good place. She’d gotten fat, both in the sense of wealth and in the literal sense, there.

           Now it was gone and she was back to crawling through the Wasteland.

           If she were a more poetic mare she might’ve thought she’d come full circle.

           As it was she was just pissed her blouse was getting torn and dusty in these damned tunnels and that her hooves were tired and that she really hated the Enclave right now.

           There was little light in the dim metro tunnels and Raspberry found herself tripping every dozen steps or so, scraping and bruising herself in numerous places as Wetwork led her further and further into the musty dark. Before long she was getting far too winded by the trek to properly grouse and gripe at the stallion for not thinking to bring some kind of light source, but then she realized he was a unicorn of all things!

           “W-why…” she gasped, gulping between strained breaths, “Why aren’t you using your horn to light the way?”

           He was little more than a shadowy silhouette a few paces ahead of her, and he didn’t slow his quiet steps as he responded in a low whisper, “Because there is no guarantee these tunnels are empty and I’d rather not attract undue attention with light. The noise we’re making, at least, will echo so much in these tunnels that anything down here won’t be able to use it to pinpoint us. Light, on the other hoof, will be a dead giveaway.”

           She frowned, not really liking the explanation, but not able to argue much with it either. She was unarmed, and she had no idea how many bullets he had left. Tired as she was the last thing she wanted was an encounter with feral ghouls or a pack of radhogs in these gloomy tunnels. Much as she didn’t like it she kept quiet from that point onward, just doing her best not to fall flat on her face of flanks too often as it seemed every piece of stray Wasteland debris and trash imaginable was trying to trip her up.

           The going was slow and miserable, but after what had to have been several hours by Raspberry’s reckoning Wetwork halted in front of her. She almost didn’t see it and nearly ran face first into his backside, pulling back only at the last second and letting out a startled yelp.

           “Hey, what’s the big idea?” she said in a harsh whisper, “Warn me before you just stop like that!”

           “We’re here,” he said simply, standing aside and finally using his horn to cast a pale glow into the darkness. The light of his horn revealed they’d followed a metro tunnel to a station whose platform was nearly twice the size of the one they’d entered from, mostly because it seemed to partially lead to a semi-circular area that looked to Raspberry like some kind of eating court, with half a dozen establishments set up in the wall that appeared to be pre-war restaurants. She also noted an extra large, four sided escalator system leading up with a sign above it that was barely legible as ‘Oaton Super Mall!’.

           “Great,” she said, grunting as she strained to haul herself up the small ramp that led from the tunnel onto the station platform, “Why do we have to go up here, again?”

           Wetwork nodded down the tunnel, towards where a clear collapse had blocked off any way to get further down the tunnels, “Like I said, there’s no way to get further using the tunnels. We’ll have to go up through the mall and make a run for it the rest of the way.”

           He followed her onto the platform and the two slowly walked into the food court. Wetwork paused, looking at her, and Raspberry felt a rising irritation and… something else, at the brief look of concern that crossed his face, “How are you holding up?”

           “Dead bucking tired and starving,” she said with a grumble, taking a second to sit down, “Oh, and I have no money, no supplies, no weapons, there’s a squad of flying death dealers wanting to introduce my cranium to the business ends of their guns, and my only chance of survival is running my out of shape flank across a few city blocks of open Wasteland, basically flashing my plot as one giant raspberry bullseye! But other than all that, I’m good. Holding up just bucking fine! Thanks for asking.”

           Her ire had run out towards the end and that last bit had actually been somewhat genuine. She really was too tired and sweaty to have much more energy to expend on being pissed. If Wetwork noticed or even cared about her anger he didn’t show it as he tilted his prominent chin towards one of the restaurants.

           “We can probably shelter in one of these for awhile. I doubt our pursuers will come down here without being sure where we are, so we can get some sleep and if we’re lucky scavenge something that’s still edible.”

           “That’s one plan I’m not going to complain about,” Raspberry said, wiping sweat off her brow and standing up again, “I’ll give the ponies of old Equestria one thing; they knew how to make preserved food that’ll last.”

           She took the lead this time, trotting ahead of Wetwork and making her way across the food court. She eyed the different restaurants with a critical look. In the early days she’d gotten good on figuring out which places had the right spells and alchemy combinations for the pre-war era to create food that didn’t decay over time, even after two hundred years. She found herself grinning as she spotted a Pinkie’s Pies (trademark of the Ministry of Morale; “Eat a Patriot Pie to support our troops!”).

           “Perfect,” she grinned, feeling the first sparks of an actual good mood since this whole Enclave fiasco had begun. Wetwork followed her silently as she entered the Pinkie’s Pies. The establishment was, predictably, very, very pink, even after two hundred years of disuse. Decorations long since faded away, leaving old decayed balloons and tattered party streamers laying like forgotten bones on the two-toned pink tiled floor. There were more than a few moth eaten posters of the infamous Ministry Mare herself, Pinkie Pie, with her wild blue eyes and pink poofy mane stripped with gray to look like candy cane decorating the walls.

           There was an animatronic robot near the door, standing on a platform with her hind legs bolted to the wood as she stood at rigid attention in a jubilant stance, forelegs splayed wide and a manic, terrifying grin on her mechanical mouth. Black pits for eyes thankfully stayed dead and lifeless as Raspberry passed by. One time she’d entered an old Pinkie’s Pies the greater bot had still been active, launching into a distorted pre-recorded greeting that’d sounded more like a psychotic serial killer inviting ponies into her lair rather than a proper perky invitation to come and order food.

           Raspberry still eyed the bot even after she and Wetwork were fully inside, half expected the creepy thing to spring to life.

           “Odd choice,” Wetwork commented, looking around, “The place doesn’t seem to suit you.”

           She glared at him, feeling oddly defensive at his remark, “What’s that supposed to mean!? You think I can’t be friendly and happy?”

           “That’s not what I meant,” he said in his usual, stoic tone, though she could see he actually looked away from her uncomfortably, “I just meant that its… not the kind of place I imagined you’d pick. Too… kiddy.”

           Raspberry Tart snorted, flicking her tail and stomping away from him towards the kitchens, “I see, so that’s what you think, huh? Well, then maybe I’ll just cook food for myself and let you starve, since this place is so ‘kiddy’! Maybe you’d like to go scrounge food over in one of those other places that didn’t use the best preservation spells the Ministry of Arcane Science had to offer, or the best maintained kitchens in the whole of Equestria.”

           She went into the kitchen and her frown deepened as she heard him enter behind her. He was silent for a second before saying, “I apologize. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

           “Damn straight you shouldn’t. You’re better when you’re quiet. Now just find a spot to sit down and do… whatever it is you do when you’re not assassinating somepony. I’ll take care of dinner.”

           A part of her knew she was doing this because it helped distract her from her circumstances. Well, that and her stomach was literally about to devour her from the inside out, but she refused to eat whatever random crap they found without properly preparing it first. A lot of ponies might have seen her as nothing more than a lazy, fat mare who made others do her dirty work for her… and they’d be right, but if there was one thing Raspberry Tart did for herself, it was cook. Mostly because she’d never met anypony else she’d trust to cook as well as she could. That and it did help with avoiding the occasional poisoning attempt.

           She ignored Wetwork for awhile while she went about preparing a meal. Despite its name Pinkie’s Pies did carry food other than pastries, including an impressive array of sandwich materials. The pantry was locked, but Raspberry Tart had yet to meet a lock she couldn’t crack… well, okay, there’d been a few in her youth she hadn’t been able to open, including one blasted lock that’d confounded her for hours before she’d managed to break a bobby pin off in it in a fit of rage… but really, who cared about those details? It wasn’t as if there was anypony else out in the world who knew how to pick locks.  With a bobby pin pulled from her mane and a kitchen knife to use as leverage she made short work of the pantry lock and stepped inside. The pantry was as well stocked as she could have hoped, and one quick check of the preservation talisman mounted on the wall inside told her the food had been kept in stasis for the entire time since the end of the war.

           Soon enough Raspberry was carrying ingredients to the kitchen and fell into a comfortable cooking trance. It wasn’t just that she liked to cook her own food. Cooking helped her relax. Unwind. Forget some of the things she had to do on a daily basis to keep her business running in Friendship City. Being in the kitchen was her little sanctuary from the Wasteland and what it required of her. Her bastion where nothing mattered except the pots and pans in front of her and the beautiful dance of mixing ingredients into delicious food.

           Dough was mixed and before long a gooey apple pie was baking away as she put together a set of fluffy dinner rolls, a pair of thick dandelion and hay sandwiches, and a small plate of blueberry scones to top it off. By the time it was done and she had the food set up on trays, along with a pitcher of Pinkie Pop soda, also well preserved with alchemy after all this time, she noticed Wetwork had gone back out into the main room. Taking the food out she noticed he’d set himself up at one of the larger tables in the center of the room and had his pistol out and stripped, cleaning the various parts with smooth, meticulous movements.

           She stood there for a second, watching him work. She hadn’t noticed before just how… strong that chin of his made him look, or just how cute the way his face scrunched up as he concentrated was. Raspberry shook herself, mentally giving herself a slap. What kind of idiot thoughts were those!? Near death situations must have really brought out the foal, because the last thing she ought to be thinking was that her pet assassin was sort of cute.

           Besides, she hadn’t had a stallion look at her that way in at least a decade.

           “Foods up,” she said, setting the trays down on the table and taking a seat opposite him as she gave Wetwork a hard look, “You’d better appreciate it! I won’t be making food for you once we get to Dise, so consider this a one time only thing! Got it?”

           He glanced at her, then slowly set down the piece of his gun he’d been cleaning with a oiled rag and pushed the pieces of the gun aside, “Understood.”

           “Good. Well, what are you waiting for? Dig in.”

           She followed her own advice and began to eat, starting with the pie (you always start with pie!) and savoring every juicy bite.

           ----------

           Wetwork wasn’t sure what to make of the situation. In the years he’d been working for Raspberry Tart he’d never once eating with her, let alone tasted her cooking. He’d known she did, in fact, cook, but he’d never put any thought into the notion. He was a professional and she was his employer. Having dinner with her had not been one of the things he’d expected to do.

           Yet here they were, two ponies on the run, being hunted, with the world at war and burning above them… and here they were eating dinner like two normal ponies. Almost like a married couple.

Where did that thought come from? he wondered as he ate, shocked at the taste. He hadn’t expected it to be bad, but he also hadn’t expected it to be this good either. The apple pie was just crisp enough on the outside to support the excellent balance of sweetness and chewiness on the inside. The sandwiches were seasoned expertly and the baked rolls were just right. And the blueberry scones… warm, moist perfection. He honestly couldn’t remember eating a better meal.

           It almost made him laugh.

           “What?” Raspberry Tart asked sharply, giving him a narrowed eyed look. Wetwork realized he must have actually laughed, or at least grinned.

           “Nothing,” he said, then after a few seconds of her glaring at him he sighed and said, “Just thought it’s kind of interesting. I didn’t think you’re special talent would be cooking.”

           “It isn’t,” she said, lips curling in a deep frown, “Not food anyway.”

           He wondered just what she meant by that, “Either way, you’re a skilled cook.”

           To his surprise that actually got her to stop frowning and almost smile, “Well I ought to be, I’ve had a lot of practice.”

           Their conversation petered out there for a time, but Wetwork’s thoughts continued to turn. It was just… oddly surreal to him. Her was Raspberry Tart, the mare who’d made Friendship City her personal criminal playground, and had probably been the terror of more than a few ponies who’d crossed her over the years, and here she was having cooked him a meal that they were both enjoying as if it were a normal day and they were a normal pair of ponies.

           If he looked hard enough with his mind’s eye it was almost as if he could strip away the centuries from the Pinkie’s Pies restaurant, seeing it as it was in its pristine form, with normal ponies going about their daily lives around them. Bright colors, lively conversation, and a constant buzz of the crowd passing in or out of the mall for a day of shopping and fun. And him and Raspberry, not an assassin and his boss, but two regular ponies enjoying each other’s company. Maybe she was a cook and he was… well, whatever he might’ve been if he’d been born in those days. A detective maybe? A guard? A soldier?

           There was no way to know, and it was a passing fantasy, a strange notion that flitted through his mind as softly and insubstantial as any other daydream. He just wasn’t one to daydream, so it struck him harder than it might have otherwise.

           Reality set back in as they finished the meal and an awkward silence hung between them.

           “It was good,” he said, finally, and for some reason he found himself feeling warm as he saw a small smile cross her features, “In any case you’d best get some sleep. I’ll stay up and keep watch.”

           “Alright…” Raspberry said, in a strangely soft tone he didn’t’ think he’d ever heard from her. She got up and slowly trotted back towards the kitchen, where he suspected she’d bed down with whatever she could find to make bedding with. Before she got through the door she paused, glancing back, “Glad you liked it. I know I said one time only, but if we make it Dise… well…”

           She left it unsaid and just waddled back into the kitchen, leaving Wetwork to stare after her, blinking in surprise for a few moments before he shook his head in bewilderment and went back to cleaning his gun.

           It’d been a long, miserable night for Fresh Breeze. Though she’d managed to maintain an exterior air of calm professionalism, inside she was a churning mess of emotions. Guilt flowed together with doubt in her mind, making a nasty slurry of feelings that had her thinking in circles the entire night that she and her comrades kept watch for their quarry to come to the surface.

           Should she have pulled the trigger?

           Her minds’ eye kept showing her the dreadful, slow scene of the Wasteland savage’s face screwing up in pain and terror as the magical bolt hit her face and melted it, along with the rest of her body, to slick green goo. Fresh Breeze had lost count of the number of times she’d nearly lost her lunch, small as it’d been, thinking about it.

           It was the right thing to do, technically speaking. She’d been ordered to kill that pony. The wastelander was nothing more than a savage. Clearly a crazed, diseased pony whose life couldn’t have been worth much. By following orders Fresh Breeze had shown herself a capable team member and made up for her past mistake. She should have felt elated, or at least at peace with having made the ‘right’ choice.

           So why did she feel so terrible? Like her gut was going to bore itself out of her stomach. Had the real mistake she’d made was the choice to become a soldier? Perhaps she just wasn’t cut out for this kind of work?

           But… her mother… Fresh Breeze had to make sure she made her mother proud. An unwanted child had a responsibility to make their life worthwhile, right? Joining the military made sense. It had to. She didn’t have anything else.

           Some part of her mind told her that wasn’t true, that her skill as a medic could have been used in a civilian sector as a doctor, or even remaining strictly to the medical division of the Enclave. No, she’d chosen to be a field soldier, and take the opportunity to join special operations. She’d believed that would be what would make her mother proud of her the most.

           It seemed an almost laughable goal, now, but Fresh Breeze kept forcing those dire thoughts from her troubled mind. She had to focus on her job.

           It’d been a sleepless night for the whole squad. They’d spread a wide search net over the area, laying down surveillance cameras at each entrance to the metro tunnels they could find. They’d taken turns getting a little sleep, but it wasn’t much, all things considered. Their communications gear could tap into the Enclave’s overall military channels, and to be honest what Fresh Breeze had heard was not comforting. Operation Cauterize was not going nearly as well as they’d expected it to.

           Details were sparse to piece out from the transmissions she’d listened in on, but she knew one thing as a certainty; casualties were mounting far faster than projected and what many had expected to be a quick and relatively bloodless set of victories for the Enclave was fast turning into a bloodbath of unprecedented proportions.

           Fresh Breeze prayed for the safety and souls of every soldier out there fighting, hoping that things weren’t as bad as the transmissions seemed, and that when this was all over it’d be the last time the Enclave would need to send its sons and daughters into battle against the Wasteland’s filth.

Please let as many of us as possible survive this, she thought drearily as the horizon started to lighten with the first rays of gray dawn. How depressing the morning seemed, beneath the cloud cover. No wonder so many ponies down here seemed mad. Fresh Breeze had a hard time imagining a life without the sun and blue sky.

           “Movement at marker six!” said Bombing Run’s voice in her headset, “…Oh, wait, it’s just another one of those damned mole looking things. Damn!”

           Fresh Breeze was no fully awake from her near drowsy state, and she stood up, gazing about. She’d been resting a little, perched on the very top of a long dead electrical tower. Scanning around, she took stock of where her squadmates were. They were spread out, still flying patrol, though it looked like Gale Force had taken a perch like Fresh Breeze had a kilometer to the south.

           “Steady there Bombing,” said Boldflight’s voice, “Don’t let the critters down here spook you.”

           “Yeah, yeah,” said Bombing, “Look boss, I don’t think they’re coming up. I say you let me blow the entrances we’ve got and let them starve down there.”

           “Negative,” said Boldflight, “We need visual confirmation of target death.”

           “Ugh, fine, so let’s just go down there, then, and finish this!”

           “I’m with Bombing, on this one sir,” said Gale, yawning, “We’re missing out on the real action while we wait for this fat bitch to waddle into view.”

           Boldflight was silent for a minute, apparently thinking the situation over. Fresh Breeze wasn’t eager to go digging through narrow tunnels either, the confined environment pretty much anathema to the mindset of any skyborn pegasus… but she wanted this mission over with even more. As much as she hated the idea of having to watch more ponies die, the sooner they were done and she could just go home, the better. Of course there was the sobering thought that even after this mission was done there would likely be another, with even more combat, but for now Fresh Breeze was trying hard not to think too much about the future.

           Her thoughts nearly distracted her from a warning signal in the top left portion of her HUD, and with a flick of her eyes she brought up a camera view of the motion sensor/camera she’d set up in one of the southernmost exits to the metro, just inside a blasted out mall.

           “Sir,” she said, “I’ve got movement at marker four; the mall.”

           “Go ahead Breeze, can you confirm what it is?” Boldflight asked, his tone suggesting he wasn’t in the mood to hear about any more Wasteland critters.

           Fresh Breeze examined the view in her HUD closely, noting the size and motion of the tracked object. She didn’t have direct visual, as whatever was moving was keeping to the shadows, but the size and general shape was consistent with a pony.

           “I can’t confirm it, sir, but it definitely looks like a pony,” she said.

           After a pause Boldflight said, “Alright, close enough for me. Move on that position everypony. Breeze, you’re closest. Get there, keep an eye on things, but do not engage until the rest of us arrive.”

           “Understood,” she said in a breathless tone, her heart pounding as she took to the air and started flying towards the distant mall, “I’ll hold position, sir, until the rest of you get there.”

           Then… then this would all be over, and she could go home.

           Wetwork kept to the gloomy, blackened areas of the mall. The entire building held a dead, tomb-like quality to it, with its hollow, empty stores, dusty grand halls, and shattered glass debris covering the white tile floors. The skeletons certainly added to that atmosphere, dozens upon dozens of charred remains of ponies who’d been out for a day of shopping when their doom descended on them from the sky in the form of balefire bombs.

           Near the elevators back to the metro station and dining court he knew Raspberry Tart was waiting. He wanted to scout the area quickly first to make sure it was clear of critters, traps, or their Enclave admirers before he called her up. So far all looked clear, with not a peep of sound or hint of movement in the long ago bustling shopping center.

           Spotting a sporting goods store along one side of the hallway Wetwork moved with swift, quiet steps. He was underarmed, and he’d prepared. He’d known that one day he might have to take this route to get to the tram he’d repaired to go to Dise, and just in case he’d stashed a small cache of supplies in the sporting good store here. He hadn’t wanted to risk getting it last night. Too much chance that something might sneak up on Raspberry while he was gone.

           It was a risk now, as well, because it’d take him a minute to get the stash, but he felt it was worth it. Not only did he have a proper rifle in the stash, but he has a spare pistol he could give Raspberry. He didn’t know how well the mare could still shoot, but it was better than nothing. The extra grenades, food and water, not to mention a few healing potions, would all come in handy.

           Handy? He wondered where that phrase even came from. Only minotaurs and griffins had hands. Perhaps the phrase was imported over time.

           The stash was hidden beneath the tiles near the racks that once held tools for hoofball, a hole he’d dug to hold the big green duffle bag. He removed it and quickly retrieved the hunting rifle he’d left inside, loading it in seconds and distributing ammunition and a few spare grenades to his saddlebags. Hefting the bag over his shoulder, then, and keeping the rifle loosely levitated next to him, he trotted back to the main hall of the mall.

           Something felt off. He sensed movement. He whipped his rifle around, and there was a feminine squawk as Raspberry ducked down. She’d nearly gotten on top of him by the time he’d noticed her.

           He didn’t swear, or cry out. Professionals didn’t do that. But he did glower and nearly sigh as he said, “I told you to wait.”

           “Hey, it’s dark down there, and I thought I saw a radroach or two creeping up on me,” she said in protest, “Besides, it’s fine isn’t it? No traps or monsters up here and if the pegasi were around they’d already be shooting.”

           “Not necessarily,” Wetwork said, eyeing the rafters and broken skylights with worry. That feeling of tension in him, his instincts that said something was wrong, hadn’t gone away with Raspberry’s appearance. He quickly levitated out the spare pistol he had, a .38 revolver that probably had once belonged to a police pony in pre-war era, and a box of ammo, which he sent over to Raspberry.

           “Here, use this.”

           She looked at the gun with wide eyes for a second, before narrowing them with a grim nod. She put the bullets in a pocket of her blouse, which looked a bit comically bulging with the box there, and she took the pistol in her mouth, “Bunn furuver sunth uh ush un gum.”

           Wetwork almost chuckled at her fumbling words with the pistols grip in her mouth, but he understood her. It’d been forever since she’d used a gun.

           “But you have before,” he stated, sure of it from her bearing and what little he knew of her past, “Just like learning to swim. You don’t forget.”

           Her withering look reminded him she didn’t know how to swim, but he just shook his head, “It's do or die, either way. Better you can shoot back. Just don’t shoot me. Now, keep quiet, follow me, and hopefully we can-“

           He didn’t know what made him do it. Was it a sound he heard? A glint of light somewhere in the corner of his vision? An off smell? Regardless, instinct kicked in, and he ducked just as the bullet tore past his head and shattered what was left of the window into the sporting goods shop. He didn’t’ have to look to know where the shot had come from; one of the skylights to his left. He acting instantly, turning his rifle and firing a shot towards the skylight while shoving a hoof onto Raspberry and pushing her down the hall towards the distant exit doors.

           “Run!” he shouted, working the bolt on his rifle and firing again as he pushed Raspberry along behind the cover of an old, dry fountain just as green energy bolts slammed down around them, followed by the rattling of machine gun fire.

           Raspberry screamed. Not in pain, as Wetwork could see she hadn’t been hit yet, but in pure fear. She ran, faster than he expected her to, and for once she seemed to be thinking like a wastelander as she kept her head ducked low and her body as close to cover as she could. The fountain wasn’t providing much, however, and there was sparse cover towards the exit besides a few old benches, overturned garbage cans, a hoof full of sales stalls, and an autowagon that was probably long ago up for grab in some contest or sweepstakes.

           Luckily Wetwork’s collection of grenades had included one or two of the smoke variety and as he moved he strained his horn to pull one out. His magic was protesting the workout of holding the heavy rifle at the same time as the grenade but he forced his flimsy horn to do what he told it to and soon both smoke grenades were sailing ahead, landing at intervals along their path to the mall’s exit.

           The smoke started to billow out just as the shots from their pursuers, undoubtedly the pegasi of the Enclave though Wetwork hadn’t really looked to confirm, were converging on the fountain. Wetwork bit back a grunt of pain as one stray bolt of green singed his flanks. Fear gripped him, because he knew well such weapons could kill even with such a glancing blow… but thankfully his body didn’t melt to goo. This time. His leg was now in agony, however as he ran through the smoke, keeping pace with the gasping Raspberry.

           Quickly Wetwork’s mind turned to think of a plan. The smoke would cover them to the exit, but once they were outside they’d be exposed to a group of ponies that could fly and had weapons that could slaughter them in short order. They couldn’t just run out there.

           Remembering all he could off the mall’s layout from his scouting of many years ago he recalled something and said in a low voice, “Raspberry, this way.”

           He reached out, tapping her flank. She grunted, part in fear, part annoyance, and he sensed her bulk turning to follow him. He stuck close to her, using his tail to flick at her to keep her on track with following him. Bullets and energy bolts zipped down around them, and soon he heard a thumping sound that made Wetwork’s heart leap to his throat.

Grenades! They have a grenade launcher!

           They certainly wanted Raspberry dead, didn’t they? He wheeled about, wrapping hooves around Raspberry and yanking her to the ground just behind the autowagon that was on display. A series of detonations followed that rocked the ground and made his teeth rattle. He felt a bit of sharp, hot shrapnel cut by his neck, but not deeply. Raspberry cried out in pain and his teeth clenched.

           “Are you okay?” he asked.

           “Ummhmm,” she confirmed with a sobbing grunt, and he didn’t wait for more as he pulled her to her hooves. The smoke hadn’t dispersed yet, but its cover wouldn’t last forever. He just hoped his memory of the mall’s layout wasn’t off.

           Pulling Raspberry behind him he soon found the doors he was looking for. Shoving them so hard the old rusted store doors fell off their hinges, Wetwork found himself inside the store he’d been hoping for. A party shop, complete with fireworks stand ‘For those extra Super-Duper parties that need that extra BANG!’. The store’s mascot, a happy and cheesy looking yellow-orange pony with a puffy brown mane that reminded Wetwork too much of that Pinkie Pie mare, was displayed in cardboard cutout in the middle of the store. Wetwork ignored that far too happy cardboard cutout and rushed for the counter with the fireworks. Old though they may be he knew they’d still go off. Raspberry stumbled behind him, coughing from the smoke that billowed into the store.

           “W-what are you…” she mumbled, shaking her head.

           “Distraction. Take cover,” he said, nodding towards a far counter, which also had an employee back door he fully intended to use to get away.

           He quickly set up rockets, flares, sparklers, and anything else he could find into an abandoned shopping cart. He knew he had seconds, a minute at most, before the Enclave pegasi followed them. The shopping cart piled high he scrambled to find a box of matches. It was a party store. It had to have matches. For birthday cake candles. For a terrifying moment he couldn’t spot any, but then he found them nestled up behind the cardboard cutout. Cheesy bastard had been hiding them! Wetwork almost laughed at the thought as he scooped up some matches, lit a few fuses on the shopping cart, and with a firm buck sent it rolling out into the main hall.

           He turned and ran for the employee back door, pulling Raspberry along with him. They got to the doors just as he heard the fireworks going off with a joyous (to Wetwork’s ears anyway) series of screams and blasts, flashes of multi-colored light illuminated his and Raspberry’s path as they vanished through the door.

           Fresh Breeze flew around the south side of the building as the others continued to fire down into the smoke.

           “I don’t think we got them,” said Gale Force.

           “Fuck we didn’t,” said Bombing Run, “I sent a half dozen grenades down there. They got to be bloody smears by now.”

           “I’ve still got movement,” said Fresh Breeze, “They’re heading south, deeper into the building. Can’t get a direct lock on their position.”

           “Wait, something’s coming,” said Boldflight, and Fresh Breeze saw the movement on her E.F.S as well. Amid the gray smoke there were a few sparkling points of light she couldn’t identify, and she instinctively rose into the air.

           “The buck is tha-“ Gale didn’t get to finish her sentence as there was a series of flashing explosions and sparkling trails of light that lit up the mall like a Hearth’s Warming Eve cloud. Fireworks, Fresh Breeze realized after a few startled moments. Rockets streamed into the air to explode either inside the mall or above it in brilliantly colorful starbursts. The movement and noise played hell with her scanners and she saw her squadmates take to the air as well, backing away from the series of explosive lights.

           “Clever little savages,” Boldflight said, “Spread out, surround the building. They’re trying to distract us. Don’t let them escape without spotting them!”

           Everypony rushed to obey, Fresh Breeze included, flying further south of the mall and scanning the ground. In less than a minute she spotted them. The two ponies were rushing down the street, clearly having run from the south end of the mall. They were in the open, but just as Fresh Breeze saw them they also were entering the densely packed field of ruined buildings that’d been just behind the mall.

           “Sir, they’re here!” she called out, banking to follow the two target’s movements, “They just entered a bunch of collapsed buildings!”

           Her comrades all joined her, and in seconds they were flying in formation above the ruins.

           “Bombing, flush them out,” Boldflight ordered and Boldflight turned, strafing the west side of the ruins. His grenade launchers fired away, dull thumps followed by the trail of grenades landing amid the ruins. Fresh Breeze couldn’t see the targets but she saw their dots on her E.F.S as the grenades went off. They dots halted, stopped, moved again.

           “Didn’t get them,” Gale Force said and Bombing Run growled.

           “Just need to get closer,” he said and dived.

           “Bombing, get back here!” Boldflight commanded, but too late.

           Bombing run flew low, clearly planning to pop grenades more directly amid the crumbled ruins, but as he did so there was a crack of a heavy rifle going off and Fresh Breeze gasped as she saw Bombing Run jerk in the air, his right wing twisting horribly as blood splattered from beneath it. The wings of a Enclave soldier’s power armor were armored from the top, but there was space beneath the armor that was exposed. It had to be, for a pegasus’ wings to properly catch the wind and fly. That weakness just cost Bombing Run dearly as whoever had the rifle down there had gotten a perfect shot off that ruined the soldier’s right wing.

           “Bombing!” she cried out, diving as well. She knew she couldn’t make it in time to catch him, but maybe if she was fast enough she could pull him out of danger after he landed. Or crashed.

           Bombing Run hit the ruins hard, skipping once over concrete to land in a heap in a hollow formed of a collapsed roof and some walls. Fresh Breeze heard Boldflight calling for her, but she didn’t care, she had to get to her comrade. She heard another rifle shot and she banked hard. She felt the bullet slam her shoulder, nearly causing her to lose control from both the pain and shock of impact. She just barely kept control of her flight as she flew low through the ruins and, without slowing, slung her hooves around Bombing Run.

           He was heavy, but she didn’t care. She flapped hard to get him airborne, and she heard the rattle of Boldflight’s machine gun and the louder crack of Gale Force’s rifle, giving her cover fire. She didn’t get shot at again as she lifted Bombing Run from the ruin. She flew about fifty meters down one street, finding cover behind another ruined building to set Bombing Run down.

           Landing next to him she reached to pull her medkit from her side, “Hold on Bombing, I’ve got you. You’ll be just fine.”

           She spoke soothingly, turning him over to examine his wounds… only then to realize he was oddly still, not talking. Bombing Run was a loudmouth. He wouldn’t be this quiet after getting shot. Fresh Breeze halted what she was doing, looking him over. Looking at his neck, which was bent at a angle she knew-

No…no…

           She wanted to deny it with every fiber of her being, but it was clear as day as she looked, her medically trained mind already reading off the technical terms with cold truth. Bombing Run’s neck was fatally fractured. He was dead before she’d even lifted him from the ruin. Just bad luck, really, to crash at that angle. The armor was designed to be resistant against such wounds in a crash, but she was well aware the armor wasn’t perfect and a bad angle, combined with the right velocity…

           She’d dropped her medkit, feeling numb all over. She still heard gunfire, but it felt distant to her. There were hot tears in her eyes. She heard Boldflight’s voice as if from miles away, despite it being clear in her helmet.

           “Breeze, respond! What’s Bombing’s condition? Breeze!”

           She swallowed with a dry mouth, licking her lips, trying to force herself to sound composed, like a soldier ought to. Her voice still cracked.

           “Bombing Run is… is dead, sir.”

           The response was a few seconds in coming.

           “Pull back. Fall back to point delta-echo-five, and remain there with his body until ordered otherwise. If you don’t hear from me or Gale Force in one hour, call the mission scrubbed and RTB.”

           “Sir-“ she began, realizing he was cutting her out of the fight. Ordering her away until he and Gale either finished this, or died trying. His sharp tone cut her off.

           “Follow orders, private! Now!”

           Gale Force’s voice joined his, somber, softer, and filled with barely contained pain, “Do as he says Breeze. We’re not losing you too. Me and the LT will finish this.”

           Fresh Breeze clenched her jaw tight, hating this, everything about this, but knowing she had to obey orders.

           “Understood. Falling back to delta-echo-five.”

           With a lead heart and heavy hooves she grabbed her medkit, re-securing it to her side, and picked up Bombing Run’s body.

           The reprieve from dropping one of the Enclave pegasi, really through purely a lucky shot, was a short one. Wetwork and Raspberry Tart rushed from one point of ruins to the next, always keeping to cover. Raspberry’s face was drenched with sweat and she could barely remember the last time she took a breath that wasn’t burning in her throat.

           “How…” she gulped, “How much further?”

           “Close,” Wetwork said, “We’re just a block away.”

           She would have felt relieved if she wasn’t terrified so pissless. She’d lost count of the bullets that’d nearly hit her, or energy blasts that’d seared past her head as they’d ducked and dived through the ruins. Only Wetwork’s constant moving, and seeming knowledge of the area, combined with his return fire to keep the pegasi back, was keeping them both alive.

           To her shame she had to admit she hadn’t fired a single shot and had holstered the pistol between the neck of her blouse. She just didn’t have any clear shots and needed to breath more than she needed the weapon in her mouth. Her legs were burning hot from all the running and she didn’t know how much further she could go.

           The ruins abruptly ended ahead, and she blinked, seeing the distant sight of a metro entry stairwell across the street, just beyond an old gas station. So close, yet so far, out in the open.

           Wetwork paused at the exit to the ruins, hiding along with Raspberry by a thick concrete wall. He scanned the skies, and she did as well.

           “I don’t see them,” she said.

           “They’re there,” he said, “They’re being more cautious now they know I have a weapon that can bite them.”

           Raspberry wiped sweat from her face, waving a hoof over her face, “What do we do?”

           Wetwork looked back at her, then at the distant metro entrance. He had a look on his face she didn’t like. He was usually very calm, collection, emotionless. Professional, would be the term she’d use. Now, well, he looked sad, and grim, and far, far too… noble, for her liking. As if he was planning to do something heroic, and by Raspberry’s estimation entirely stupid.

           “Here’s the plan,” he said, “I’m going to exit on the side here and draw their fire. I can probably keep them busy for a minute or two. You make a dash for the metro.”

           He reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a small key, passing it to her with his magic, “This will activate the tram. Take this duffle bag. Has food and water to last awhile. You should reach Dise in day. Two at most.”

           She stared at the offered key and duffle bag, and a feeling she neither liked nor wanted welled up inside her, a feeling she hadn’t let herself feel in… was it years or decades now?

           “This is stupid,” she said, “I’m going to need your help in Dise, and I’m sure I don’t remember releasing you from your contract with me, so dying is not an option for you. I hold onto my employees more tightly than that!”

           “Raspberry,” he said, and the way he said her name made her gulp, “Don’t. This isn’t what you think. I’m just a professional doing my job, which is keeping my employer alive. I’m no hero. I’m not sacrificing myself for you. I’m just doing my job. That’s it.”

Horseshit… she thought, knowing full well the look on his face was anything but ‘professional’!

           “But Dise, I’ll need you there to-“

           “There’s not time to argue this Raspberry!” he said, turning hard eyes on her, which only briefly softened as he said, “You can survive Dise on your own. You always survive on your own. Don’t pretend you can’t. This is how it’s going to be, because we don’t have other options.”

           He didn’t give her a chance to argue further, shoving the duffle bag and key to her and immediately trotting off to the side of the ruin. She took the key and duffle bag, but turned after him. A large part of her agreed with him, that this was her best chance of getting out of this alive. And after all hadn’t she always looked out for number one, above everything else? Wasn’t surviving the most important thing?

           She thought of their quiet night sharing a simple dinner. Just her and this simple, professional stallion who’d worked for her for years without complaint, even if she’d been a raging… bitch to him.

I should have figured out what I had long before now… fuck…

           She reached down and pulled out the pistol from her blouse and hunkered down, eyeing the sight of the metro, so close, yet so far… and waited.

           Wetwork scrambled to the west side of the ruined building, using the concrete piles and half destroyed walls to keep himself concealed until he was ready. There wasn’t much cover in the street beyond the wall, and he knew the Enclave pegasi were out there, waiting, watching. He suspected they knew they were making for the metro, but hopefully he’d provide too tempting a target to pass up. After all he’d already killed one of them. He’d seen the state of that pegasus who’d crashed before his ally had grabbed him and knew he’d dealt a fatal blow. These pegasi would be out for his blood, now, and he was banking on that keeping their attention focused on him  and give Raspberry a window, however brief, to get away.

           He felt a little guilty about doing this, having seen the look on Raspberry’s face as she’d realized what he was about to do. He’d never imagined he’d see such a look on the face of Raspberry Tart. Perhaps there was something to that one radio-mare’s show; that there was always the chance for something hopeful in the world, even one as screwed up as the Equestrian Wasteland.

           Well, no matter. He had a job to do, and a professional always performed his job to the best of his abilities. No matter the cost.

           Taking a deep breath and levitating his rifle at the ready he rushed from cover, making for a smaller, burned out house with no roof and only two walls about a hundred paces away. His eyes looked up, scanning the skies.

           But the Enclave had thought ahead and the attack came not from above, but from the sides, from the north end of the ruins. Pure luck kept the sniper’s round from taking his leg off as it snapped past his galloping legs. He instantly turned, altering his path as the expected stream of machine gun fire ripped by.

           He saw both pegasi, on the ground, now taking flight as they raced towards him. He altered direction again, rushing along the side of the ruins he’d just vacated and fired his rifle once, twice, three times in quick succession, working the bolt so fast it was nearly a blur.

           The pegasi were no less quick as he, bobbing and weaving through the air to avoid his fire as they shot back. He saw the stitching of machine gun rounds tearing up dirt and asphalt as it ran towards him and he dove back into the ruins, but screamed involuntarily as a round from the sniper caught his right back leg.

           As he landed and rolled he knew his leg was useless. The bullet had torn right through the meaty part of his thigh and the sharpness of the pain told him the bone was broken. He scrambled to his hooves anyway, keeping to his three good hooves as he aimed his rifle, firing as the pegasi strafed past him.

           The pegasus with the machine gun kept firing as he went by, the bullets tearing by Wetwork, and to his dismay ripping his rifle out of his telekinetic grip and shattering the weapon nearly in half. However Wetwork’s own round struck true and hit the sniper pegasus in the chest and he saw the pony flip in the air and fall to the ground. The downed pegasus rolled a few times, and he saw the pony start to rise.

           Taking advantage of the situation he rushed forward as fast as he could on three legs, drawing his pistol. He fired repeatedly at the fallen pegasus as she (he could tell it was a she, now that he was close) rose to her hooves. Her heavy power armor soaked the 10mm pistol shots as if they were spitwads, though.

           She turned towards him, trying to aim her rifle, but he barreled forward and tackled her, despite the horrible pain in his shot leg. They rolled on the ground for a few seconds, but he seemed to have the advantage of both size and reach. Her wings flapped, making it harder to work behind her than he was used to when grappling, but the wind apparently had been knocked out of her by his shot. His leg was still dipped in agony, but he used the adrenaline rush from that to help him work himself so he was behind the pegasus mare, with his hooves wrapped firmly around her head and neck; the perfect position to break it.

           She apparently knew the position, because she redoubled her efforts to free herself and he heard her ragged, fearful breathing as he braced himself in preparation to snap her neck.

           He felt another form tackle him bodily off of her before he could, however, and he felt a rib crack as the other pegasus pulled him off his comrade and without slowing flight rose into the air and threw Wetwork bodily through the air. Wetwork felt intense vertigo as he tumbled through the air and then hit the ground with a hard smack that sent waves of pain through his whole body.

           His pistol lost in the scuffle, his rifle destroyed, he had only one weapon left. He fished out a grenade amid his daze, knowing he only had seconds before he’d get riddled with bullets. Stumbling, he looked and faintly saw the female pegasus climbing into the air before he cooked his grenade for a second or two and tossed it.

           She saw it coming, banked to get away, but the grenade exploded in mid-air and he saw the force of the explosion send the pegasus crashing back to the ground, smashing through the window of the half destroyed house across the street. He didn’t’ know if she was alive or dead, but he doubted she’d be getting back into the fight.

           The only problem was-

           The machine gun fire ripped into his side with a surprisingly lack of pain. Just the faint feeling of being… tapped by a hoof, and suddenly he was on his side, having trouble breathing.

           He saw blood spreading into the ugly dirt around him, and knew for a certainty that he wasn’t getting back up from this. It was like a giant, hot hoof was pressing on his insides, while at the same time his extremities were starting to go numb and cold. He blinked, trying to move, but found he could only tilt his head a bit to see the last remaining pegasus land and slowly start to approach him.

           “You’ve cost me way too much on this mission,” the pegasus said, and Wetwork almost laughed, though it turned into a cough as blood spurted from his mouth. Still, he grinned.

           “The fuck is so funny?” the pegasus asked.

           “Just…” Wetwork could barely breath, let along talk, but he managed it. He figured he was dying anyway, might as well get some last words in, “Just… swearing… heh… so… unprofessional.”

           The pegasus stiffened, and the machine gun aimed at Wetwork. A waste of bullets, finishing an opponent who was already good as dead. Really unprofessional.

           There was a gunshot, and the pegasus jerked as a bullet sparked off the back of his helmet, not penetrating, but throwing the pegasus for a loop. Wetwork would have gasped in surprise if he had much breath left as he saw Raspberry Tart, charging like some mad, crazed manticore, from out of the ruins and body slam the pegasus with her full bulk. Which was not inconsiderable.

           The pegasus went sprawling like a foal that’d been back-slapped by an irate parent.

           Raspberry’s nostrils were flaring and she snorted not unlike an angry bull, but that anger went away as she saw him, and pain filled her eyes. She didn’t say anything, she just went to him, and hefting him like he was little more than a sack of grain she slipped him onto her back and went running for the metro. Wetwork felt himself growing cold… but for some reason the warmth of Raspberry Tart’s body made it not feel so bad.

           He died smiling.

           Fresh Breeze waited the hour. But she didn’t call the mission scrubbed or RTB; Return to Base. Instead she hid Bombing Run’s body so it couldn’t be found by any scavengers, and she flew off to the south, looking for her comrades.

           She found them, and didn’t waste any time getting to work.

           Gale Force had several broken bones, including one of her wings, and shrapnel from what Fresh Breeze guessed was a grenade had penetrating her sides. Fortunately Fresh Breeze was able to stabilize the mare and get out the worst of the shrapnel so that a healing potion could properly set in. Gale wouldn’t fly any time soon, but she’d live.

           Boldflight’s pride was hurt more than his body. A slight concussion from a bullet that’d hit the back of his helmet was the worst of his injuries, but he’d been knocked unconscious by what he described as a ‘living bucking battering ram’ and by the time Fresh Breeze got him conscious one thing was painfully clear…

           …The target had gotten away.

           Strangely, Fresh Breeze wasn’t that disappointed. Strictly speaking they could still try to follow the target, but Fresh Breeze and Boldflight had performed a quick scouting of the area to confirm that there had been a metro station nearby, and Fresh Breeze suspected the target and her protector were long gone by now, though by Boldflight’s account the stallion was fatally wounded.

           “I just called for extraction,” she told Boldflight as he rested next to the still unconscious Gale Force, “The Interdiction will send a Vertibuck our way.”

           Boldflight’s head tilted in confusion, “Interdiction? She’s not assigned to our area. Where’s the Phoenix Wing?”

           Fresh Breeze sighed, shaking her head, “Unknown. Contact was lost about six hours ago. Its… it’s a mess out there, sir. We’re lucky Interdiction was falling back through the area due to excessive damage to their weapon systems and were willing to spare a pick up for us.”

           Boldflight was silent for a long time, before finally hanging his head, “I don’t believe it.”

           She didn’t either, really, but for all that things seemed truly and utterly snafu for the Enclave, Fresh Breeze just couldn’t feel… much of anything, really. She knew she’d shed tears later, more tears anyway, over Bombing Run, and likely many, many others who had lost their lives so far in what was now looking like pure madness to her.  But she had a feeling that it would all be over soon, and that her role in it, whatever came after this, wasn’t going to be so much as a soldier, or a killer.

           Because right now it sounded like what the Enclave needed most were medics, and that, at least, Fresh Breeze knew she could do with a clear conscience.

           The metro tram ran smooth and silent through the dark tunnels, its faded lights barely illuminating the way ahead.

           Raspberry Tart sat in the front compartment, silent, sullen, and starring ahead as she swigged a bit of water, not really in the mood to eat, despite it having been hours since her last meal… probably the longest she’d gone without eating in a very long time.

           Wetwork’s body was laid out on one of the tram benches in the passenger cart behind her. She thought about leaving it behind but… no, no. If nothing else she owed the son of a whorse some kind of burial, once she got to Dise.

           If she got to Dise. There was no guarantee the tracks ahead were clear, after all, and she was lightly armed, and not much of a fighter…

           Fuck it, she’d manage. If nothing else Wetwork had been right about one thing. Raspberry Tart was a survivor, and now, as much as she hated it, she had a reason to survive beyond just her own need to look out for number one. Now she had the memory of a dead idiot to honor.

           She almost laughed at how ridiculous that thought was. Her, Raspberry Tart, wanting to honor the memory of some dead moron who hadn’t known better than to look out for his own skin instead of a mare he shouldn’t have given two shits about.

           Raspberry Tart wiped at her face, looking with a dumbfounded expression at the tears staining her hoof as the tram led her further into darkness, and into whatever future was left for her in the wide, dangerous Wasteland.

The Enclave and the Griffon

The Enclave and the Griffon

By G-man64

“That ain’t who I am… today.”

Operation Cauterize, we know the bulk of the story, the Enclave piercing their cloud cover to launch their attack, the battles at Friendship City and New Appleloosa, and of course the final battle where the Lightbringer entered the S.P.P. and brought back the sky.

This is a simpler tale, a simple story about a single Enclave, a single griffon, and the single experience they shared.

It was an early battle, when the Enclave were merely starting to come down, surprised by the resistance they were meeting.

During this, a single soldier had his wing hit by a sniper's shot, and he plummeted.

He lay there, reaving in pain, knowing this would surely be his final chapter, but then a glimmer of hope, a chance of salvation.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an approaching griffon, and called for help.

The griffon landed by the wounded enclave soldier, “So,” he said with a chuckle, looking upon the dying stallion, “Isn’t this grand? Your whole libration thing didn’t work out I assume?”

“Please,” the pegasus pleaded, “Do what you will with me, when it’s said and done, just save me, I don’t want to die here…”

“Really?” the griffon asked, “You all seemed gung ho a bit ago, what makes you so different?”

“Why do you think I’m different at all?” the pegasus replied.

“Because, looks like you’re not exactly in a situation to try anything right about now, I could just leave you to your fate, or end you now, see what I can get. I’m sure they’d like to hear of my exploit back at base.”

“Come on,” the pegasus pleaded, “We were promised everything, and now here I am reeling in pain, and my own blood yet the Enclave is nowhere to be found, I’m willing to take anything I can be given…”

“Sorry,” the griffon replied, “But I’m not falling for anything like that, “Once I try and help, you’ll just hit me with that stinger of yours.”

“THEN FLY DAMNIT!” the pegasus yelled, “I’m in no condition to fly, if I stab you in the sky, we would both die, and like I said, I want to live!”

The griffon considered this for a moment, clearly this wasn’t someone of major importance, but still his own honor wouldn’t let him simply let the pegasus die, “Fine,” he eventually said taking the wounded stallion in his talons and placing him on his back, “Be happy I’m a good griffon, I have honor.”

The griffon flew with the wounded stallion on his back for a while, until the stallion spoke, “So, who are you anyway?” he asked.

“Does it matter? I’m saving your flank aren’t I?” the griffon responded.

“Suppose so…” the stallion said back.

The griffon let out a sigh, “I’m nobody special, just an everyday merc, just doing what I’ve always been taught which is to be honorable, I’ve never taken caps for assassinations, I’ve never worked for anyone with a title, I’ve always just gladly sat back and been another nameless face… What about you?” the griffon asked back.

“More or less the same,” the stallion responded, “Always taught about how great we of the Enclave are, always taught that there was nothing better any of us could do then join their cause, always listening never questioning.”

“I suppose we’re more or less the same then, aren’t we?” the griffon asked back, “Two sides of one bit I suppose.”

“Yeah,” the stallion responded, “I never really cared for anything we were doing, I was just listening, you’ve never really cared, you were just going to the highest bidder.”

“Yep, I suppose everything is as it always has been,” just then the griffon felt a sharp jab, looking at his back he saw the enclave’s scorpion type tail jammed into his back, slowly he felt the venom fill him, he saw the hole it left and a single word left the griffons beak, “Why?”

“Sorry,” the pegasus said as they fell, “It, it was my nature…”

The two hit the wasteland ground hard, and upon landing the pegasus's helmet flew off, revealing his brown coat and in his eyes were tears.

He truly didn’t want it to end as it did, he truly wanted them to be friends, but in the end he couldn’t change his nature.

And that single act, cost both of them their lives.

Authors Notes

Sorry that this isn’t what I promised, and sorry that it’s not all that good. I know I said I was gonna do Calamity’s brothers, but honestly I didn’t think I was gonna be able to pull it off.

This is short, this is simple, this is also based on an old fable though, I mainly did this because as you all know I love this community, though I’ve never actually participated in any of the members events we’ve done, not for lack of trying I’m just easily distracted and never actually finished the stories I was doing for them.

So, I’m sorry that this isn’t an epic tale like I said, I’m sorry that it’s in all honesty kinda weak, but I hope you can all accept my apologies and enjoy the simple fable that I have brought to the wasteland.

As it is said, war never changes, and neither do natures.

Calm Before the Storm

Calm Before the Storm

By Dannykat

“Canterlot has ceased to exist.”

“What’s your favorite memory, Star Sparkle?” the voice of the ancient Canterlot ghoul echoed slightly off of the walls of her room as she asked herself this question.

She hummed in thought, pushing the wheelchair that had been fused with her body towards the table that held the Fancy Colts Snack Cakes her old friend, SteelHooves, had recently brought her. “I’ll have to think about that one over dinner.”

She chuckled at that. She didn’t need to eat, not really. The Pink Cloud that had mutated her two-hundred years ago ensured that. But the physical and mental changes that the omnipresent cloud had bestowed upon her were distant and peripheral facts. Irrelevant subjects that most certainly didn’t help her answer the question at hoof.

“What’s your favorite memory?” Star Sparkle asked herself again as she picked up one of the snack cakes with her magic. She would have done it with her forelegs, but they too had been fused into the leg-rests of the chair.

Star Sparkle took another detour in the realm of thought. How unhinged would she sound to anyone that didn’t know her? What would they make of her if they heard her speaking to herself? SteelHooves’ friend, the nice little mare named Littlepip, had already been given quite a shock when Star Sparkle had confessed these eccentricities to her.

“Well?” Star Sparkle pestered herself impatiently. She ignored the question. Instead, she projected her doubt onto the precious snack cake. Raising it to her mouth, she bit down and tore apart the plastic packaging with her teeth. Her doubt was skinned alive. Pushing the snack cake out of the plastic, she yanked the pale-yellow cake out with her teeth. Her doubt had its heart cut out.

She may have sounded like a mad-mare, but these conversations and games with herself were the only things keeping her sane in the isolated ruins of the Ministry of War-Time Technology’s headquarters. If the ghouls in Stable City refused to take her back in fear of her daughter’s possible involvement with the creation of the alicorns that had once lurked outside, then Star Sparkle would steal these talks between herself and herself without regret.

Chewing on the stale cake, a light bulb lit up above Star Sparkle’s head. “I have an answer for you. I can tell you what my happiest memory is,” she proclaimed proudly. “It was my wedding.”

Like a wave of pure dopamine, the memories flooded Star Sparkle’s mind. In them, the sun still shone and she was young and alive. A time when the smell of fresh roses still existed in the world. Standing before her, in one of Canterlot’s ancient gardens, was the smiling blue stallion she had proposed to after a year of courting him. Night Light.

The ceremony was short. Attended only by their closest of friends and relatives. And that was okay. Once they placed the wedding bands on each other’s horns and they were pronounced mare and colt, they realized that all they ever wanted was each other.

And so their lives went on in perfect unison. They had a son, Shining Armor, capable and bright who they had always done right by. With him, they would spend their days teaching and guiding him to the path in life that would give him happiness, and spent their nights living the unspoken promise they had made at the end of their wedding.

Back in reality, Star Sparkle smiled. She nodded to herself, agreeing that, while it had lasted, the life she had lived seemed to work. But if that was the truth, why didn’t she feel complete? Why did the sense of failure gnaw at the base of her skull?

When she saw the curtain that covered the hidden half of her room, she understood a fraction of what had gone wrong. Using the same caution one would use to handle a balefire megaspell, Star Sparkle grabbed the edges of the curtain with what little magic she had left and pushed it out of the way.

Tears welled in Star Sparkle’s eyes as she choked on her own gasp.

Her daughter stared at her. It had taken two-hundred years to gather the items that crowded the shrine that encompassed that half of the room, and the result were the accusing eyes of a thousand knick-knacks and posters begging for an answer to the question that ripped Star Sparkle’s heart in half. How could you forget me?

The only memento built in her daughter’s image that seemed to forgive Star Sparkle was a smiling statuette, the words “Be Smart” written at its base, standing arrestingly in the center of the collection. Yet this only made things worse for Star Sparkle. Unable to pretend that the statuette held anything but forgiveness exposed an inability to forgive herself.

This time, the wave was of adrenaline that drowned her in anxiety. This time, the sun shone less brightly in her memory.

There was another foal born after Shining Armor. This one a filly, born in the late afternoon on a day when Celestia had chosen to remember her sister with a prolonged night. As Night Light and Star Sparkle coddled the newborn they had created through each other, a name, seemingly shaped out of the ether and the zeitgeist of the world, was spoken by both parents.

Twilight Sparkle.

The ensuing onslaught of memories were not slow like the wedding or Shining Armor’s colthood. No, they were as fast as the light from the stars themselves. Twilight playing games with Cadence -- her foalsitter and Shining Armor’s future wife. Twilight running home from the Summer Sun Celebration -- carrying a newfound love for magic. Twilight spending her nights reading -- searching for lore that could help her better her abilities.

And Twilight losing control.

*

Star Sparkle’s mind ceased to race as the image of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns warped into view. Twilight, now a filly, stood on the blue and white tiles of a pristine classroom; trying with the strength of all of her magic to pass the school’s impossible entrance exam. Hatch a dragon’s egg for the dispassionate and unimpressed teachers.

There was a boom.

The light of a rainbow rushed through the room.

Twilight’s eyes shined white hot.

And in an instant, Star Sparkle and her husband were turned into potted plants. It was an experience Night Light refused to speak of for the rest of his life to anypony, and when Star Sparkle had told her friends, begging them for understanding and comfort, they only laughed and asked, How bad could that be?

It felt like her coat became fire. In the form of a potted plant, Star Sparkle had thought all of her limbs had been cut off, and all of her organs torn out. But once the synapses bounced off of cold clay, and the fire turned into ice, the emptiness kicked in. She had no nerve endings. No senses. Not even the basic capability to form a clear train of thought. With each second that ticked by, the snapshot of the tapestry that was Star Sparkle’s soul faded just a little further.

There was another flash of blessed light. Star Sparkle was a pony again.

As her eyes adjusted, she saw that the dragon egg had hatched -- a tiny, purple dragon grabbed its own tail. Saw Celestia herself stand in the center of the class -- speaking to Star Sparkle’s daughter. And Twilight listening intently -- totally unaware of the torture she had wrought.

Star Sparkle regained her sense of self, and her composure, just in time to hear Celestia tell Twilight, ...I’d like to make you my own personal protege here at the school.

Twilight was unsure, and looked to her mother for guidance. Star Sparkle’s heart raced as she remembered what nothing felt like. Well? Celestia asked patiently for Twilight’s decision.

Fear prevailed.

With a wave of her hoof, and a nod of her head, Star Sparkle let her daughter go. As her daughter celebrated, Star Sparkle thought of what to do next. This will pass, Star Sparkle had thought to herself. I just... I need to go home. Stay safe. I’ll see my daughter after Celestia makes her... better.

Then everything fell apart as Twilight Sparkle discovered her new cutie-mark. As the filly danced and shrieked with delight, Star Sparkle found that staying stoic and keeping her smile were next to impossible. She would rather curl up and die than stay for an extra second. Yet, somehow, she stood her ground.

Twilight ran to give her mother a hug, and with one simple action, Star Sparkle killed everything.

She stepped back.

With that smallest of reflexes, Twilight’s smile faded, replaced by an understanding her new status quo. Her mother may have loved her, but above all else she now feared her. The revelation passed from daughter to mother, and Star Sparkle tried to make amends. She tried to fit an eternity of affections into ten seconds, but Twilight Sparkle could not be consoled. Instead, the young filly walked away, leaving her sobbing mother in her father’s forelegs.

*

What Star Sparkle had seen of Twilight’s life was scattered now. Scant letters that spoke of friends in a place called Ponyville that Star Sparkle would never meet. Briefly meeting the dragon hatchling, Spike, who Star Sparkle felt had become like a son to Twilight. The beginnings of a great war that Twilight had grabbed by the horns.

And...

“What’s your favorite memory now?” Star Sparkle whimpered, searching for a memory between herself and her daughter that was of equal worth to the one that contained her wedding.

“Oh... oh, merciful Celestia. No...”

Whether it happened as a result of the Pink Cloud, or if it was just a side-effect of her age, didn’t matter. It didn’t change the thing that made Star Sparkle pray for forgiveness.

She had forgotten the last time she spoke with her daughter.

*

The thunder clouds roiled and fell to pieces as the three Enclave Raptors -- sleek, black skyships with an appearance not unlike that of a bird of prey coated in steel -- pierced through the storm itself.

From her seat in the Raptor named Nacreous, Captain Rolling Thunder was the mare that led the formation towards the Canterlot Ruins. It wasn’t the first mission she had carried out for her Grand Pegasus Enclave -- the scar that ran down her ruined right eye, a gift from a dragon she had slain years ago, testified that -- but it was the most ambitious.

The order to destroy what remained of Canterlot had been given to her by the High Council itself, and signalled the beginning of something called: “Operation Cauterize”. But these were inconsequential details to Rolling Thunder. After years of hunting and killing living beings -- people, not just ponies, who had friends and family and destinies -- she had discovered that curiosity would only hinder her performance.

She no longer questioned commands, choosing instead to see herself as a spearhead; a weapon fit only to brutalize the threats that could possibly topple her government.

Rolling Thunder’s ruthlessness was a fact that everypony under her command had learned at one point or another. And while it had previously allowed them to make sense of her, now -- as the Raptors took their firing positions and waited for permission to launch their missiles -- it only served to perplex them.

Rolling Thunder was not giving the signal for Canterlot’s execution.

Despite its weight-nullifying enchantments, the armor Rolling Thunder wore became very heavy as she studied Canterlot through her Raptor’s slightly foggy windshield.

What’s the point? Rolling Thunder’s burgeoning conscience wondered. Someone much worse than me already did this job.

Ignoring the other pegasi’s anxious inquiries over the intercom, Rolling Thunder closed her eyes and confronted her ugliest memories.

Pegasi ghouls devouring her mentor after he had mistakenly flown their Raptor into Cloudsdale. Branding Dashites and sending them to the hell below as a display of loyalty to her fellow soldiers... and discovering that the dragon she had killed was only on the mountaintop to raise its children.

She still lost sleep when she remembered carrying out the order to massacre the hatchlings.

Rolling Thunder opened her eyes and saw a new world. I can end this, she realized. I can leave, and my troops will follow. I can choose to stop this.

Then she remembered who she was.

Rolling Thunder closed her eyes once more, pushed the traitorous thoughts out of her mind’s eye, and fired first.

*

Star Sparkle ignored the deafening blasts that demolished the supports that held the city of Canterlot for over a millenium after the sisters Luna and Celestia had founded it.

It was obvious that they weren’t there anymore.

All that mattered to Star Sparkle now was finding her last memory of Twilight Sparkle. This was the one. This one held the key to her forgiveness. Her heart, through its furious and futile attempts to pump out the pink rot in her heart, told her so.

Clenching her jaw as she dissected her old mind, Star Sparkle struck upon more memories of her son and husband. Star Sparkle held them, and considered carefully reliving them. The walls to her room crumbled, crushing the tchotchkes of her daughter. As her life was swept away, realization dawned on Star Sparkle. Her life was finally ending. She was out of time.

Star Sparkle tossed aside the last moment she spoke with Shining, singing to him as he wept in her hooves, his private terror that the world would end being too much of a burden to hold by himself. She didn’t even remember the song.

Tossed aside the last day she had seen. The last time she had seen Night Light, as he pushed her wheelchair to safety and the Pink Cloud consumed him whole. All that registered now was the pitch of his scream.

If forgiveness meant cutting her soul to pieces, then she would gladly render herself asunder.

Star Sparkle closed her eyes and coughed as powdered rubble showered her, a byproduct of the falling chunk of ceiling that missed her by inches. Good. Death could wait. She was close to Twilight’s memory.

Almost...

Almost...

Nothing. The memory was gone.

Star Sparkle’s tears wiped away the mist of her mind and the grime of the real world seeped into perspective. Ghouls crying as they fled the Stable that they had called home for over two-hundred years. The groan of the remaining supports losing their integrity. And the vertical shift in gravity that followed, violently throwing Star Sparkle to the ground.

As Star Sparkle recovered, there was a soft click as something else hit the floor.

Twilight’s statuette had fallen off the table and rolled towards her. The sounds of the falling city seem distant now. Star Sparkle reached out to grab the figure built in her daughter’s image, to hold it as tightly as possible, but her forelegs refused to move. For a moment, she had forgotten that they had become as immobile as the chair they were welded to.

The tears flowed again. Helplessness crushed Star Sparkle as her magic failed her. The stress would not allow her to form a coherent spell. She faltered, but only for a moment. Star Sparkle would not be deterred. She would find a way to climb this mountain.

Desperation prevailed.

Using her teeth, Star Sparkle grabbed the floor and pushed her body forward by inches. The pain was incredible. Nails being driven into the pockets of gum holding teeth that chipped in the pattern of a spider-web. Something in her protested that her teeth would be scraped into powder before she reached it. She ignored it.

Another explosion, one far closer than all the others, jolted Star Sparkle and the statuette into the air. Time froze as she saw the statuette soar, like a bullet in molasses, away from her.

“No!” Star Sparkle screamed. The spell came back to her. Pink light wrapped around the figure. And even as time sped back to normalcy, the statuette still flowed at a snail’s pace. Though this time, it floated back to Star Sparkle.

Placing the statuette next to her head, Star Sparkle nuzzled it for comfort. In an instant, a surge of white-hot magic emanated from the words: “Be Smart!”

At long last, Star Sparkle remembered.

*

Star Sparkle sat in her wheelchair. Alive, free to move her legs and surrounded by the blue library in her old home.

To her chagrin, while new and shiny, the chair was cramped and felt like it was never meant to support equines. But when the same could be said for the state of the world, Star Sparkle was powerless to complain.

Star Sparkle adjusted her reading glasses, strained her eyes, and attempted to read the book that lay on the desk in front of her. She found that she could only gloss over the dull words.

She only cared for the indentations made by small hooves that had held the book tightly during the book’s frightening moments, and the little rips in the pages made by a rush to get to the next chapter. All made a lifetime ago.

There was a knock on the door. Star Sparkle sighed, guessing that Night Light had returned and forgotten the keys. It had happened more than once in his old age.

Star Sparkle slowly and magically rolled the wheels of her chair towards the door. The knocks grew louder and faster, almost youthful. The wheels stopped moving as Star Sparkle opened the door. She was greeted by a purple dragon the size of a large stallion blocking the small doorway.

With a smile, Spike waved his claw and said, Hi, Grandma!

Even though his fangs would have been enough to frighten off any other pony, Star Sparkle saw past that. Star Sparkle was focused on his inadvertent admission of a theory she had held for many years. Twilight had raised him as her own son.

Star Sparkle smiled back. Hello, Spike. It’s been so many years... she hesitated ...is Twilight with you?

Spike gave her a reassuring chuckle. I don’t go anywhere without her. You know that. She’s right behind me!

Spike moved out of the way as quickly as he could, careful to not step on the potted roses near the entrance, revealing a purple and world weary unicorn.

Hello, Star Sparkle, Twilight said on accident, the formalities of life in the government did not translate well into her civilian life.

Mentally kicking herself, Twilight turned her attention to the dragon next to her. Spike, I think you should go find Dad. You haven’t seen him in a while, and I’m sure there’s a lot you two have to talk about.

As Twilight said this, Star Sparkle saw a disconnect between her and Spike. A feeling of cold where there should have been warmth. A pale version of the relationship with her daughter.

Spike looked down, solemn. Sure. No problem. I’ll give you some space.

He walked away, into the streets of old Canterlot, and past unknown ponies who feared him like they feared the dragons in the news.

Will he be all right? Star Sparkle asked Twilight, worried for her adopted grandson’s safety.

They fear him, Twilight answered, seemingly referring to the whole world. They wouldn’t dare lay a hoof on him.

And if they do, Twilight continued, trotting into her old home, then they’ll find that I’m the real dragon.

Star Sparkle shivered. Twilight... what do you need?

Twilight inhaled and thought out her words. Mom... Twilight exhaled, I need to move you out of this house.

Why? Star Sparkle asked, now more offended more than she was scared.

I’m scared. The war is... there have been some complications with it.

The zebras, Star Sparkle asked, fueled by paranoia from the of the Ministry of Image’s propaganda, did they decide to activate their megaspells?

No. Of course not. But they can. They always can... so we have to be ready. We all have to do our part.

And what will you do?

Everything I can, mother! There are things, things you couldn’t even comprehend, that I’ve done for the preservation of life itself!

Twilight... what have you done?

Twilight paused. Her fury now tranquil, yet still present. This mare that she had once called mother had almost discovered a secret that Twilight was sworn to defend to the death just by asking. No. That was unacceptable.

Spike and Night Light -- chatting amicably -- walked through the open doorway. Star Sparkle’s daughter turned to leave.

Goodbye, Star Sparkle. I’ll send one of Luna’s guards to help you move in.

Come on, Spike. We have work to do. Spike begrudgingly followed Twilight back to the Princesses. And Star Sparkle held onto her husband, just like the last time she had turned Twilight away.

Star Sparkle held her breath. Maybe, just maybe, if she didn’t weep, she could break this cycle and her daughter would come back.

Star Sparkle was wrong.

This memory wasn’t her happiest. All it was was the last one with her daughter.

Nothing more.

*

Star Sparkle reeled with a sharp gasp, and there was a pause in existence. As if the world and time held their breath for her benefit. One final mercy.

“Twilight, my happiest memory,” she sobbed. “I love you so much.”

Canterlot avalanched off the side of its mountain. “I’m so sorry.”

The room imploded. “I failed everyone.”

There was cold, then there was warmth, and a voice from a better place spoke through the chaos, “You didn’t fail anyone, Mom. Not when we will always love you.”

Star Sparkle smiled one last time.

Then there was only darkness.