Fallout Equestria: Ascendancy

“It will be fine. We’ve purged it of the radiation.”

I opened my eyes and Radiant was hugging the towering winged Unicorn who looked very uncomfortable. “Thank you so much!”

“He’s awake,” Rose said. She looked down at me and smiled. “Ya need ta quit this dyin’ on us, ya know.”

“Aww, I’ll make sure and save you some radiation next time.”

“An’ back to yer old self, too.” She smiled and nudged me with her hoof. “Welcome back.”

“We have saved its life. Very lucky We were here. Consider Our debt to it repaid.”

“Uh, okay.” I kind of did this because it was the right thing to do, but if it made her feel better to think her debt was repaid… “How did you heal me? You had Rad-Away?”

“No. We took the radiation.” I didn’t know what that meant, but it was probably best I didn’t question it.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. The room didn’t give the slightest clue to the massacre that had happened. Everything was clean and unlike the first time I’d been here, everything looked new.

“What happened to everything? Why isn’t anything broken?”

“We are a powerful Alicorn and We fixed it.”

“Alicorn?”

“Not only do We possess the agility and flight of the Pegasi,” she hovered in the air, “and the magical abilities of the Unicorns,” her horn began to glow, “but We greatly surpass both.” She closed her eyes and put a proud hoof on her chest. “We are the ultimate beings.”

“Alicorns are real?” I asked. The Princesses were the only Alicorns I’d known of and they were made up.

“We are right here,” she said. “Very few of us remain and We are the most powerful.”

After seeing—and hearing—what she did to those Ghouls, I didn’t doubt it in the slightest. I’m glad she was on our side.

“Why did it come here? To save Us?” she looked to the side and smiled. “Yes, yes, of course. To let Us out!”

“Uh, no. I came here to kill the Ghouls so the settlers of Neighvak could get their salvage.”

“Salvage?”

“Junk.”

“Junk?! That’s Ours!” She hugged one of the machines.

I smiled and put my hooves up. “Okay, sorry.”

“We won’t give it away.”

“Then you’ll trade it to them?”

She nodded. “For food.”

“Food?”

“Yes. We can make more machines but not food.” She frowned and rubbed her stomach. “And We get so very hungry.”

“You can’t build a machine to make food?” Radiant asked.

“Nopony can.”

“Yes. Our Stable did it.”

“Not to make real food. You didn’t have real food.”

Radiant shrugged her shoulders and looked at me. “I won’t argue with that.”

* * *

I didn’t know if they’d agree to trade, but I can’t say that they had a choice. They would die without the scrap and I doubt even the whole town would be able to take it by force. Hopefully they didn’t try. She was offering a peaceful resolution.

We returned to Neighvak. That was the first time I’d been to town during the day. There was a Unicorn mare leaning against the dragon statue when we were coming into town. She looked terrified. Or maybe she was on drugs…

“Hey, have you seen my pants?” she asked me.

“Um… no.”

“I had them on earlier…” she gasped, “and now I don’t.”

“Yes, I can see that. But I’m sure you can just get another pair of pants.”

“But these pants were special.” She walked up and waved her hooves in my face. “They were magic pants…”

I never want to be rude but I couldn’t help laughing in that mare’s face. She wasn’t insulted though. She laughed with me, though I don’t think she knew that I was laughing at her. Soon, all of us were laughing. We left her to go to the Mayor. I heard her ask another pony if they’d seen her pants just before we went inside.

The ponies in the city hall didn’t look as ‘official’ as I had expected. They looked just like any other pony in town.

Except the Mayor, of course. He was a noticeably tiny stallion and was wearing a black suit with a red tie. His grey mane was brush back sleekly and he had large glasses. His deep voice didn’t go with the rest of him.

“So, you must be the stranger that’s helpin’ us with our problem.” He extended his hoof and I shook it. “Pleased to meet ya.”

“How did you know that I’m the one who helped you?”

“Had some stallion come in saying that there was a Pegasus that’s going down to the Satellite Facility to kill all the Ghouls. Of course, nopony believed him and he got upset. I had to jail him for disturbin’ the peace.”

“What? He was telling the truth though. He’s not still jailed, is he?”

“Yep.”

“Then maybe you should send somepony to let him out?”

“I suppose that’s only fair.” He gestured one of the ponies in the room to let him out.

“It isn’t fair. You jailed him for something he didn’t even do.”

“An honest mistake, but that’s beside the point. You come in here for a reason?”

“Yeah, there’s a pony living in the Satellite Facility. She said she’ll trade you the salvage for food.”

“Can’t say it’s hers to trade. We need that salvage to live.”

“She’s been there for decades, so I’d say it is hers. And all she’s asking for is food. And she’s the one who killed the Ghouls, not me, so you could help her out, right?”

“She killed them all on her own?”

“Yeah, all of them.”

“I don’t know if I want to trade with a pony like that. She seems dangerous.”

“She is dangerous.”

“You’re not really helping her case. What’s to stop her from killing us when we bring the food?”

“She said she would trade the scrap for food.”

“I don’t know. Would you go with the caravan? Make sure nothing happens to it?”

“If she wanted to kill them and take the food, there’s nothing I could do about it.”

“But she might not if you’re there. You helped her out and all, remember?”

“Fine, I guess.”

The entire town had made food for Harlequin Forest. There were three wagons almost overflowing with food. Each one was pulled by two stallions and there were two armed guards on both sides of each wagon. We started toward the facility.

* * *

Harlequin Forest was waiting for us outside. She was lying on the ground and looked like she was sleeping. All of the Ghoul corpses were gone.

The stallion next to me spoke to the one next to him. “It’s only one pony. Why don’t we just take it from her. This is a lot of food.” When he looked back up, Harlequin Forest was looking down at him.

“You will give Us the food and We will give you the metal.”

“But…”

Her eyes turned red and she scowled. “That was the deal! Or We kill all of you. And We take it!” she said reaching out and grabbing the air with her hoof.

The stallion just nodded at her with a stupid smile. He probably would have shit himself if he knew what she could do to him.

She took the food with an over-excited grin and filled their carriages with scrap. I knew she would. I didn’t know why but I just trusted her. She was obviously insane but she seemed like an honest pony.

“Now leave us! We wish to feast and We will do so in private. Ha! Ha! Yes!” She curled her foreleg in victory as if she’d won a great battle and grinned to the stars.

Her goofy maniacal laughter soon spread to the three of us. After she was finished, she went inside and laughed the whole way in, levitating the mass of food behind her and slammed the front door.

“Well… at least that wasn’t weird,” I said.

“I kinda like her. She keeps me in a good mood,” Rose said.

“Yeah. She’s really funny,” Radiant said.

The door blasted open and Harlequin Forest poked her head down from the top of the doorway.

“What’s it waiting for?”

We stared blankly.

“Come inside!” she said and gestured us in with a smile. We went inside.

* * *

The lab room where she had killed the ghouls was completely renewed before we left but the rest of the station still looked terrible. This time we went in she had fixed everything. There was no clutter on the floor, it looked clean enough to lick. The chair that was stuck in the wall was gone and so were the holes it had made. The air ducts were running great again and making hardly any noise. The air was fresh.

Harlequin Forest melted through the roof like a ghost and came down to the floor, in front of me.

“Come on, We have food! We will give some to all the nice ponies who helped Us.”

Red eyes. “But not the other ones, though,” she growled.

There weren’t any dining areas. We found a break room for the Pre-war ponies and ate in there. The tables were only big enough to seat two. I sat with Radiant and Rose sat with Harlequin Forest.

Harlequin Forest could eat more than I ever thought possible for a pony. I think she ate all the food in one of the carts at that meal alone. That was enough to feed a town for a day.

We all made small talk over the food and any other random things that came to mind, but I was curious about her. There was no way I could leave her here and live the rest of my life wondering why she was the way she was. No thinking pony could. I’d never even heard of anything like her. It was like she shared the same body with some kind of deity and I really wanted to know why.

“You should come with us,” I said. “You could do a lot of good, you know.” It was true. If she fought for the right cause, nopony would be able to stand against her. The Marejave would be a better place than Pre-war Equestria if that’s what she wanted. I just had to make her want that.

“We will not fight.”

Her eyes turned red, then she grinned. “No! We want to fight!” Her hoof slammed to the metal floor. Her drink spilled. “Let Us fight!”

“So… you want to fight? Or no?”

Green eyes. “No. We don’t fight. And We won’t. We are happy here.”

“By yourself?”

“We are not alone.”

“Yes you are. You don’t get bored?”

“No, We have lots of fun in this place.”

“Doing what? Cleaning?”

“That is not fun. We had to do that.”

“Doesn’t seem like there’s much else to do.”

She frowned. “Don’t worry about it. That’s Our fun.”

“What in the hay are you talking about?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Nothing…” she said, almost purring.

“I don’t think you have fun here…”

“It doesn’t even know, okay?”

“Ha! Ha! What? I don’t know what?”

“About Our fun…”

“Why don’t you come with us and you can tell me all about this fun.”

“Oh, and Plasma Storm would like that, wouldn’t he? We won’t be falling for that one…”

Green eyes. She grinned and rubbed her hooves together. “But We want to have fun and now We can have more fun…” She looked at me. “Follow Us.”

We turned I don’t know how many corners. It was like a maze inside there and Harlequin forest knew every hallway, apparently. We came to an automatic door that didn’t open when we stepped close. Harlequin Forest stepped up to the keypad and began punching in the code, hiding what she was doing with her other hoof and looking back at me suspiciously. The door opened.

“This is Our room.”

Her room was decorated with trees like the room I first found her in. None were mushy. They all shined in the light from the ceiling. She climbed up on the bed and looked at me with an excited smile, nodding her head.

Nope. “Listen, uh… I see what you’re your driving at, but I can’t.”

She scowled. “Why not?! It said anything!”

Green eyes. She gave me a matter-of-fact look. “Yes, it did say that. We heard it.”

“Sorry, but no.”

She looked like she was going to cry. “But We get so lonely here.” Her horn glowed green and a large chest floated up beside the bed. She magically opened it and foal toys began to float out. A train, a boat, carriages, little ponies… She grabbed the train.

“Nopony will play with Us.” She pushed the train on her blanket with her bottom lip puffed out.

I stared at her. “Oh… That’s what you wanted.”

“What else could We have meant?” Her eyes shot wide and she crossed her hind legs. “Agh! It’s disgusting!”

Yeah, yeah. You can sit there with a straight face and tell me you weren’t thinking the same thing that I was? She just wanted somepony to play with. I figured that I could do that.

She started by playing with the train. I had a small carriage. Harlequin Forest drove the toy along the bed. She blew a long and low raspberry, imitating an engine. I pushed my carriage along the bed. She squealed and slammed the train into my carriage. It shattered.

“Oh! We’re sorry.”

Red eyes. “Ha! No, We’re not!”

“It’s okay. Oh, would you look at that. My carriage is broken. Guess we better be hitting the ol’ dusty trail.”

“But We still want to play.” I turned to face her. She was making a cute pouty face.

“Fine…” She beamed.

“Yay!” She jumped on my back. I nearly fell to the floor from the unexpected weight. “Pony ride!”

I sighed and began to trot around the room. She just said, “Wee!” over and over again. I kept trotting until I was dragging my sweaty self across the carpeted floor. I tried stopping once, about halfway through the pony ride, and she starting screaming. It was like a filly throwing a tantrum but I’m not even sure it sounded like a pony.

“Can’t we…” I huffed, “play another game?”

“Yes. It’s so slow.” She stepped off of me and yanked me to my hooves with magic. “We want to play hide-and-seek now. It will count.”

“But I want to hide…”

“We hide first!” she screamed.

Nod and smile, I thought. Just nod and smile. I did.

“No peeking. We will see if it does,” she said, pointing a threatening hoof at me.

I went to the corner and put my hooves over my eyes.

“One… two… three…”

I heard hoofsteps.

“Four… five… six…”

I heard giggling.

“Seven… eight… nine…”

I heard a flash of magic.

“Ten.”

I turned around to an empty bedroom. “You better be in here.”

“We’re in here,” she said playfully. “But where?”

I dove into the corner, where it sounded like she was, and got a face-full of wall. She snorted trying to hold her laughter in.

“Nope! We’re not over there. Did you see it hurt itself? Yes! Ha! Ha!”

Her voice reverberated off of the metal walls in a way that made it sound like she was everywhere at once.

Unfortunately for her, after years of playing hide-and-seek with Winter, I knew the one thing that sucked about hiding. She was going to find out any minute now, and then I would win. After a few long minutes, I heard her squeak in discomfort.

And there it was.

“Hurry up and find Us!”

“But I don’t know where you are,” I said playfully.

She squeaked again and I saw a shadow on the wall and dove in front of the lamp, where the foot of the shadow was. She reappeared beneath me and squealed and kicked me off of her.

“We must relieve Ourselves!”

She flew through the wall and was gone. It wasn’t long before she came back.

“We are finished playing now,” she said.

“But I didn’t get to hide.”

Her green eyes lit up then faded. “It was going to hide under the rug.”

“No…”

She nodded. “Yes it was. It’s lying now.”

“Meh, I’ve never been much of a liar.”

“We are ready to fight now.”

“Finally.”

We left her room.

* * *

We headed back toward Neighvak again and took the highway north, toward New Pegasus. I could see the towering lights all the way from here. Radiant slept on my back while we walked.

A few hours down the highway, we ran into somepony. A stallion was watching us from behind the billboard on the side of the highway. He stepped out of his hiding spot when we got close. He had a shotgun. I drew Perdition and watched him. The stallion approached us. That’s when I noticed the colt he had with him. The raider and I kept our shotgun barrels on one another.

“Okay, you’re going to hand over your stuff, nice and easy.” His gun was shaking.

Both he and his colt had pinprick pupils. That’s probably why they didn’t think it was a bad idea to mug a group of ponies even when one of them was an Alicorn.

“You’re not getting shit from us. Put the gun away or I’m going to shoot you.”

Harlequin Forest giggled. “Ha! Ha! Kill it now!”

“No,” I said.

She grinned at the stallion. “Then let Us do it. Crush it with this,” she showed him her hammer. “We will kill it…”

He shot her. The buckshot tore into her face and she screamed. Radiant pulled her Laser Pistol. His barrel went toward her. I didn’t think, I just shot him. A meaty crater was ripped into his chest and throat and he was dead. Harlequin Forest smashed his corpse into a pulp with her magic before he hit the ground. Then she sat beside him and hung her head.

“Holy shit…” I said.

I wasn’t amazed by what she just did. I was more impressed with the magic vortex thing she used on the Ghouls. What amazed me was that her wounds had already healed completely. Her face had to have been ripped apart by that shotgun but it looked as if she’d never been shot.

The death of his father shook the colt from his high. He burst into tears and rushed to him and buried his face in his dead father’s mane.

“You didn’t have to… why did you kill him?” I could barely understand him through his sobbing. I should have told him that his dad was a filthy raider and he deserved what he got. I couldn’t, even if it was the truth.

Harlequin Forest looked at me. “But We wanted to kill him,” she pouted.

“He shot first,” I said.

“But… what am I supposed to do now? I don’t have anywhere to go.” He looked up at me with watery eyes. “Can I come with you?”

“No. We’ll take you back to town. Somepony there can take care of you.”

He looked down at his father’s mushy corpse. “I want to bury him. Could you help me?”

“No… Cook him into soup,” Harlequin Forest said. She was grinning and rubbing her hooves together. “It will be tasty. We know it!”

“No,” I said, then looked at the colt. “We’ll help you bury him.”

He wanted to sit by the grave for a while. We sat with him.

“Can I come with you? Please?” he asked me again.

“No.”

“But I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“That’s not my problem.”

“But you killed my dad. It’s your fault.”

“He tried to rob us, shot my friend, then tried to shoot my daughter. I should have killed him faster. You were right there with him. You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you too.”

“Dad, that’s a little harsh.”

“No it isn’t. I’m letting him live, aren’t I?”

“He’ll die on his own though.”

“Ah agree with her, Feathers. Foals don’t last long out here on their own. You should know that. Let’s at least take him back to Neighvak.”

I did think of Radiant. Maybe I was being too harsh. Leaving that colt to fend for himself would have bothered me, whether I wanted to admit it or not. He would die without our help. I couldn’t say no.

“Fine, we’ll take you back to Neighvak. You’re not coming with us.”

We took the colt back. The owner of the bar we first came to offered to let him stay with her since we solved their salvage problem.

We took the highway north again, towards New Pegasus.

* * *

Rose was getting pissed. She hadn’t had anything alcoholic to drink in four days now and she was taking it out on us.

“Chill out, Rose. You’re being ridiculous.”

“Agh!” She sat down on a rock on the side of the highway. “If Ah don’t get some whiskey soon Ah’m gonna die!” The veins in her neck burst forth and her voice was dramatically gravelly on the last word.

“You mad?” I said, smiling at her. She bent down and picked up a rock and threw it at me. It hit me above the eye. Harlequin Forest started laughing hysterically.

“Agh! What the fuck?!”

She pulled her knife out and stared me down. “You wanna get killed, Feathers?” She looked serious.

“Damn! I was just picking at you.”

Harlequin Forest was rolling on the ground and laughing harder than I’ve ever seen anypony laugh.

Rose pointed the knife at her. “An’ you shut the hell up!”

She gasped and stopped laughing, then her eyes turned red. “Or what will it do?”

“Ah’ll kill ya.”

Harlequin Forest got up and went to Rose. She towered over the Earth mare by more than a head.

“Kill Us…” Then she laughed in Rose’s face.

Rose stood on her hind legs and blasted the Alicorn in the face with her hoof. She fell to the ground and looked up at Rose with tears in her green eyes. She shut her eyes tight then stood up and her horn started to glow red.

“Stop!” I yelled and tackled her. “Stop! Rose is your friend.”

“It hit Us!”

“You deserved it,” Rose said.

“We said kill Us,” she rubbed her muzzle where she was struck. “But it hit Us…”

“Ah swear to Celestia, ya call me ‘it’ again and Ah’ll cut yer legs off!” Harlequin Forest looked even more scared then.

I put a hoof on her shoulder. “It’s okay. She didn’t mean it.”

“Yes,” she said.

“No…”

“Ah did.”

“You’re not helping. You shouldn’t have even hit her in the first place. She was just messing with you like I was.”

“Ah hit you with a rock, remember? Don’t fuck with me. Ya see Ah’m mad.”

“You might be mad, but we need to move. And you’re really drawing attention to us.”

“Ah don’t care. Ah just want some whiskey.”

“I’m sure they have more whiskey than you can drink at New Pegasus. The sooner you quit your whining, the sooner you get to drink.”

She came up and grabbed me by the cheeks. “But Ah want it now!”

I pushed her back. “Then we better start moving.”

Radiant kept snickering at Rose.

* * *

6:58 A.M.

Even sleep deprivation couldn’t stop the old habit I’d formed in the Stable.

I rolled onto my back and looked at Rose. She had her flank in the air and her front legs pointed behind her. Her black hat was covering her face. A muffled snore came from behind it.

Radiant was curled up beside me.

I closed my eyes, half-expecting the jolly mare to wake me with my singing telegram.

7:15 A.M.

I smelled alcohol. But that was impossible…

I opened my eyes to find a pair of large teal eyes staring at me.

“Agh!” I scurried back across the ground. “What the hell, Rose?! How long were you watching me? Why were you watching me?” She had a bottle of some kind of booze.

She put a hoof on her chin. “Ah don’t rightly know. Guess ya just looked so peaceful.”

I shook my head. “Where did you even get that?” I said, glancing at the booze.

“Ya don’t wanna know!” she said, excited.

* * *

I couldn’t go back to sleep after that. After Harlequin Forest woke up we started walking again. Nothing exciting happened all day. When the sun started to set we started searching for shelter.

We were in the desert so it shouldn’t have been as hard as it was. We walked along the mountain range looking for a cave to sleep in but didn’t find one. We came across a town though. It was looked very unwelcoming. There was an eerie haze over it that reeked of death.

“Damn, Feathers. Ya know how to find some fucked up shit.” Rose was eyeing the rotting buildings.

“Keep an eye out for survivors.”

“Survivors from what? This town’s deader than hell.”

“What makes you think I know? I’ve only been out here for about a week. You’ve been out here your whole life.”

“Ah ain’t seen nothin’ like this though.”

Harlequin Forest opened a door and a cloud of brown fog poured out. She reeled back and threw up on the ground and screamed.

“Agh! It tries to choke Us, it does!” She caught her breath and made a bubble around her head with green magic.

“How about you make some for all of us,” Rose said.

Green bubbles came up around mine and Radiant’s head. I guess she was still feeling bitter toward Rose because she wouldn’t make one for her. Her grin probably upset Rose even more.

“What the hell?! Ah don’t wanna smell that shit!”

“We don’t want to make a bubble for it…”

Rose growled and pulled her knife. “Ah told ya, asshole! Which one do ya want off first?”

Harlequin Forest’s horn glowed and Rose’s knife shot out of her hoof and straight into the sky.

“Damn it! Give me mah knife back!”

“We don’t know where it is.”

“Then ya better get yer ass out there and find it!”

“No,” she said childishly.

I grabbed Rose just as she went to lunge at her.

“Let me go!”

“No. Stop it.”

She put her hoof up. “Ah’m gonna hit her!”

“No, you’re not. We have more important things to worry about than your knife, Rose.”

“But what am I supposed to use in a fight now?”

“You’re trying to get in a hoof fight with an Alicorn and you’re worried about not having a knife for some other fight?”

“But Ah can take her, Feathers.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Ah did last time.”

Harlequin Forest smirked. “We didn’t hit it back.”

“’Cause ya was too busy cryin’.”

“No, We could beat it up.”

“Let me go, Feathers. Ah’m gonna kick her ass.”

“I said no.”

“We can do this every time we talk to each other or we can just get it over with now. Yer choice…”

It didn’t look like anypony was here and I figured it would be over quickly.

“Fine.” I looked at Harlequin Forest. “We’re not trying to kill each other. Understand?”

“Yes, yes, We understand.”

“Rose?”

“Ah ain’t gonna kill her, Feathers.”

“So how does this work?” I asked Rose.

She gave me a look that made me feel so stupid. “We fight until one of us can’t. Do what ya gotta do, there’s no rules.”

“Makes things easy,” I said. “Okay, uh… fight?”

Harlequin Forest pulled her hoof back as soon as I gave the word; a red glow was around it. She slammed it to Rose’s face then her hat and shirt were on the ground where she was standing and she was sailing through the air doing more flips than I could count. She was nearly knocked out of the town, sliding at least 150 feet before coming to a stop.

I ran to her. There was a nasty cut under her left eye that was bleeding and her eyes were looking in opposite directions. She was trying to stand up but couldn’t. I helped her up and she fell back down.

“I may be wrong, but I think you just got knocked the fuck out.”

“Ah’m… fine… need whiskey… and a headband… caterpillars?”

“I told you that this was a bad idea.”

“Uh… hat. Hat? Hat!” She was freaking out and patting her head. Radiant had her hat and shirt and put the hat back on Rose’s head and hugged her.

“It’s okay, Rose. It’s over now.” She hugged Rose and looked up at me, trying to hold in her laughter.

Harlequin Forest came over to Rose. Her horn glowed green and she placed it to Rose’s head. The cut had healed into a scar and her eyes were back to normal.

“We told it. We said We could beat it up. And We did.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t go braggin’.”

“Ah! Ha! Ha! We are the winner!”

I looked at Rose. “Are you done now? No more fighting?”

“Ah ain’t promising nothin’.”

“And you think I’m not smart? You should have seen how many flips you did after she hit you.”

“Ah wish Ah could. It’d probably make me feel better.”

“Trust me. It would.” I helped her up.

Rose didn’t ask for a head bubble but Harlequin Forest made one for her anyways. I was glad she did the right thing.

It was dark but there were no clouds. The moonlight made the clouds of fog clearly visible. A good breeze was blowing but the fog didn’t move. We came to a residential area and I wanted to search the houses.

The fog was in the houses too. We came into the den first. A rotten couch sat next to a broken glass table and an overturned wooden end table. A fallen bookshelf was covering half of the couch and books were everywhere. Some looked in good enough condition to read. Others were brown and mushy. Radiant sifted through them and found two books that were in good condition.

“Can I have these, Dad?”

“Those aren’t yours.”

“But if I leave them here they’ll get ruined for sure. I haven’t found a single book since I’ve been out here. I gotta read something, Dad!”

“Fine.” I knelt down so she could reach my saddlebag and put the books in.

We checked the kitchen next. The sink had dried up grime all over and there were rusty cans and dishes on most of the counter space. I found a first aid kit on the wall. It had a roll of bandage and some antiseptic. There wasn’t anything else.

We went upstairs. First, we found a bedroom. In the middle was a large dark stain—probably blood—but there was no body. Looking around, it was clear that this room belonged to a foal. There were toys everywhere and a small bed that had rotted. The one thing that was out of place was a violin. It had seen better days; it was missing a string and half of the hairs on the bow were broken. There was also what looked like crap on it. It definitely looked playable though. There was a symbol on it that looked kind of like the board in a game of tic-tac-toe.

There was another first aid box in the bathroom with nothing in it.

Next was the parents’ room. A large bed, some old food wrappers, the usual junk.

But there was a noise, a sob coming from underneath the bed.

“Hello?” I said.

“Go away! Leave me alone!” It was a filly.

“We’re not going to hurt you. You can come out.”

“No! You’re lying again! Just leave me alone!”

“We aren’t lying,” Radiant said. “Please come out.”

She poked her head out from under the bed. She was a grey Unicorn and she looked a year or two older than Radiant. “You’re not… Who are you?” She crawled out. Her cutie mark was the same symbol from the violin.

“We’re here to help you,” I said. “You need it?”

“Yes. They killed everypony. Even my mom.”

“Who?”

“We have to leave. They’ll kill us all!”

“Who?” I asked again.

She ran her hooves down her mane, twirling it, and looked at the floor. “I don’t know, but they’re scary.”

“You don’t know anything about them?”

“I know that they’re scary. That’s all you need to know. Can we go now? Can you get me out of here?”

“Sure. Do you have anypony you can stay with?”

“No. Can I come with you?”

“For now, I guess.”

“What time is it?”

“Don’t know. It’s dark.”

Her eyes shot wide. “We can’t leave! They’re out there now!” She hid under the bed again and I heard sobbing again.

“Okay, then how about we stay here for tonight. I’ll make sure nopony comes in here to hurt you.”

“But they aren’t ponies,” she said from underneath the bed, then poked her head out. “They’re monsters.”

“All right. Then no monsters will come in here to get you. Better?”

“No…”

“Come on out. You’ll be all right.” I extended my hoof to pull her out.

“Promise?”

“Promise.” She grabbed my hoof and I pulled her out.

She didn’t seem to trust Rose or Harlequin Forest as much as Radiant and I and I think she trusted Radiant even more than me, her being a filly too.

We all sat down to eat. Radiant offered the filly some of our food.

“Okay,” she said.

“So, we never did get your name,” I said.

“I didn’t tell you because you didn’t tell me yours.”

“Fair enough. My name’s Plasma Storm.”

“My name’s Radiant.”

“Rose.” Rose tipped her hat.

“Our name is Harlequin Forest.”

“Our? Wait, you all have the same name?”

“No. That is Our name,” she said with a hoof on her chest.

“But you’re just one pony.”

She scoffed. “Does it think that We don’t know Our own name?”

The filly cowered down. “No…”

“Stop being a bastard,” Radiant said. “We gave our names. What’s yours?”

“Adagia.”

“Whoa…” Radiant looked like she was in awe. “That’s so awesome! I wish I had a cool name like that.”

“Adagia? I’m guessing that’s your violin in the room down the hall then? With the tic-tac-toe thing on it.”

“Tic-tac-toe? That’s a symbol you put for a sharp note. It’s mine but the monsters messed up it.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s broken. And they pooped on it.”

“Can I go get it? Maybe we can fix it and clean it up.”

“I guess. Just hurry up. I don’t want the monsters coming in if you’re not here.”

The hall was pitch black. I turned on the flashlight in my PipBuck and started toward Adagia’s room. When I stepped in the doorway, I expected to see the violin where it was. It was gone and in the middle of the room, on the big stain, was a large furry creature. Its back was turned to me and it was hunched over.

I couldn’t even think. I was just frozen there in the doorway, looking at whatever the hell that thing was. It looked like some weird mutated version of those dogs the Legion had.

It was one of the monsters and Adagia was right, that thing was fucking scary. I instinctively reached for Perdition. Shit! I thought. I left it with the others. I considered trying to kill it unarmed but reconsidered when I saw the claws it had. They were long and shaped almost like hooks. I’m sure it had teeth to match too. I went back to get Perdition.

“Okay, Adagia. I have some bad news… and some more bad news.”

She looked scared. “What’s the first bad news?”

“Your violin is gone.”

She almost looked relieved. “And the other bad news?”

I picked up Perdition and checked how many shells I had. “The monsters are here.” I think that as soon as I said ‘monster’ she went toward the bed because she was under it before I finished my sentence.

Radiant and Rose readied their guns and Harlequin Forest wiped off her already-clean hammer. We gathered at the doorway of our room.

“Okay, we need to be quiet. We don’t know exactly what that thing can do.”

“Where is it?” Harlequin Forest asked.

“It’s in Adagia’s room.”

As soon as I said that, she started down the hall casually, hammer in hoof. Why she wasn’t levitating it is beyond me. When she got to the doorway she poked her head in. She gasped, pulled her head back then cowered for a few seconds. Then she looked serious and charged in. I heard a wet thump, an alien scream, and two more wet thumps. Harlequin Forest came out covered in blood.

“We killed it!”

I couldn’t resist seeing the corpse. Unfortunately, its head was smashed nearly to the point of decapitation. Blood was splattered everywhere in the room.

“You couldn’t have been a little more subtle?” I asked her.

“But we killed it! We didn’t run to get a gun like it did. We killed it with Our hammer!” She sounded like a foal who just flew or used magic for the first time. It was kind of cute.

“What is it? I’ve never seen one before.”

“It’s a Hellhound,” Rose said. “Ah ain’t never had to fight one, but ya hear stories about ‘em.”

“Well, never say never,” I said. “Adagia said ‘monsters’ so this one probably isn’t alone.”

We went downstairs to see how it got in. The front door was intact. All of the windows were broken but I doubt that thing could fit through any of them.

“Maybe it came from the basement,” Adagia said. “That’s where monsters hide.”

“There’s a basement?”

“Yeah,” she looked around. “The door is over there.” She pointed to a dresser near the corner of the den. “Behind there.”

I flipped the dresser over and there was a metal hatch. Grey magic opened the door and Adagia looked up at me.

“I don’t want to go down there.”

“I can’t leave you up here. What if another one comes while we’re down there.”

She wanted to stay alive more than she didn’t want to go down into the basement. I went down first, then Rose, Radiant, Adagia, then Harlequin Forest. The hatch slammed shut when we got to the bottom and then there was no light. Harlequin Forest sounded scared.

I heard fumbling around and some light clattering then a lantern lit up, levitated by Adagia. It wasn’t very bright and I could see that it was almost out of oil.

The basement was about the size of the house and there wasn’t much down there. There were old crates full of stuff that probably belonged to ponies before the war. It smelled disgusting down there, worse than anything I’d ever smelled before. It was like rotting corpses and shit and I don’t even want to know what else. I think we were all gagging.

I asked Harlequin Forest for a head bubble.

“We can’t give it head bubbles forever,” she whined.

“But this is bad,” I said.

“And We can’t fight and keep head bubbles. It needs to just get used to it.”

“Ah reckon here’s how they’re gettin’ in,” Rose interrupted.

Behind a stack of boxes, in the corner, there was a hole. Or maybe it was more of a tunnel. It was big enough for me to fit comfortably into. I went to look into it and Adagia stopped me.

“Don’t go in there!”

“Why not?”

“The monsters are in there!”

“We came down here to kill the monsters. How can we do that if we don’t go down here?”

“You can’t kill them if you’re dead.”

“And they can’t kill me if they’re dead.”

“I don’t want to go down there.”

It was a difficult situation. I had to convince a filly to go down into hole filled with monsters that killed her family, friends, and everypony else in her town. She’d probably die if I left her behind and I couldn’t have that on my conscience.

“I promised you that you’d be all right, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but…”

“I promised. Now let’s go down there so I can kill the monsters.”

“Oh, no,” Harlequin Forest said, looking me in the eyes. “We will kill them. All of them.” She sounded like she had a grudge.

“You hate them that much?” I asked.

“We didn’t say We hate them. We just want to kill them.”

“That’s as good a reason as any,” Rose said.

Radiant was the only one who was with Adagia. Radiant is brave for a filly but she didn’t want to go down there any more than Adagia did. Unlike Adagia, Radiant knew that I was going down there whether any of my companions liked it or not. I did just that, and they all followed me.

I asked if that hole was always there. She said yes. I asked her if she’d ever been down here. She said no.

“Not even before the monsters?”

“No. It’s scary down here.”

I couldn’t imagine being afraid of a place that was begging to be explored. Radiant’s mother and I explored every bit of the Stable we could when we were foals just because we could.

We walked through the tunnel that snaked down into the ground. It didn’t split off into other paths for a while. When it did, we had three choices: left, straight, and right.

“Let’s go left,” I said.

“No, right,” Rose said.

Harlequin Forest popped up in between us. “Straight!”

We argued about the direction we’d go until we heard along and low growl. Then we heard a whimper and a trickling sound. It was Adagia. Radiant looked sorry for her. Harlequin Forest laughed at her. I flicked the Alicorn on the horn getting a growl in return.

“It’s not funny.”

“We’ll decide what’s funny, Plasma Storm.”

“I already did. It’s not funny.”

She laughed in my face. I ignored her and went left, which is where the growl came from. Adagia whimpered almost inaudibly as we went toward the noises.

The growls were coming from a Hellhound that was sleeping in the middle of the tunnel. It was moving its legs as if it were running in its dream.

Harlequin Forest leaned close to my ear. “Let Us kill it, Plasma Storm.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

She beamed like a filly and trotted over to the Hellhound. It didn’t wake until she poked it with her hammer. “Wake up, sleepyhead.” It started flailing around, trying to find its footing, but before it knew what was happening, it was dead. “We win again!”

“Shut the fuck up,” I whispered. She came back to us grumbling. We kept walking. The tunnel went on for about fifteen minutes, then we reached a dead end. We killed another Hellhound in the tunnel.

We went back to the split and went straight. The tunnel went on for about two miles and there weren’t any Hellhounds, not even the sound of one. I could smell them though. The tunnel opened to a clearing the had a large group of Hellhounds, seven or eight at a glance.

Harlequin Forest charged.

“Shit! No!” I yelled.

She took one’s head completely off with her hammer. Two slashed out at her, missing by a hair. I thought she was dead then. By the time we charged, she’d killed one and took both legs off of another. Any time she was surrounded, there would be a small explosion of magic and the monsters would stagger back, leaving themselves opened for the hammer.

Rose stayed out of range, aiming for their heads. Radiant hid. I don’t remember seeing her at all. Adagia hid too, but not very good. A Hellhound was staring her down.

I jumped in front of her and went to face down the Hellhound. It felt like one of those moments in the great stories. With time for only a single shotgun shell, I had to wait for the right moment and had to hit just the right spot.

The Hellhound pounced and pulled its arm back and I waited. Once the moment came, I pulled the trigger. Buckshot blasted from Perdition’s barrel and tore into the monster’s face.

It didn’t save me.

I blinked then I was in the dirt. There was an intense warmth all over my body and I couldn’t move—I could barely breathe. All I could think was that Adagia was going to die and it was my fault and I was going to have to watch it happen.

The Hellhound was rubbing at its eyes though I’m sure that they were gone. It wouldn’t have helped me then, but Adagia took the opportunity to hide. The hound began to sniff the air and turned toward me. Blood squirted from the side of its head and it stumbled. I heard the click of Rose’s rifle and she shot it again and it died.

It was quiet again but there was a loud ringing in my ears and my heartbeat sounded as loud as a gunshot. I rolled over and saw Harlequin Forest looking down at me.

“Is it dying?” She looked sad at first but then she smiled. “We will make it better.”

It wasn’t the kind of ‘better’ I would have preferred. She raised her hammer to put me out of my misery and Rose saved my life yet again. After being shot four times, the Alicorn put her hammer down and cried.

“You crazy bitch! He ain’t dead yet!”

“We only tried to help!” she said through her heavy sobs. “To help…”

Rose sat beside me and gave me a potion to drink.

“It’s the last one, Feathers. And it ain’t gonna be enough but it should close you up mostly.

I drank the potion and felt my skin crawl. I hadn’t looked at the wound until that moment. There were three long gashes going from the left side of my neck down to my right shoulder. It wasn’t just a flesh wound; the claws tore straight into the muscle and through every bit of bone along the way. The potion did about half of the job but I’d lost so much blood. Rose tried to help me up but I fell back to the ground each time. She went over to Harlequin Forest who was still crying.

“Yer gonna have to carry him,” she said.

“No, it will shoot Us again.”

“Quit it with the excuses. Ah ain’t feelin’ sorry for ya. You tried to kill somepony who saved yer life. Or have ya already forgot about that?”

“We only tried to help…”

“Didn’t look like help to me.”

I know Rose didn’t feel sorry for her but I kind of did. She didn’t try to murder me. “Just let it go,” I said.

“Fine.” Rose left her alone.

I didn’t want Harlequin Forest to carry me. We waited until I could at least walk again. It probably never would have happened if not for Harlequin Forest’s magic. She wasn’t an expert healer by any means, but being such a powerful Alicorn, it was enough to close me up good.

Rose scowled at her when she was done. “You stupid idiot.”

Harlequin Forest’s ears folded back. “What did We do? We helped Plasma Storm…”

“After Ah gave him the last healing potion! Fuckin’ moron!”

At first Harlequin Forest looked scared. Then she snatched Rose up by her shirt collar.

“Call Us that again!”

Rose was stunned.

“Yes! Say it! You will die! We want to kill you…”

Rose didn’t say another word. Harlequin Forest threw her back to the ground.

“Mess with Us? Oh, no…” she muttered, shaking her head.

Rose looked at me.” She didn’t call me ‘it’…”

By some strange bit of luck, no Hellhounds came to investigate the noise. We’d killed a lot of them but there had to be more, enough to wipe out a town. That still didn’t explain the fog. I wanted to know about the fog and we soon found some. The stench of death, which was faint as we entered the tunnel, was stifling. Radiant pleaded to Harlequin Forest for a head bubble.

“We can’t fight and keep head bubbles.”

“But…”

“Do you want Us to fight?”

That was like asking her if she wanted to live. Without Harlequin Forest we would have all died back in the house I’m sure. Radiant didn’t ask again.

The fog got thicker the further we went. The floor was starting get moist with condensation which was making the stench even nastier. We all threw up at least once. Adagia set the record at nine times, poor filly.

We heard another growl, this one much lower than any I’d ever heard. We came to a descending slope that lead down into a small chasm. At the far side was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. It was like a Hellhound but about five times the size. It was black instead of grey and had glowing red eyes. The fog was pouring from its body like a visible odor and coming out of its mouth with every growl. It moved slowly.

We watched it for a minute. The fog around it began to move, swirling into a small mass, then taking the form of a Hellhound, then one would appear from the fog. They weren’t being born, they were created by the fog, by the monster the fog was coming from. If it died, the fog would disappear, and then no more Hellhounds.

All we had to do was kill it. That’s all…

“Can We kill this one too?”

“I don’t know. It looks different.”

“We’re going to kill it.” She shot down from the ledge, hammer trailing behind her, and smashed it to the creatures head. It was like she struck a shadow. She sailed through it and hit the wall and it turned toward her with a raised claw. I could hear her inhale for a scream from across the chasm. An orange beam shot past me and hit the wall beside the beast.

“Bastard gun! I aimed it perfectly.”

“Shoot it again!” I yelled.

The beams struck the creature and it cried out in pain. Hammers didn’t work but lasers did. Rose’s gun didn’t work but Perdition did. I was beyond confused.

“Rose, kill the Hellhound! Radiant, shoot the Black One!”

Radiant and I shot at the beast, driving it backward with every shot. Harlequin Forest was looking at her hammer. It looked like she was talking to it. I yelled for her to “wake the fuck up.” The beast was what woke her.

Its claws ripped into her hide and she began regenerating immediately. She looked stunned, then her horn lit up. The awesome vortex appeared and began to suck the Black One in. One of its arms was caught and began to warp and it screamed like nothing I’d ever heard. It pulled back and its arm started to come out.

“Radiant, shoot it!”

We both shot it. It lost its footing and was sucked into the vortex. I’ll admit that it was pretty satisfying watching that thing die. It wasn’t a gory death at all, but apparently you can kill a shadow. Pieces of it escaped the vortex and dissipated pathetically into the air. The vortex imploded and the Black One was gone.

The fog began to lift and was quickly gone, along with the stench. It smelled like clean earth.

Harlequin Forest trotted toward us, eyes shut and grinning. “It almost got Us, Plasma Storm. But We were stronger!”

“You really are something,” I said. She grinned some more.

We explored the right passage that we never went down and found nothing. The Hellhounds were gone. We went back up. Adagia’s house was still trashed, but the fog outside was gone to. The sun was rising just as I looked out. The town didn’t look much better without the fog, just less rotten.

Everypony but Adagia and I were digging through the ruin, looking for salvage. She stood next to me.

“Thank you,” she said. “For saving my life. Twice, I guess.”

“You’re always welcome. Just make sure you don’t waste it. I’ve seen some bad ponies out here. They didn’t all start out that way.”

“That stuff’s not for me. I just like music. We never did get to fix my violin.”

“We will,” I said with a smile.

“I can some with you then?”

I nodded.

“Good. I can’t stay here anymore. Everything’s ruined.”

“Maybe somepony will rebuild it.”

“Maybe. It won’t ever be the same though.”

“And that’s okay.”

“Yes.”

We started down the road that cut through town, heading toward New Pegasus again. Maybe I’d get to see it before another interruption like having to save a filly from a dead town.

* * *

We stopped to make camp for the last time. New Pegasus was clearly visible against the night sky. It looked amazing.

I helped Adagia fix her violin and she cleaned it up. It was still missing a string but that didn’t stop her from making music with it. She played scores that sounded as if they were written by one of the great composers. Octavia was the only one I knew a lot of material from, but there were even better composers. I might even put Adagia above her as well. What she could do with only a three-stringed violin was fantastic.

“It’s not that great,” she told us. “I just threw that one together,” she’d say after every other score.

“Then I want to hear one your proud of,” I said.

She played the one that she was proud of. It was eleven minutes long, starting kind of fast and very groovy-sounding. The tempos changed so many times you’d swear it was several songs clumped together but it flowed so perfectly. After it was over she looked at us.

“I had to improvise since I don’t have the fourth string.”

Radiant broke our silence. “That. Was. Amazing!”

Adagia rubbed the back of her mane. “Yeah, it is pretty amazing, isn’t it?”

We all nodded.

“It was okay,” Rose said. “Not mah kind of music, but it was all right.”

It looked like that comment stung a little. Adagia bit her lip and scowled.

“If it’s not your kind of music, then how do you know if it’s all right?”

“Don’t take it to heart, little filly. Ah’m just teasin’.”

“I worked so hard on it. For three years!”

Rose put her hooves up in defense. “All right, all right, it was amazing. Better?”

Adagia smiled. “Don’t take it to heart. Ah’m just teasin’,” she said. We all laughed.

We started toward New Pegasus once Rose woke up, which was late. She found a bottle of vodka back at the town. “To help me sleep,” she said before downing the whole bottle.

Her chipper mood soon gave way to being an ass due to the lack of alcohol. I didn’t get hit with a rock and Harlequin Forest didn’t get hit in the face that time. Rose just whined a lot.

“For the love of Luna,” I said, “shut up, Rose. We’re almost there.”

“Fuck you, Feathers. I’m thirsty.”

We all went back and forth with the ‘you shut up’s until we got to the gate. There were two ponies on either side.

“Welcome to New Pegasus, ponies. What’s your business here?”

“Would you let us through if we didn’t tell you?” I asked.

“Yes, just curious, is all.”

“We don’t really have any business. Just wanted to see the city.”

“You you fellers got any whiskey? Ah need some now!”

The guard on the left laughed. “Yeah, Flutterside’s got a few bars. You probably can’t afford the bars in New Pegasus.”

Rose shoved her way through me and the gate. We followed her in.