The Light Despondent

Chapters

Episode 1: Riding the Gallows-Horse/Equcrux
Nowhere To Run
City Of No Palms
Toothpick
Dope Fiend Massacre
Sunset City / God Bless us Every One
My Self-Defense Catastrophe
Episode 2: A Stranger I Remain / Kraber Alone
Busy Earnin' / A Long Way Home
Golden Light
The Enemy / Roller Mobster
It's Another Day
Take Up Your Spade
Didn't Know I'd Love You So Much
We're Gonna Have A Party...
Wrong Number
Keep Calm / Dreamscapes
Kill The Cooks
Hype Waltz
I Miss You Beau Velasco / Dare
Let It Die
The End / The Beginning
Burn My Shadow / Nightmare
Philistine / Don't Fear The Reaper

Episode 1: Riding the Gallows-Horse/Equcrux

Note: I apologize for the long chapter length, but it's just too much work to divide it all up.

The Light Despondent
Editors/Co-Authors
TB3 - His edits to this are beyond awesome.
TheIdiot
Kizuna Tallis
Redskin122004
Beyond The Horizon - Thanks for helping, even though the weaponry here is more like what you’d find in Metro 2033. At the moment, anyway. I like Metro 2033.
PART 1: RIDING THE GALLOWS-HORSE/Equcrux

“They call refugees ‘the Dispossessed.’ Well, that’s a relative term, one for people like Johnny C that’ve read too much Vandermeer. To you, to people who still have a house or apartment you don’t have to run away from, that’s people like us. But some refugees I know, like my friend Abraham… they have families, electronics, heirlooms, photos, stuff from the old world. To us, the Dispossessed are people that lost everything, even their minds. Johnny C, Abraham, his brother Dalibor, and I? We saw this one HLF woman in a hunting cabin near Errol, along the Magalloway… she had a newfoal she claimed was her son. She’d fitted a speaker to its stomach, and claimed she could hear thin, reedy weeping from it… begging for mercy, for her to save it. Crazy stuff.

That’s what being one of the Dispossessed means to us.”

Blossomforth, PHL pegasus.

“Sir, there is an era for what you have proposed, an era in which you would be lauded as a hero for your plan. I hope you’re capable of understanding this, but May 3, 1942, was a long time ago. Ponies and zebras alike shall be a monument to our shame if we continue with even one of your policies.”

President Jack Davis, responding to Senator Patrick Goleman’s plan to place refugee ponies, zebras, and other non-humans in internment camps.

“Some of you might dream of a day we fold most of their ranks in and have a united offensive, all humans and refugees and defectors against Equestria. Well, as of today, that last part won’t happen, because those bastards crossed a line. They’ve taken one of our own and tortured her, put what was left of her on the internet… and they laughed. Like it was funny. And they had the balls to ask for thanks from us, like they did some kind of public fucking service. If ever there was a moment the world needed to know the HLF is a bunch of goddamned sadists with no restraint or morality, maybe even more a threat to us than Celestia... now is that moment.

Now is the moment to show them they’ve no idea how to defend humanity.

Now is the moment to remember Sutra Cross.

Now is the moment to make. Them. PAY!”

Marcus Renee, just before the Battle of Defiance and the Great HLF Purges.

“We have to kill them. Slaughter their ranks and fold in anyone with enough shreds of sanity, anyone reasonable enough to accept that maybe killing every pony in sight doesn’t work! Harsh? You don’t know harsh. We don’t have the option of leaving them to their own devices! Say you have a stab wound, but you’re ignoring it for a race or something. We both know how that’ll end-the stress on your body will overwhelm you. You collapse. You’re probably bleeding. We’ve all seen evacs from the Barrier, hell, most of us have participated in them! I know what the HLF does at times like that. They and the PER will come out of the woodwork, scrabbling over the remains and fucking us over a barrel. We leave them, and the last bastions of safety in this world go to shit! Come next November, when the Barrier hits Canada, we’ll be fucked if we leave them as they are, and anarchy’ll reign! We need to defend the lines behind our home front, and the time to destroy them is now!”

July 15, 2022. Yael Ze’ev, member of the ‘Dominant’ faction of PHL, a subgroup seeking greater emergency powers during wartime. One week before the disappearance of Sutra Cross.

“I want to go home, Daddy! I miss Coal Embers and everyone from back in the city, I want to go back-

“This is home now, son. No matter what we go through, it’s better than the alternative.”

Conversation overheard between Aegis and his son Rivet.

“They were a gift to all, not just ponykind,
The cabins elegant, luxury defined,

Each bedroom a palace, it was quite palatial,
But the Queen saw it,
Found it quite low in appraisal,

All Equestria caught in her dark seduction,
set forth con-verting the palaces to engines of destruction…

Dirge of the Skyliner, sung and played by Octavia.

"The HLF? They're a joke. Their whole 'unit' is a joke. Hell, their name is a joke! Human Liberation Front, hah!

Front? What front? They're fractured, they have no unified front. They just sort of wildly flail their arms around in an attempt to garner support or power or what have you, and end up blowing up of slaughtering whatever they’re trying to get at. And then blame it on Ponies. Even if they had nothing to do with it. Even if they were miles away at the time. Trusting them to guard you is like asking a starving wolf to lead chickens to safety.

Liberation? ... They haven't 'liberated' anything. All they do, all they know, is killing, raping, taking, and destroying. I haven't heard a single tale, a single word about them supposedly liberating anyone. All I've heard is that they leave a trail of bodies and fire behind them, and that any single person sane enough long ago fled from them.

And... Human? Human?! Barely! Only just micrometers away from being rabid animals. They talk a good storm up sure, 'true protectors of humanity' my fat ass! But what they are? What they really are? Hyenas, coyotes, vultures scavenging off the corpses of the fallen, killing anyone who disagrees with them or even slightly looks in their direction, and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

The only reason we haven't turned all our tender mercies upon them is because, one, the Tyrant Sun is a bigger threat, two, the PER is far worse than they, and three... well... they're doomed. Plain and simple. Even if all we did was toss them into, say, a box canyon or something, they'd tear themselves apart. They're a mess. They're broken. Have you even seen two HLF units trying to convince each other that they're friendly? Most of them have officers obsessed with code phrases and mock-official titles, and a lot of them are killed in friendly fire. Not only that, but you don't usually get promoted entirely for merit as a commander. Sometimes, people get promoted based entirely on anti-pony sentiment, which is how you get people like that utter fuckwit John Birch in a position anywhere higher than private! The most immediately bloodthirsty get promoted, while the few that have saddled themselves with the unenviable Sisyphean task of reform get either executed, ponified, passed over, or they defect! I talked to Viktor Kraber while working on his thermite gun proposal, and he relates a story where he was nearly shot in the head for suggesting not killing four ponies.... In favor of attacking the PER.... He was having a crisis of faith at the moment.

They're not worth one single bullet, honestly... Though, if they did decide to make even more of a nuisance of themselves...

They'd find me waiting for them with open arms, a bright smile, a suit of armor, and lots, and lots, and lots of gun.

Sebastian Irving, in an interview

“God help us all if the Barrier’s not gone in a year’s time. It’ll be anarchy out here, and we’re barely holding on as is.”

Jack Weiss, member of Barrier Evacuation Engineer Corps.

"Anger. That's what motivates the HLF. Not just any anger: fury at the pain caused, that kind of absolute rage that can only come from pain and suffering. In some cases, people turn their pain and suffering to causes that are just and true. But just as often, they turn their suffering to causes that are full of hatred. For every person who becomes a Gandhi or a Luther King, there is a person who becomes a Hitler. It is the curse of the human race, almost, that we have the capacity for great good, or great evil. And make no mistake: they have done great evil.

The worst part though... the worst part is understanding it. The worst part is knowing that, for want of a nail - or a kind word from a friendly face determined to make things right - you could have gone the same way. I could have been with the HLF. I understand their rage. I've felt it myself. And yes, I read the theories. I attended the rallies. I was on the HLF forum. One of the biggest posters too, at one point. There was a time when I agreed with them, when I wanted nothing more than to murder every single pony in the world. When I thought there was no better course than mindless revenge. I was lucky: a certain someone... somepony... convinced me otherwise, but it could have gone either way. But that doesn't mean I don't understand them. And God help me... sometimes I see what happens out there... and I can't honestly say that even now, some part of me doesn't feel that same rage."

Prince Harry of Britain, aka Harry Wales of the SAS, when asked about tenuous links between himself and the HLF based on examination of some HLF discussion forums.

"As a great muppet once said, 'fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering'. That's the HLF in a nutshell. He forgot to add the part where suffering leads to bloody idiocy, mind. Who the fuck tries to bomb a munitions plant making the guns that’ll save humanity… and claiming they did it in the name of humanity?! Fucking idiot..."

Anonymous PHL soldier guarding a train station, overheard by True Quill during her research for the article "The Many Faces Of Mankind".

“I don’t regret what I started, but I regret that it lead to those imbeciles. I’ll admit, I might’ve been like them just a little, but Lyra was a convincing mare, making it clear that she didn’t support ponification, and nor did the ponies behind her. I’m right up there with everyone when they say she should be sainted, and yet…. and yet some bastard in the HLF shot her. I think that’s when I knew there was little, if anything in them left worth saving. To the reformists, I say just stop. You’re too crippled by your own fears to come close to your goal.”

Reverend James Thomas

“Everyday I wake up, I get out and look at my home. The sun gets a bit… wouldn’t say darker, but just colder. Even at the height of summer, sometimes it feels like the coldest day of the winter out there. People get dirtier, a little more strapped for cash. I go a little more between routine appointments, same with everyone else. Everything gets a little more rundown. The railroad over that trestle up north gets rebuilt, and it’ll just be gone in a year and a half. Come this time next year, I won’t be able to recognize anything.

Burt Gransvoort.

“Suddenly, recycling is a matter of life and death. Some ponies go behind the Barrier and make primitive axes or bring back wood in any way they can, but every material grows in worth by the hour. If there’s any wood, any abandoned metal, anything at all you think can be useful, then by the Golden Lyre, bring it here. Somebody’s going to need it.”

Reclaimed Beauty, PHL pony in charge of the acquisition of materials for PHL weaponry, refugee housing, and the Barrier Evacuation Engineer Corps. Reclaimed Beauty was an artist in prewar Equestria, and one of the first ponies to make her way to Earth.

“Clive Mudget? You are hereby placed under arrest for refusing to support not only the American public but refugees displaced by the Barrier, hoarding food, arming anti-American militias, and the murder of equines helping to tend nearby ranches. Anything you say can and will be used against y-”

“You fascist bastards! They’re the enemy! They’ve been forcing themselves into our culture after destroying our homes!”

“They’re refugees like some of my friends, and most of my family. And you’ll be too soon if people like you don’t stop fucking around and getting in the way of people are helping.”

Transcript from a policeman’s body camera, taken during the arrest of Clive Mudget, an HLF supporter who refused to provide food outside the HLF.
“Years ago, I never would have guessed I’d end up here. A thousand years ago, we were fighting Luna and Celestia, and then there was a flash of light and all of a sudden, we were a millenium away. Then the Element Bearers came as emissaries… of course, we learned just how much regard Celestia had for others.”
From 'The Last Ditch: Four Weeks of Anarchy', written by Brighthoof.

“The path of the HLF man is death on all sides - the death of whatever you call a soul, the death of countless hundreds, the death of anything approaching a noble cause that can be found within someone, pushing everyone towards doom with a bayonet at one end of a stolen or homemade rifle, throwing away advantage after advantage just out of anger.The path of the HLF reformist is infinitely more hopeless… The only advice I can give to HLF members even attempting that is to leave. Just not to try. If being HLF is like falling the height of Mount Everest with full kit, then trying to reform is like bouldering Lhotse face with people shooting at you.”

Enitan Adebayo.

“Whatever you do, trusting the HLF is the worst mistake you can make in these times. Tomorrow, you can do what you want. But for now, you. Are. Listening! You are going to do this. I’m not even saying please. I’m not even giving you any fokking evidence, cause the HLF are all the evidence you should need, and any satire I could try for would immediately be followed by them trying to one-up me, with me looking like I’m defending them. I say one unit uses poison gas, five would use thermite on naked civilians begging for mercy, or strip them of their clothes, take everything of value, burn the house down for kicks, kneel them and everyone else they did it to against a wall, and fire rounds into their heads.

Everything I just mentioned has happened, and they’re the worst heroes anyone could dream of. They’re the kind of bliksems that would settle a hostage crisis with airstrikes and napalm. There’s no more terrorists, which is good, right? Yeah, for everyone but the people they’re trying to save! Granted, they don’t have napalm, not since they lost government support, but what they do have is overwhelming force, a lot of bathtub semtex, and stolen or homebrewed military hardware. They consider it their duty to ‘save’ you from being within a mile of a pony. Whether you like it or not. And even worse, their idea of ‘saving’ you just means killing ponies. They’ve no regard whatsoever for collateral, no regard for people trying to evacuate.

Think about it - when have you ever seen the HLF assist in an evacuation? They don’t. Just kill and kill and kill. Thanking the HLF for saving you is like thanking a hurricane for destroying a KKK rally. The rally’s gone, but then so’s your house, your family and friends. There’s no line they won’t cross… the kontgesigs have killed children and foals. I’ve seen it. Sometimes they did it cos’ they were desperate for supplies and called it collateral, and others just attack towns cos’ they’re bored. They are just as likely to leave with bodies in their wake as shoot you, empty your house, and rob you blind. The inmates are running the fokking asylum, and the wardens and orderlies are few and far between.”

Viktor M. Kraber, showing up unannounced (and ad-libbing) in a PHL propaganda video. True Quill attempted to remove him from the scene, but Photo Finish declined. Curiously, Kraber was later considered the most memorable part of it.

Author's Note

...Well.
It's finally here. The story I told y'all I was going to do. AND HOLY BALLS IS IT LONG! Thanks so much to TB3, who made this what it is.... by which I mean ENORMOUS! Hope you liked it! Also,HERE is Ambassador Nikai The First, the wolf pup that Kraber's stuffed wolf is named after. AIN'T HE CUTE?! OH, I WANT TO HUG AND SNUGGLE HIM, IT'S JUST ADORABLE!
PS: This is not a one-shot. There are really more chapters coming.

Nowhere To Run

August 2022
Just north of Berlin, NH

If you'd been there, you could see a Human Liberation Front ‘checkpoint’ in Northern New Hampshire, not too far away from a certain settlement established by that same group of ‘liberators’, a troupe so inadequate at their self-proclaimed purpose that most people see them as a heavily-armed, psychotic joke with a bark somewhat stronger than their bite.

At that moment, the fools were about to do something incredibly stupid. They were begging for an excuse to shoot something. So the same as usual.

The checkpoint halted a short convoy of six cars on the Berlin Road, next to the Androscoggin River. Pallid mist rose from the gurgling river, and it lent terrifying atmosphere as torches swept across windows and windscreens. The headlights cut through the fog too, revealing militiamen armed with patchwork weaponry thrown together from whatever is to hand and store bought firearms, both in huge, ridiculous calibers.

Four HLF soldiers, three men and a woman, are running ‘customs checks’, words which in this context have no meaning. Really, it's apocalyptic banditry with a fancy name and delusions of grandeur.

The adults are trembling with doubt as the militants approach; if they’re lucky, the HLF might just rob them of everything else. Alternatively, they might kick them out into the dark, so that the cars can be stripped down to parts.

The worst case scenarios end with their skeletons left to rot in the woods, riddled with bullet holes. Cars or people, which is more valuable tonight?

The HLF ‘revolutionaries’, these thugsthugs carrying over-calibered frankenguns and homebrewed pipe bomb launchers. One of the men and women stalking alongside the cars, shining their torches in through the windows. Whether they have motives and drives, whether or not they’re just looking for an excuse to commit violence, or if they have any nobler intentions, perhaps of hunting some of the doubly-damned PER for (hopefully) slow, excruciating extermination... doesn't matter.

What matters is someone is cringing in an open car trunk. Standing over it, a man with booze and other drugs on his breath held a heavy revolver in one hand, the trunk in another. His finger was on the trigger. He stared, nigh-immobile.

Imagine he's staring at you.

Imagine that you are one of the two unicorns curled up in the trunk, petrified as the HLF man holds the gun to your muzzle. By human standards, it is a massive weapon.

To your young eyes, its yawning barrel fills the world.

You are the smaller of the two ponies, a little filly named Dancing Day. You received your cutie mark not long after leaving Equestria, during a trip to France, and had felt something ‘odd’ as you stood atop the now-atomized Eiffel Tower, dancing in the wind.

They said the blessing of a cutie-mark felt like a tingle on the flank, but you had felt something more like a wave...as if an old and ancient forest had stirred under a spring sun, and you were among the first flowers to bloom.

You’d felt it through your hooves, in the air around you, in the riveted iron of Gustav Eiffel’s masterpiece. You had felt the magic of an entire world wake up, touch your soul, and smilingly brush the fur on your flank into an image that reflected the truth of your identity..

It had been a slow and sluggish process, but it had happened. You were, in fact, one of the first ponies to receive a cutie-mark not from Equus’s stagnating, overstretched and eggshell-thin magic field, (second magical renaissance? Bullshit!) but from the old and dormant power of Earth.

Which makes you, in some deep and profoundly fundamental way, as much a child of this world as of the rock on which you were born.

But the HLF man standing over right now cares not for any of that. He is tall and somewhat thin, lean and muscled, with a well-travelled body. His armor, if you can call it that, looks to be pieced together from surplus military equipment, though you can see stolen metal beneath the fabric. The barding had been thrown together, and held in place with ropes and strips of plastic almost as thick as a human's thumb, patched in places with duct tape. His beard was wild and unkempt, sticking out in all directions. His teeth and breath were rotten, every exhalation reeking of tobacco, poorly homebrewed alcohol, and hand-rolled cigarettes. His restless eyes, the color of maple syrup, darted from side to side. They were hardened, predatory, peeking out over dark bags that marked him as tired, restless.

Imagine that you quailed. Shivered a little. Old herd instincts - as you are now a pony - tell you that a hunter with eyes like that is more likely to kill you out of sheer madness than a need to feed. He just seems too tired to give a damn whether you live or die, the picture of the average ‘kill-em-all’ HLF man, a demon that could've very well been summoned through some sort of diabolic ritual to create the vilest, most sociopathic, kill-crazy sonovabitch imaginable.

Rather incongruously, a medical bag hangs from one of his shoulder.

In your fearful hyper-awareness, you notice another strange detail about him. On his back is what is unmistakably a pony-modified weapon, a mechanical death-toy painted up with magical runes, strange wires and bits attached.

‘How?!’ you ask yourself. ‘How did he get this?!’

Imagine that, in some strange way, you feel sorry for him. For despite what he is about to do, you can see the genuine pain in his eyes, and understand it. HLF members are just men and women, like any other, good and bad as they come. More bad than most, true... But some...some have lost so much that there is nothing left in them. A lot of them are just dyed-in-the-wool psycho, where rage and madness have flooded in to fill the husk life has left behind. Imagine that you've seen some refugees like that in the PHL, working with your mother. Ponies and humans that have no homes, no families, and no history to go back to. Cut adrift. With no shred of identity left to cling onto, they tended to grab hold of the first thing that came to hand.

An individual...a cause...a gun. And they never let go, clinging on with a death-grip.

Something of that is in this man, at the roots of his insanity. And so…even as he is about to kill you, you cannot help but pity him for what made him into such a monster.

You inch closer to your mother, who lies beside you, one hoof laid protectively over your body.

She was terrified, and yet she returns the HLF man’s maddened gaze with defiance. There’s a soft glow to her horn, a shimmer as she readies to fight. You were trembling, wishing you could be as strong as Mommy.

No! It cannot end like this! Not when the two of you escaped from Equestria just as they were closing the borders, not after having been displaced from home after home. No, after having survived this long, it CANNOT END LIKE THIS.

And suddenly, impossibly, it didn't.

He saw you embracing mommy, he saw you wondering what had made him this way, and something flashed across his face. His eyes water. He was remembering something. Slowly, quietly, he did something to the back of his pistol which, in a flash of understanding, you knew to be called a ‘revolver’.

It clicked, you flinched… and he lowered it. Placed it in the... Sheath? Is that what it’s called?

And then he closes the trunk on the two of you, one finger held to his mouth in the gesture you know to be a plea for silence.

“Everything seems to be in order,” he said to your ride’s driver, a nice lady called Kiki. You cannot see what happened, but when she recounts his words to her, you can see it in your minds eye. You heard his voice there, through the metal lid of the trunk, and it just sounded...flat, somehow. Neither sad, nor drained of emotion, just hollow, as if in realization of a terrible all-consuming void growing within oneself.

You looked back at your mother frantically, at the dying flickers of light on her horn. Did she use her talents….get in his head? Was that her psychomancy, or some kind of mnemosurgery?

And as she looked back to you, clearly as surprised as you, so shocked that horror is the only emotion she seems able to show on her face, you understand: He did this on his own.

And you ask yourself: Why?

As does your mother.

As does Kiki.

It is hard to imagine Kiki’s position in those terrible moments. Trembling at gunpoint in the driver’s seat, hands on the dashboard, but with a subcompact pistol, holstered to the underside of the steering column. If she went for it, surprise would probably give her the time to get one shot off, maybe two. And then every rifle outside would turn on her and riddle her with more holes than a colander. It would be a massacre.

But they’d do just the same once they discovered the ponies...die now, and take a few bastards in the process, or die in less than a minute and accomplish nothing.

You can’t imagine the stress of that. And you certainly can’t imagine Kiki’s silent, mental scream of anguish as the madman opened the trunk, and easily popped the false bottom, revealing the cargo - you and your mother.

She will tell you later that she her right hand had slowly inched down the dashboard towards the concealed pistol, ready to rip it out of the holster, slip the safety and slide her finger in behind the trigger-guard, all in one fluid movement. One squeeze on the trigger to let slip the dogs of war…

...and then, death. Her only option would have been to squeeze off as many shots as possible, floor the gas pedal and attempt to break through the ‘check point’s’ barrier across the road. Her one ace in the hole was the chance that you and your mother might pull some miracle out of your plot-holes.

And so she’d waited, on that knife-edge between planning and action, waiting for the turning-point, ready for man investigating the trunk to jump back at the sight of two unicorns and scream ‘ALARM!’

She was not ready for him to step up to the drivers-side window and gruffly wave her one with his gun.

“Everything seems to be in order, right away…” he barked. “I’m sure your cargo will find a willing fence in Colebrook.”

He looked as if he was ready to throw up all over the ground, cheeks and forehead ashen behind the unkept mass of his beard. In fact, you will later learn that later that night he did indeed void his stomach contents into the river.

But there and then, there had been a stunned pause. And then Kiki nodded, fingertips brushing the gun as she reached to turn the ignition key. A look passed between them that might have been gratitude on her parts, or wariness. And then they had been in motion, peeling off into the distance at over eighty miles per hour, because moose, black bears, wolves,or coyotes be damned, Kiki was getting out of there....

Nothing was sacred to the HLF where ponies were concerned. They were the enemy, the oppressing army. Their soldiers, the Schutzstaffel. Their ‘civilians’, a blight to be eradicated, branch and root, along with any race-traitors who dare collaborate with these invaders.

So why, in this moment, had this man let those three go? As he watches the car disappear between the trees, he wondered the exact same thing.

It's a safe bet he's just as confused as you.

The man - whose name was Viktor Marius Kraber - was sat, or tired (in his native Afrikaans) and looking forward to some quality time with a bottle of rotgut. Home-brewed hooch among the HLF tasted like paint thinner, with lying labels slapped on...but he didn't care, he needs a fokking drink.

And as realization dawns in his mind, Kraber wished that someone would just lambast him for a moment of weakness. Then he didn't wish for it. Then he did.

...that filly had pitied me, he thought. Why?

Somehow, despite the situation, she’d found it in her to pity him.

He was used to anger. And even fear. Heck, he loved fear, loves to inflict it and feel it, for it sharpens his senses as much as it cripples his foes. It was part of why he tried so much to comport himself according to pop-culture’s image of the amoral, downright psychotic Afrikaner. Save for the racism…at least against other humans, anyway. If if anyone doubted that, well, his wife had been black.

‘Oh, Kate…’

Oh yes, our man loved to terrify the PER and their goddamn Quislings, loves to play the part of a South African sociopath. It comes naturally, of course, but he likes putting in the extra effort. And it’s gotten so many delightful results. Rage, confusion, hurt and terror had all been cast upon him. The screams of those PER as he came down on them and… disassembled them. Limb by limb, muscle by muscle. Sometimes alphabetically. ‘A’ is for ‘Amygdala’.

But never, never before had he gotten pity.

And, in that moment, staring down into the open trunk, he had felt an accusatory stare blazing back at him. Not from the fearful, if defiant mother, the one with the butt-mark of the telescope, but…

‘Katie... my treasure. You'd hate me. ...And Peter and Anka would too…’

Maybe, in the near future, he will reinterpret that moment as the ghosts of his lost family looming over him in judgment, rather than just a vague feeling of what would they do in his place, but a sense of disappointment was apparent.

He had pressed the barrel of the revolver to the pony spawnling, and saw his own wife and children staring back at him.

He’d practically been paralyzed in their glare. He tried to yell, tried to pull the trigger, to consign the two hoenderpoes back to the depths of rancid memory.

He failed.

Staring into those condemning faces, gazing upon that pleading, pitying filly, he had uncocked and holstered the revolver, and stepped back.

He’d let them go.

Anka loved them, the man thinks, an unbidden recollection. She had loved the natural ponies...and their foals too.

He realizes right then and there that he had, in all likelihood, killed some of his daughter’s pony friends on his first rampage.

‘No! They were… they were ponies’, he tells himself, trying to encapsulate every old loss and slight within that word.

It felt like a lie, sackcloth in his mouth.

“Kraber!” another man, Lovikov, calls out, striding over with a heavy Kalashnikov rechambered for .50 Beowulf, with an HLF pipebomb launcher (This one’s Russian, so it’s called a Medved, not a Gut-Puncher) in hand. The first spits of rain hissed on the hot barrel.

In his reprieve, Kraber had missed the sound of the assault rifle firing. He glanced leadenly between the bloodstains splattered over the inside of another car’s windows, and a bag of plunder in Lovikov’s free hand.

“You’ll never guess what I found in this car!” the Russian partisan enthuses, hefting the bag. “Actual goddamn cinnamon! I haven’t had cinnamon in forever! Okhu el! Back in the Suhoputnye voyska, we never had hauls like this!”

“Find any ponies?” Kraber asked unsteadily.

“Nah,” Lovikov shrugged, completely unconcerned with the car he’s just perforated with .50 cal rounds. “Shame, isn’t it?”

That’s Lovikov in a nutshell, a zealot in the guise of a man, an oldschool Stalinist zampolit brought back from the hells of history - he’s said time and time again that he doesn’t consider anyone outside the HLF to be human. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, and the true dialectic demands they be removed from the problem. That kind of fanaticism makes him an effective soldier, enough that he’s caught the eyes of Galt’s Thenardier Guards before, but Lovikov’s always turned down an invitation to transfer out of the Menschabwehrfaktion, claiming he’s needed to keep the unit ideologically pure.

“Still, I’m happy about what we got,” Lovikov continues, rooting through the bag.

In a way, Kraber feels the same way. They do need supplies, children are starving in Defiance after all…

...kids who have never been children and may never be again, who hate ponies with all their hearts. War orphans blessed with all the bounty of a war of attrition: Kalashnikovs and bullpups and Sten guns and a laundry list of homebrewed weaponry (oh my!). Some of them...the ones who listen to Lovikov and Viktor’s rants, want to head off to the nearest town and ‘bring the rain’ upon the traitors and horsefuckers. None of them would ever consider seeking shelter with someone outside the HLF.

‘If Peter and Anka had lived, would I have done the same to them? Turned them into raging little beasts...’ It tears at his heart to see the children so.

He tried to fight back the seeds of doubt, suddenly fearful of the children he has been systematically forging into soldiers.

But it’s the only way to victory, a part of him insists, what until recently he had thought of as the better part of him. The rest of America has thrown itself to the ponypounders, and some of the more paranoid HLF members, the survivalists who have been anticipating various armageddons for decades, keep voicing their fears of the potential consequences. Like many over-armed Americans, they’ve imagined up any number of paranoid scenarios to fuel their malice...

“....taking over America….fascism...peak oil…” some of them like Birch or Oakes mutter, invoking magical shibboleths and bywords that represent countless fears. “...in league with the United Nations...anti-America, anti-Christ...FEMA camps...traitor in the White House...death tribunals...Illuminati pony overlords…”

Some point to more concrete fears. Just look at what Yael Ze’ev is doing up in Quebec, with the tacit agreement of her superiors. It’s a military coup, with ‘that damn Yiddish dyke’ playing the role of some Great Uniter...when she’s blatantly another wartime dictator, carrying out the damn Zionic protocols…

“It won’t be long until she comes for us…” they whisper. “Before she comes for the good Christians...all these damn foreigners, they’re all Muslim terrorists, her fucking footsoldiers. We’ve gotta kill em’ all before she slaughters us all in a real Holocaust…”

That’s usually the point where Kraber lost his temper and kicked the bastards spewing anti-semitic and islamophobic tripe in the face. Bigotry against other humans is not to be tolerated, (Unless they’re PER, cause who cares about those fokking kontgesigs?) not now...not when they need to pull together to win: win hearts and minds to the Front, win this war.

They have to do this. They have to protect mankind from the scourge of Equestria, from all enemies foreign and domestic, whether they like it or not.

Because heroes do what’s right. It’s the only way to fight.

Right?

The rest of the cars, evidently judged to be ‘safe’, sped off into the distance. Undoubtedly, they’d call 911 as soon as they come back into the range of the dwindling cellphone networks, but the cops up here won’t come looking for either the checkpoint, or Defiance. They wouldn’t dare. And neither, claims Lovikov, would the PHL. The Front is too smart for them.

(Kraber will later be of the opinion that is ‘fokking bullshit’, and that ‘the Front’ were merely beneath notice until their antics forced everybody else’s hand.)

And so, with that said, Kraber, Lovikov, and the remainder of today’s attack on the PER dismantle the checkpoint and the blood-stained car. Once stripped of tyres, brakes, battery and engine, and the sump drained of all the useful oil, they shove over the shoulder of the highway. Lovikov smiles at the site of the wreck, whose dead owner is still buckled in, plunging and tumbling down the slope into the Androscoggin.

And then they loaded the gains into a pair of old, camo-painted pickups, cross the river at an old rickety bridge only hunters would use, and set off into the hinterlands.

Deeper into the forest, bumping and juddering on the old logging road, silent trees flashing by as the pickups penetrate their ancient fastness. The abandoned trail gets narrower and rougher, overgrowth pressing in so close that the rear view mirrors scrape against tangled branches.

When at last they stop, the troops first take up defensive positions to confirm they were not followed. After Kraber has motioned ‘all clear’, they silently retrieve tarpaulins from the hollowed-out corpse of a felled tree, and throw it over the vehicles to shroud them from aerial view.

Then, on foot through the forest, Lovikov at point and Kraber guarding the fear. Fingers are on safeties as they tread softly on the undergrowth, a slightest ‘crack’ of a twig, cause for concern. At least, they make it to their camp.

The day preceding those events had been fine. Better than fine.

Better than the rest of the world, wracked desperate resistance in cities across the globe, and planes struggling against pegasi and Equestrian zeps. Civilians, human and pony alike, trying to outrun the Barrier on foot or hoof or on overcrowded trains. Trying, and often failing. Perhaps you remember the evacuation of Lagos? Or Rebecca Kleiner taking back the Philippines, destroying the PER and newfoals wherever needed. Maybe you are thinking of the Battle of the Thunderchild, and Ambassador (or Ambadassador, as some PHL members joke) Lyra Heartstrings’ heroic last stand and death. The famous train guarded by the Dragons of the East, going through HLF-PER warzones unsafe for anyone?

But none of that's important right now. Let's say you're here in the White Mountains and Great North Woods. Just imagine life here. Imagine living, knowing all of these events have happened. Imagine that it is the height of summer, and desperately trying not to think about the impending apocalypse. It is not necessarily the end of the world, but you can see it from here. Everyone wants to just unwind: Stop by somewhere for some ice-cream to slake the heat. Northland Dairy in Berlin, or maybe Ben & Jerry’s or 18•C in North Conway. To name a few.

And then you’d go spend the evening playing videogames with your pals. Isn't there a new pony Tenno in Warframe? Digital Extremes is nothing if not accommodating. But then, there’s a war being fought. The rivers are being dammed for hydroelectric power and drinking water, the woods are being felled for lumber. Total war. And yet despite that, even though everyone’s scared and some know that after this year they probably won’t ever be going skiing up again at the Balsams Wilderness, Wildcat Mountain, or anywhere else around there, fuck it, it’s still summer, and they’re going to have fun.

Boys and girls, colts and fillies play outside in the unswept streets, and teenagers do what they will even between firearms training sessions that aren’t quite compulsory. People that still have the money to go backpacking up here hike around the woods, and take in the sights.

Even the heritage railroads are still in business. Though officially tourist services have been suspended ‘for the duration’, the Mount Washington Cog Railway has had a new lease of life supplying the new observatories, radar suite, satellite and weather stations hurriedly erected at the summit of its titular peak, ever since a full mile of the highway was washed out and deemed not worth the expense of repair.

Likewise, over at Crawford Notch, the Conway Scenic Railroad is rolling freight trains for the first time in nearly forty years, bringing down the deforested bounty of Coos County for the war effort. It’s thankfully not clear cut anymore, but it would be a conservationist’s nightmare any other time.

And with diesel fuel in short supply, both railroads had been turning to their carefully husbanded steamers to keep things running. The Conway Scenic’s old 7470, a steam-powered Canadian expatriate, is out and about on the lumber trains. Even her shedmate, 501, a relic nobody thought would ever steam again, is fresh out of overhaul, and is sprinting up and down the yard in North Conway to run her bearings in. Families have brought their kids out in droves to watch the old lady come back to life, and they’re howling in praise as she makes pass after roaring pass, whistle blowing and exhaust blasting high into the sky.

Someone rustled up a few barbeques and what started as a casual ‘mosey down to the railroad’ had turned into a summer party. There'd even been a few ponies joining in the spontaneous steam-rally, and one red stallion with a pompadour and electric guitar is taking favourites from the swelling audience. Lucky for him and his kin, most of the food being grilled and seared here today is vegetarian, though not so much in deference to equine diets as to the simple fact that meat is increasingly hard to come by these days.

It’d been a grand party. A man named Johnny C. Heald, who we’ve already met, and will see again later, is present as well, sketching the crowds gathered around the living, breathing machine. At some point today he’ll run into a woman named Falyn, and will buy her a beer. She’s a little uncertain of his equine friends, but seems nice enough. He’ll meet her later in Littleton.

The rest of the town seemed just as alive. A perfect summer’s day.

The line's chief engineer had blown a whistle for the uninvited crowd’s attention. Not only was 501 running sweet as a nut, but she needed a challenge to really get back into her stride. Smiling, he pointed across the yard to where the Conway Scenic’s few remaining passenger cars had been kicked back into a siding to rot, and suggested that a few hundred human beings might be as good a test of her strength as any.

The cheers and mad dash to find a seat hide the dark truth. Old 501 had been put back into service not for pleasure, but for war. To haul supplies down for processing, to carry munitions to the growing stockpiles at the Mount Washington Training Grounds…

...and if the Barrier couldn't be stopped, to run away with evacuees in tow, on the reasoning that there aren’t enough roads around here to avoid zombie-apocalyptic level traffic jams. Maybe the same cars currently packed with laughing, shouting, terrified men, women, children and ponies will be used in those doomsday trains. They looked like they were happy, but a close look to videos and photographs and uploads to facebook and imgur and flickr would show grins that seem a little too forced, screams of joy that look a shade too much like terror, open-mouthed glee that could, if you look at it right, look like tearless bawling.

Oh yes, a perfect summer’s day.

“There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies - which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world - what I want to forget.”

Jack Weiss

It's perfect in part because of the people who guard the area. People whose solemn duty is to watch for people like Kraber, or PER, or any other threat that plans on taking advantage of the people of all these mountain towns.

One such example being Jack.

Jack’s a local philanthropist, a solidly built, shaggy-haired pillar of the community and good candidate for local small-time politics, famous for running grass-root fundraisers to support local refugees, and scrap-and-material drives to support the PHL and their affiliates. He’s just on the far side of the big four-oh, a veteran of the early war with half a face like molten wax (thanks to a Royal Guardspony’s spell), and he rests after travelling every back road on his ATV, thanks to a back injury that never healed right. Though he’s hoping some of the new magical treatments can help with that. He doesn’t want to get back in the game, but nobody here has a choice, so he might as well.

He was tired, and his back was aching again, so at the moment, he was atop a building in Gorham, holding an Ohio Ordinance HCAR, or Heavy Combat Assault Rifle. Essentially a modernized and lightened Browning Automatic Rifle. He'd added a PHL repeating flare launcher, a useful aftermarket mod much prized by the PHL’s scouting forces all over the world.

Lying on his stomach to ease his back, he sips coffee black as a hole and, through the gunsight, searches for suspicious lights in the dark. Down on the railroad the 0-6-0 steamer, 7531, hustles past with a load of logs from up past the Notch. He waited for the steam to clear, and scanned again for any abnormal activity. For now at least, he didn't see any.

Yet.

Jack’s a family man. He loves his four children dearly, even the little orphaned earth pony colt he has adopted, and he considers the Moroccan refugees in his house to be something close to family...maybe distant relatives who he’s still getting to know. He wouldn’t say he loves them, as of yet...but he will be damned (as will they, he supposes) if the Solar Empire takes them. There is no pay for the job of hosting the displaced however, but thankfully he doesn’t have to worry too much about finances with his own small pot of cash. The past few months, he’s practically given up on doing any business, and instead forsook his job to instead patrol the town and surrounding county. It has, admittedly, run those same cash reserves down a bit, yet the people of Gorham and the surrounding communities have been kind enough to donate meals, and necessities to him and his fellow watchmen…many of whom were already homeless, with nowhere to go. Now at least they have a purpose, and some standing. For they’re providing a necessary service, guarding against roving bandits or potential newfoal outbreaks, as well as assisting the overburdened police in keeping the peace.

There’s some irony in the fact that some of his duly sworn-in ‘special constables’, who the good folk of Gorham might not have spared a glance for as they begged for change and slept under cardboard boxes, now receive grateful nods and tipped hats as they walk the streets. They’re eating a damn sight better too.

In his house, the colt Jack considers his youngest son pretends to sleep under the covers, sharing it with his adoptive brother Sam. They’re reading comic books together, shining a flashlight and resting against a large stuffed dog from FAO Schwarz named Patrick. The colt, whose name is Roma Tomato, would have a place to sleep, but there’s not enough space in Sam’s room for another bed, and the Moroccan family already slept down in the living room, with battered and well-used kalashnikovs kept within close reach as they prayed daily towards the fallen Mecca. The couch was taken, as was the basement.

Not far away, another watcher, a hungry woman named Sarah Callista Ruyter, comes to the Saalt pub in Gorham. Officially, she’s involved in ‘fugitive recovery’, but everyone knows she’s a bounty hunter, looking for HLF or PER members with big enough prices on their heads.

Another place, another person. Deep in the woods, near the route of the old Boston and Maine railroad, broods a man named Burt Der Gransvoort. He watches as a diesel engine and several empty passenger cars (double-decker. Huh.) slide by on the line. For evac, no doubt. He was thankful that the old railroad’s been reinstated, though he wishes that had come back under better circumstances.

Burt was armed with an FN Leshiy battle rifle. The weapon was mostly Belgian, developed by remnants of Fabrique Nationale de Herstal alongside the Russian government-in-exile. Essentially it's’ an adaptation of the old NATO FAL, modified with ambidextrous controls, blowback shifted pulse and hyperburst, and enchanted for increased reliability and some limited self-repair. Damn thing even cleans itself - it is designed for extended trips out into the wild, and bringing back a lot of prey. It can also be rechambered with new barrels in different calibers like the old Remington ACR, with the addition of new magwells - Johnny C has sprung for the version that comes in 5.56, .308, and .50 Beowulf.

It’s also equipped with a repeating flare launcher, the same one Jack has mounted on his HCAR. Officially, the flare launcher is to be used solely as a signalling device, but Burt has used it in combat plenty of times. He’s one of many PHL-allied forest scouts roving the Great North Woods. He is using his Leshiy much like the Russian scouts it was designed to be wielded by, though he’s glad to be here in New England and not flushing out some accursed enemy holdout in Siberia or the rockies, or up north in Canada.

Elsewhere, along the ridgeline, troops, cops, militiamen and Jack’s ‘specials’ stand their posts on recently constructed watchtowers, armed with sniper rifles, shotguns and various models of Personal Defence Weapons, just waiting for any sign of a flare. Then they’ll swarm, converging on it in a pincer of steel and nitrocellulose.

These are interesting times indeed, peopled by interesting folks.

Jack's reason for being out there on watch simple: At night, nobody makes as much of a pretense of covering their fear. In the various hunting cabins and small times scattered across the wooded hills, there are people that live a nightmare as they pretend to sleep. Guns are hoarded, cleaned, and disassembled. Bullets are handloaded. Homemade HLF ‘panzerfausts’ are hammered together, and emergency kits for Barrierfall are being packed.

For all the fun these people are having as they snatch a ride behind 501, despite all the chaotic joy, it’s the last gasp and everyone knows it.

They know all too well that soon, the Barrier shall come for them, as much as they futilely pray that it won’t. Houses of worship are full to the brim for fear of two things: Death, which is preferable, and Ponification.

Some sleep alongside guard dogs or firearms, while others are checking the streets below their windows in the fear that their town may have been suddenly invested by the PER. Some are expatriates of Africa or Europe, even Greenland and Iceland, funneled into this region because living space is at a premium these days.

Some patrol the streets in hair-trigger militias, armed with firearms dating anywhere from America’s old west to the conflicts of the most recent decade. They are scared as well, knowing that they will likely be the first to become newfoals, and sometimes that fear can take control.

More than one innocent has died in these parts, either caught ‘acting suspicious’ or by unintentionally startling some poor schmuck with a gun and more frayed nerves than common sense. God help you if you’re a pony out on your own with no-one to vouch for you, especially on nights when really bad news comes through. In fact, when Iceland fell, when the Thunderchild sank, there was a bonafide pogrom in the next town over. And here in North Conway, on the night one brave mare quoted Charlie Chaplin and went to her death, a stallion came within an inch of being gelded.

Thank God arrests were made and convictions sought with a vengeance. They’re doing their best to do right by Lyra up here - well, everyone but those HLF that keep to themselves outside of the towns. For now at least, New Hampshire has not descended into the hell of Asia or South America, and it doesn’t even vaguely resemble the quasi-civil-war in other parts of the country.

Yeah, for now… but the rot of fear is coming. Already the first ‘popular front’, a ‘PHL in all but name’ gang from down south calling itself the Appalachia Security Force is holding town-hall meetings and recruitment rallies, alongside the PHL-affiliated Barrier Evacuation Engineer Corps which is maintaining railroads and refurbishing old rolling stock found derelict into passenger cars.

But they’re all still people. Fearful, angry people who tremble and jump at shadows, nervous wrecks drifting to both extremes, and who do this because they have the greatest thing of all to lose: everything. Their homes, their families, and themselves.

Johnny C Nny
Colebrook, NH

Johnny C - Nny to his friends, a local hero due to his actions in Alaska - had collapsed against one the chairs in this Colebrook bar.

He meant to scrounge up a bed for the night, and with some luck a bit of breakfast in the morning. Then he’d carry on north, and cross the border into Quebec. He had the kind of stocky build that comes from being naturally short, the kind of frame that people can’t tell is flab or muscle. After a long day, his hair forms itself into something approximating a pompadour. Right now he’s tired from a long day’s hike, and his nomadic lifestyle seems set to continue for some time, given the nature of his mission from the PHL, to root out possible enemy hideouts, and liaise with the local forest scouts, a lot of which were friends and ski buddies of his before the War. And he's supposed to help move a friend up to Quebec.

There’s two ponies travelling with him. One is a mare named Fiddlesticks Apple, one of Nny's fellow heroes from Alaska. One of very, very few survivors. By sheer coincidence, both she and Johnny hailed from longstanding dynasties of apple farmers. Though the Heald family’s land doesn’t produce much in the way of fruit anymore, it was one of those funny bonding moments that had left the two of them in stitches of laughter, having just outrun a HLF mob, back before the war. For the record, they were two against four, and Fiddlesticks managed to get in a truly ball-busting kick on one of their attackers, right around the same time Johnny managed to bag one with a lucky shot. She’s hated the HLF ever since.

The other pony's name is Aegis. You may have met him already.

‘A man, a mare and a stallion walk into a bar together…’

The reaction they get is mixed, in fact Fiddlesticks is just finished telling one man exactly what she thinks of his suggestion to ‘go back to Equestria’. From the stunned look on his face and the way he’s clutching at a battered old Windham Weaponry AR, the old coot probably didn’t expect the sturdy mare with the dainty mane to quite have such a command of ‘good ol’ redneck cussin’.

“...would no more crawl back to Equestria than you would go crawlin’ back in betwixt yer’ mamma’s ugly ol’ drumsticks, dipshit!”

In fact Fiddlesticks’ elegantly filthy little diatribe casts a pall of silence over the entire establishment for a few seconds. Then some of the rowdier patrons cheer the mare with raucous energy, quickly offering up a round of drinks to the three strangers. Before long, Fiddlesticks is happily playing guest musician to the band, fiddling along next to a good-looking blond man who bears a passing resemblance to a strategically shaved bear. He is singing rowdily in Quebecois French, and to his surprise Fiddlesticks joins in with a few choice lines of Equestrian Fancee. Also known as Prench.

She can thank her lately lamented cousin Octavia for her familiarity with foreign languages.

Now, the pub? That’s an interesting sort of place. A fine establishment no doubt, christened with the good name of the Dancing Bear.

It’s a damn sight more interesting than Johnny C would have ever expected of Colebrook, New Hampshire. Back before the war, a friend of his that was also named John, a principal down in Manchester, had said there was absolutely nothing up here. But now? More languages are spoken in New England than Old England had dialects, entire cultures have been mashed and folded onto one another. It’s a melting-pot comparable to New York or Shanghai at the dawn of the twentieth century, right down to the chronic overpopulation. And yet the necessity of simply enduring until tomorrow brought about a sort of blanket identity. Shortage of meat has brought about greater experimentation with vegetarian dishes, culinary lessons drawn from other countries and cultures. The same principles are being applied everywhere where peoples have been brought together by the war.

You can see these effects at work in the Dancing Bear. Fiddlestick’s temporary bandmates are playing an eclectic mix of instruments, including a set of bagpipes, a Japanese shakuhachi flute and...oddly enough, a musical saw. The drinks behind the bar are a shooting gallery of homebrewed spirits fashioned up in the likeness of famous national drinks, bottled and canned in whatever containers are to hand. There are even drinks by HLF brewers who have gone legitimate, such as John Peters (you know, the brewer) who made some booze from his crops of pears and apples. There’s a still whistling away in one corner and a coffee machine fashioned up from an old vertical steam boiler.

And the people. Oh brave new world, that has such creatures in it. Mos Eisley spaceport could not have conjured such a mix of soldiers, privateers, freebooters, prostitutes, thieves and heroes. And this isn’t even a big city. Remember, this is Colebrook, New Hampshire. Pre-war population, 2321 (give or take a few).

There are even, and Johnny C cannot exactly get over this, bounty hunters present, a motley group bartering ‘marks’ with each other based on skill and inclination. Armed to the teeth, ready to bring in anyone for which the money is being floated. HLF, PER… and all that lies in between.

‘The scum floats to the top as well as the cream,’ he thinks to himself, and for a moment entertains notions of himself as a warrior-poet, a battle philosopher…

Yeah, no. As if to underline that notion, he downs a shot of vodka ‘ice water’, and then bangs on the bar with the empty glass. Warrior-artist? Maybe. Warrior-writer? Maybe. Philosophy and poetry? Terrible at it.

“Another!”

As he nurses his second drink - vaguely irritated he can't feel anything - he eyes the bounty hunters over the top of the glass. Some that, from their bearing, clearly lean more towards the HLF’s side of the political spectrum, are giving Aegis a little more attention than he would like. Johnny raises an eyebrow eases back his coat, giving half the bar, bounty hunters included, a glimpse of his personal sidearm, a top-break .44 magnum with a twenty-gauge barrel.

Aegis shifts as well, and the dagger strapped to his haunch glints subtly in the light.

Neither of them could probably take the bounty hunters, even working together, but the demonstration serves as a reminder that they are armed, and willing to fight. As if weighing in on their side, the barkeep, a surprisingly slight man with signs of radiation poisoning from back in DC with a mighty scar cutting back right across his forehead, bangs a sign hanging prominently over the drinks rack with the elongated barrel of a decade-old Fostech Origin shotgun.

RIOTERS WILL BE SHOT

And under that, in spray paint and stencil, it reads:

This is your only warning.

With his other hand, the proprietor holds up the gun’s drum magazine, bringing it dangerously close to the mag well. He opens up with that thing, there's gonna be some serious shit.

The bounty hunters get the message, and go back to looking at ‘wanted’-writs. Aegis, his personal liberty reaffirmed, sidles up a little closer to inspect them for himself. One of the posters, he realizes, depicts a newfoal. It sits between a PER woman with a face that looks like it was subject to some fiery industrial accident, and a HLF man that looks for all the world like Sharlto Copley.

‘New Bloom’
REWARD: $200,000 DEAD, $350,000 ALIVE.
Payment in cash, upon delivery to Michael Carter
Human Liberation Front

Pfft. Yeah right. No way that HLF sonovabitch has that kind of cash, Aegis thought. And right now, Mike Carter’s in prison, and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bastard.

But at that moment, seeing that newfoal’s picture, Aegis had a moment’s epiphany. Back in Equestria, in the old days when all he had to back up his fears was a vague sense of paranoia, newfoals were a minority. Small, but possessed of a fervor comparable to religious converts. Aegis and his foals, Amber Maple and Rivet (who were down in Littleton with Blossomforth at the moment, working at the grist mill) had done their level-headed best to ignore those creatures, and the empty-eyed worshipful gazes they cast upon everything. But then it had been too much to ignore… especially with Woven Sugar’s growing, almost fetishistic love for them, her uncharacteristic swell of equine pride as any hints of xenophilia in her shriveled and died.

At the time, there weren’t that many newfoals, so it was not too difficult to ‘miss’ them in crowds, and on the street.

But now?

Back in Equestria natural-borns with cutie marks were the minority. Free thought was dying out in Equestria, unless newfoals can give birth to ponies which are not zombified. A nation without free thought… it scares the horseapples-no, the shit out of him.

He likes human curses more.

‘Heh,’ he thinks, ‘Equestria’s population has increased by over a billion in less than six years. That’s going to hit Hoofington like a buck to the face. Eeeyup. And Woven Sugar said Earth was the real hell, that Equestria was a paradise worth keeping clean. Bet she's doing wonderfully in her paradise new, her little zombieland with some newfoal fucktoy.’

Across from the bar is a big old Cathode Ray TV scavenged from somewhere, bulky and decades outdated, and yet so much more advanced than the technology of Aegis’ home. It’s broadcasting footage of some PHL troops. From their green lyre patches, they’re associated with Nny's cousin Yael Ze'ev’s forces, smoking out some nondescript town. The banner bar says that they’re in Quebec, trying to break a HLF pocket that's taken the place for themselves. It’s impossible to hear audio over the roar of the crowd, but someone’s turned on the old ‘teletext’ feature.

...officially, this is an act of mutiny. Many of these troops are not under the official command of Lieutenant Ze’ev, and our PHL liaison has refused to pass comment....

Yes indeed, but we can assume many of the more hawkish observers, both near and far, support what the Israeli soldier is doing...even if she’s wasting ammo and supplies that could be used elsewhere...even if she’s reinterpreted the PHL’s creed primarily as a mandate against the HLF.

That’s the way of war. People cry out for action, but can’t agree on what is the right action to take. And with the drawback to the continental Americas, all of the major factions suddenly have a lot of personnel loaded for bear and waiting, just waiting, for the Barrier. This… For America, this is the last gasp of pre-Barrier life, even though it’s a poor facsimile, like a grade school play at a cash-poor school (Like most schools nowadays, actually) aping a Broadway musical with costumes that have been used in almost every play the last couple years.

No wonder some of the troops are trying to be the tail that wags the dog. Johnny C remembers some of the things Yael said - he agreed with her that the HLF were out of control and they'd be a pain in the ass.

The news footage is shaky, taken from a news chopper (armed, most likely) hovering high above the town. Yael, prominent from her tall, thin build and position at the front, is crouched behind the scorched wreck of a car, toting a heavy rocket launcher. Johnny C, a gun-nut if there ever was one, watches with interest as she spins out from cover, aims, and fires in one fluid action. Judging from the backblast, her weapon is something like a Russian Pozhar. He can also see a full-auto grenade launcher that spits out cluster-bomb like projectiles designed to burst over the enemy. A handy, hand-held force multiplier.

‘Yeah’, he confirms to himself as an entire swathe of street explodes into dust and smoke. ‘Definitely Rainmakers’.

Then he sits up in shock. Onscreen, atop the rooftop behind Yael, a HLF soldier with a cheap submachinegun is clambering into view, a knife clenched in his teeth. The camera jolts, presumably because the cameraman is himself shouting a warning…

...and then the human abruptly loses his head, a purple-pink pegasus flickering into frame, saddle-mounted rifle smoking.

‘So that’d be Heliotrope there’, Johnny muttered.

One of the tanks Yael has brought to help open up a beachhead swiveled its turret toward a building, and fired.

‘It’s too close to - wait. It’s a damn flamethrower tank!’

The wooden building into which the tank had just fired burst into flames, crumbling as men, women, and children in battered tac-vests of stolen kevlar and hammered metal ran out.

The PHL fight back, and a slaughter erupts. Johnny’s firmly rooting for his hometeam.

“Go Horsefuckers,” he mutters absently, fumbling for his drink. His fingers brush the empty glass, and he winces, realising he spilled the vodka when he jumped up from the table.

“French country music in New Hampshire,” Aegis said, distracting Johnny C from his reverie. His stomach rumbled. “How about that?” he asks.

“I wouldn’t know,” says Johnny C, thankful for some diversion from that sight. He looks at Aegis.

‘Huge’ seems almost like an understatement when describing this particular Equestrian native. He’s big enough that ‘pony’ doesn’t seem to fully describe him. He seems to suffer from some kind of hypertrophy, being larger than almost any pony but Princess Celestia. Terms more akin to ‘small horse' came to mind, and Johnny C's first words upon seeing him were "Good God they're making them big nowadays! Don't they know there's a gas crunch? Look at the size of you..."

Fiddlesticks had openly gaped at their first meeting, muttering something about how Aegis was ‘a good size up on Big Mac’.... No mean feat, apparently.

Putting it bluntly, Aegis is almost large enough that Johnny C could ride him, though Johnny is admittedly five foot six in platform heels, so that’s not saying much. And he’s old-school PHL, old enough to have known Lyra in the first month of the organisation’s existence, and even survived a car bomb meant to kill the Golden Heart herself.

“Well, it’s pretty weird,” Johnny C said as, for the umphundredth time, he worried about Kiki Palmer, who was supposed to meet them. He phoned Jack Weiss down in Gorham asking after her, and Jack, a man who was honest to a fault, said she left safely, enroute for Colebrook. But dammit, it’s been a long time. And there’s… rumors. He’d always jokingly say “Of course there aren’t any axe murderers up here!” whenever someone worried about him walking out and about at night, but nowadays there’s a lot more to worry about.

And Kiki is overdue. Checking his watch, he saw that it was almost 9:30. She had promised to meet with them here forty-five minutes ago. Trying to stem growing pangs of anxiety he comforted himself with two readily available things: a cup of steaming clam chowder so thick his spoon can stand up in it, and the smile on Fiddlesticks’ face. The yellow earth pony mare with the inky blue mane looks so happy to be playing in this nowhere bar along the Canadian border, with the whole bar clapping and drunkenly singing along with her.

It’s at times like this that, even with an earth pony playing fiddle while he talks to a massive stallion, that Johnny C can almost believe that it’s before the War...

Before New Hampshire had played host to hundreds of thousands of refugees, exposing him, to more languages and cultures than he had known existed...

Before he’d ever felt true hate, let alone the searing fires banked up in his heart towards people like Reitman or the damn Carters.

Before night watches in towns, before armed men and women had been forced to take up nocturnal patrols to protect their homes, families, friends, and livelihoods. Before weapons were openly carried on the streets, or before he’d had to carry a runically enhanced Leshiy rifle in his car at all times.

Back in some unseen halcyon days and weeks after Equestria first manifested, days where ponies were welcomed as visitors, with the promise of mutual learning and understanding lending every second of the day with new prospect, a new vision and hope for the future.

But in the here and now, he claps along to the music and smiles up at Fiddlesticks, who smiles back in return. She’s tapping a hoof on the floor to set a tempo for the band, and the sound of her fiddle is…

Well, he can almost forget.

“Everything belonged to him - but that was a trifle. The thing to know was what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own.”

The settlement Kraber was traveling to was not a proper home by any means. But most of the people inhabiting it have discarded the concept of a fixed home, knowing that the Barrier will come eventually and force them to move.

So they carry home in their hearts, and make do with wherever they can pitch a tent and build a fire. And so for now, this is enough.

Building on the remains of an old lumber camp, it was designed by people such as Kraber, historians of the partisans of World War II and the Cold War. The ‘cursed soldiers’ of Poland and the Japanese holdouts of the Pacific would have felt much at home here. Its infrastructure consists in part of easily disassembled buildings thrown up from readily-available timber, but mostly tents and dugouts. A church consisting of a cross suspended between two trees, a small synagogue some distance away. A buddha that someone took from London sits upon a cairn of stones at the foot of a rocky cliff that shields that side of the camp from the weather. There’s even what some of the brothers referred to as a reliquary, a container holding holy relics stolen before their native shrines could be overwhelmed.

Old mattresses and ugly, rough blankets were held in commune in a larger tent. They are kept dry by the heat from the adjacent foundry, built upon the rough foundations of the old camp sawmill. Here, to the roar of forges and the scream of lathes, the complex’s armorers are hand-making newer, bigger guns. Guns like the Lolife, an ugly pistol with a design somewhere between the Borz and the Mauser Schnellfeuer, are being turned out as quickly as possible.

Not far from the smithies, a snarling diesel generator stands beside the modest command center hut, home of over-annotated maps and wild ideas: who, where and why to strike. The walls are virtually covered in reconnaissance data, collating as best as possible the known movements of all enemy forces.

The hut is buzzing with activity. A few computer screens flicker, while off in one corner is a man with an honest-to-god typewriter, typing out circulars, pasting in photos, making HLF circulars. It’s then sent for duplication in their prized Xerox machine, loaded both with stolen paper and some hand-made stuff pressed from pulped bark. Even if it sometimes jams up the rollers, it’s all towards the goal of ‘Juche’, or self-sustainability. Most of the duplicated circulars will be placed on roadsides in dead drops, for affiliated motorists to pick up and distribute.

Next to the command center is a theater of sorts, an improvised briefing room and communal space, ‘seating’ as many people as can actually pack themselves in. There’s even a projector, allowing them to play movies now and then.

And all around are flags, hung on the sides of rough-cut walls, flying from improvised flagpoles, and even strung between the dripping trees. They are the tattered standards of dead and dying nations, hung in memorial, but the HLF flag takes precedence above all else.

This settlement’s name shall live in infamy for generations to come.

Defiance.

“Besides holding our hearts together through long periods of separation, it had the effect of making us tolerant of each other’s yarns - and even convictions.”

City Of No Palms

Got good intentions.
Isn't it enough? No, it is not enough.
The comprehension of letting yourself get charmed by a bluff is upon me:
There's nothing I can do,
There's always something I could do.
Where would I be if it wasn't for you?
So I just do what I'm supposed to do.
I watch you turn into
А siсkly biomass of black and blue.
Biting Elbows, City of No Palms

You aren’t there, of course.

Seeing as you are a filly named Dancing Day, that’s a good thing. The most famous pony to enter Defiance is - or will be - named Sutra Cross, and her tenancy will be prolonged, and painful in the extreme, pushed beyond any conceivable limit of suffering.

Torture, for days on end. You’re innocent of this knowledge, of course...but that blissful ignorance won’t last. When you do inadvertently see the HLF-disseminated videos on your tablet, you’ll be horrified. Retching all over the screen, crying, you’ll desperately try to crush all sense of empathy as they strip her hooves off. Then comes the horror as you realize that this is a livestream, and the HLF will not stop. Nor will they ever, not till the Barrier atomizes them.

So many times, you’ve run from the HLF, run crying to the arms of your friends. And as you hear Sutra Cross’s gurgles, you’ll understand what Johnny C and Fiddlesticks’ horror stories could never convey...

...and then you’ll pray to whatever God (other than Celestia) who might be listening in that you’ll never be the one dying like that…

And all the while, you can’t help but feel a little afraid of the humans around you, and that is when the HLF’s most pernicious tactic comes into play. They’ve made you cower at the fear of what your very friends might do to you...

...or of what will happen when the Barrier makes landfall. You pray that these bastards will disappear, that they’ll see reason, that their insanity will peter out, not fester and spawn into further bloodshed.

‘When you wish upon a star…’

But no kindly deity will answer your prayers tonight. Lying under the covers of your bed, shivering, clutching a stuffed animal, afraid to fall asleep for fear of the nightmares, you know it will happen. Like rising scum, all of these psychopaths will float to the surface and poison everything they touch, be they PER and Imperial forces… or your friends in the PHL, refugees just trying to escape.

And through it all, you’ll remember that man that saved you, or rather, the man who failed to kill you. The bearded man that looked like Sharlto Copley. You will hope that the moment when he stood over you and chose to do nothing is not an isolated incident, hope that what little shreds of sapient compassion remain in him don’t die, leaving naught behind but a slavering animal.

Will you ever be a child again?

Well right now, for a few sweet moments, yes. Because right now, Kiki has delivered you and your mother safely to the Dancing Bear and your first action is to run into one of Johnny C’s bonecrushing hugs - how can a tiny guy be so strong?

And then, comes the food. It seems Johnny chose to work off some of his anxiety in the bar’s kitchen, which is less a greasy spoon and more a deep-fried cutlery stand! Quickly yourself, Aegis, and Fiddlesticks are sampling some incredibly delicious cornmeal-battered onion rings, over which an amazing sauce has been slathered! Some of the other patrons are sharing out bowls of fine old camp chili (and Texas cornbread) that they’ve prepared over the open fire, and there’s even a few salads to hoof, the slightly softened tomatoes and peppers nevertheless an improvement over the wilted leaves and stalks that have been the recent staple of your diet.

Food, friendship, family...it’s a little slice of the Equestria that once was and is no more; in some perversion of transplant surgery, a healthy scrap removed from the cancerous whole and grafted onto the skin of New England...

And now? What’s happening now? Well now the bar is warm, slightly stuffy with tobacco smoke and the heat of the fire. The food is sitting warm in your gullet, and you’ve sleepily cuddling up to your mommy as she and Kiki recount what happened back at the checkpoint. Through the drowsy veil of oncoming sleep, you manage to giggle at the reactions of everyone in the bar. They are hanging onto every word, mouths open, eyes wide. Cigarettes have dropped to the floor from open jaws. Mugs of booze sit unattended in the grip of frozen hands. Even the unflappable bartender with the huge autoshotgun is surprised, mouth open, eyebrows raised.

The band has fallen silent too, no-longer belting out those wonderful folk tunes from around the world.

“...and then, he lets us go!” Kiki finishes, fingers splayed and palms out.

“Fuckin’ what?!” Johnny C gasps, in time with almost the entire bar’s exclamations of incredulity. His reaction was perhaps the tamest, and your mother holds you tight, hooves over your ears to block out the flood of profanities. You’re pretty nonplussed though, having heard a lot worse, and said as much too.

“That’s the whole of it, sure as I’m sittin’ here,” Kiki nods, a consummate storyteller signing off on her latest and greatest yarn. “Take it or leave it boys, but you’re looking at the luckiest three gals to ever get flagged down by the Hypocrites’ Legion of Fuckwits. He let us go, plain as you like.”

“But couldn’t he have missed them?” the bartender starts, his voice raspy. He turns, the shifting of a beard revealing a disfiguring scar around his neck - the poor bastard had been garrotted once, and somehow survived. Likely from HLF.

“No,” Kiki says. “Astral? Did he see you?”

“Plain as day,” mommy confirms. “He had the trunk open, the revolver to my head, and he just ignored us.” And, before anyone can accuse it of her - “I didn’t do anything. He did that on his own.”

The spell of her voice broken, the bar splits up into heated pockets of discussion, conversations fragmenting already into innumerable rumors.

“Holy shit!” Aegis repeats to himself, over and over. “That...that just doesn’t happen. Holy shit.”

You couldn’t have gotten more of a reaction if you’d walked into town and shot the sheriff. Everyone, from the barkeep to Fiddlesticks, is vacillating somewhere between stunned disbelief and outraged denial. The lemon-coated mare’s fiddle, a precious instrument hoof-carved in Equestria’s high forests and seen battle after battle, crossed a continent and at least one ocean, survived PER and HLF attacks alike, is sagging in her grasp, as if a burden too great for her to carry.

You reach over with one sleepy leg, and lay a hoof on her own. The gesture is enough to snap her out of her funk, and she shares a soft smile with you, before noticing some unwanted attention: a man, heavyset and bearlike, with a military rifle strapped to his back, is staring at the two of you, expression circumspect.

“What? This the closest you ever got to a pony?” she snipes. “Move on, pal.”

His eyes flash softly, almost dangerously, but he still shuffles his stool around towards Kiki, who is still at the centre of attention and visibly loving every second of it.

“...can’t have missed them,” she says, pointing at yourself and your mother. “Astral and Dancing were right in the sights of that monster revolver of his…. and he let us go.”

“An HLF man... did that?” the bearish man says, as if not quite believing. Something about his tone makes you think he’s seen the HLF before, and the encounter was not pleasant.

“Yes indeed,” Kiki smirks. “Saw them… and let them go.”

As she continues, your own tiny eyes pan away. The warmth, from the food and the fire and your mother holding you close, is singing you towards sleep...

...but as your gaze sweeps over the wall of bounties, something catches your attention.

“Look momma, Sharlto Copley’s ‘WANTED’…” you giggle, pointing at a familiar face on the wall, so similar to the funny man you’ve seen scream and rage on numerous TV screens.

“That’s sweet, honey,” Momma says, before she herself looks. You feel her grip tense.

“There!” she cries out, gesturing with one hoof at the very picture you just noticed. “That’s him, right there!”

The whole bar is silenced once more. Johnny C is the one who reacts however, standing and crossing to the wall in the space of a second. He points to several faces in turn, looking for a reaction.

“This one?”

‘Atlas Galt’, a serious-looking man in a military uniform. Momma shakes her head.

“Him?”

‘Michael Carter’, an embittered scowl implanted into what might once have been a smiling face.

“Not his daughter?”

“No!” Momma says. “It wasn’t a girl who held us up! It was him, that one with the beard!”

Johnny’s finger slides slowly away from the likeness of a slightly-hispanic young woman whose hair has been done up in a filthy ponytail, and comes to rest on the right face.

“Yeah,” Kiki says softly. “That was him.”

“....Mothafucka,” Johnny C whispers as soon as he realizes.

Everyone tenses subtly. The atmosphere, close and warm seconds ago, is now chill as winter ice, and just as solid.

“Well, shit,” Fiddlesticks says, just as Aegis says one word.

“Kraber.”

And like some invocation of power, that name is enough to conjure up a flood of reactions. The man in question is infamy on legs, after all.

There’s so many stories suddenly being told and repeated that they all blur together into one curriculum vitae of blood, sweat and gunpowder.

Kraber….the poster child for PHL excess. The man who cut a swathe across Eastern European and Turkish Conversion Bureaus.

‘Saint Guillotine’, some called him. The Death Dealer and Reaper of Fate. Doctor Sawbones. The Machinegun Surgeon. The man that walked the bloody path from enemy to enemy.

They say that he’s been in a committed relationship with Kagan Burakgazi, the Plague Doktor whose horrific chemical weapons had been unleashed upon the PER. They said that he danced across a stage of blood and entrails, living a grindhouse festival of slaughter. Butchering ponies en masse, heaping up a body count that becomes even more terrifying when one paused to considers the nameless, uncounted newfoals he must have slaughtered.

A man whose kill-count probably runs well into four figures. A man with a stolen PHL gun.

And this was the man who had chosen to spare your life...

Johnny C pulls out his iPhone and struggles for a signal, and fails. Without asking he climbs across the bar and grabs the landline, dials rapidly. The barkeeper doesn’t comment, but instead leans in close to listen.

“Hello? Weiss? Yeah, it’s Heald here. Look, Kiki and the fillies are safe, but you’re not going to believe how…”

“Ten bucks says it’s nothing special. I’ll even bet you a dollar for every minute I freak out,” Weiss’s voice crackles out, before Johnny realises he’s got the phone on ‘speaker’, and switches it back to a more private volume.

As he does, Aegis pushes in, standing up on the chair next to Johnny C and pressing his forehooves to the wall for balance.

“Believe it, Jack,” he calls into the mouthpiece, which Johnny holds up for him.

There’s an audible suggestion of surprise on the other end of the line, as if the person on the other end was not expecting to hear Aegis’s voice. Your pony ears are sharp for their age,but not sharp enough to make out the details.

You hear enough though. Muttered words and snatches of conversion. The name of Kraber comes up more than once.

For about three minutes, Johnny C stands, wincing under some tirade, replying in short monosyllabic sentences, answering questions as best he can.

And then the call ends, and Johnny is coming out from behind the bar. He looks shaken, a silently pushes a ten-dollar bill and three ones into your saddlebag, mumbling something about how he’ll get it back off Jack Weiss later.

You use it tomorrow morning to buy yourself some ice-cream. But in that moment in the bar, your attention is on Johnny, and the stunned, churning crowd, and the face on the wall, the face of the pony-reaping madman who let you live.

And you ask yourself again: “Why?’”

They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind - as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness..”

Some months later, you’ll meet him later, and ask him that question.

He’ll sigh and sit down.

Here’s the story he will tell you, reading off from the script he was writing at the time. He’ll joke that he’d intended for Sharlto Copley to play him in the story of his life, and then, like clockwork, Aegis will add, “who did you expect him to recommend? Grant Bowler?”

It had started outside a PER camp in the middle of Vermont, near an old copper mine. The unit surveying it was pre-HLF, the remnants of the German Menschabwehrfraktion, from back in the days when there was no single banner for anti-pony humans to rally under. In time, they’d been folded in, unit after unit. Officially, much as anything could be official in the HLF, they were still Menschabwehrfraktion, but they had so many members from other brigades, both large units and small remnants and squads, that they couldn’t rightly say they were German anymore. They were just happy to kill the invaders.

But now, they were HLF, and had located the ‘enemy camp’ with what had already become the Front’s trademark intelligence-gathering technique: tying a PER pony or human to a chair, gloating over how this counted as a public service, and then letting some psychopath go nuts on them till they spilled the beans. Usually, it’s Kraber.

Because he’s good at it, and knows how to keep them alive longer than any hack with a knife.

Because they expect it of him.

Because above all, it’s fokking fun.

And here, we, go...

“Un sekai nerahma safah,” Kraber whispered to the gun in his hand, looking on with satisfaction as the runes etched into it began to glow faintly in the darkness that preceded dawn. He vaguely remembered the PHL using incantations to activate those oddly painted weapons they were using, and this seemed to work.

“I still say you should throw that thing in the Umbagog River,” Emil said, looking over at Kraber. “It’ll melt you.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve bought into that kak,” Kraber joked. “Honestly, do we ever see people get melted from just being close to magic? I mean, when does that actually happen? It’d be just like the Queen Bitch to lie to us like that.”

Maybe Emil had swallowed ‘that kak, maybe he hadn’t. It wasn’t him who answered though.

“You should listen to him, Viktor” Captain Lovikov said bluntly, pushing the gun’s barrel down with one hand. “That’s PHL tech-”

“And yet it’s the only gun we have that isn’t a fokking overchambered monstrosity or surplus shit that isn’t worth kak against shields,” Kraber replies, hefting the weapon again and checking the sights. “But go ahead, if you want me to use a gun with less than twenty rounds that the most dof fokking mall ninja would think was a piece of kak, go ahead.”

He glanced at Lovikov’s .50 Beowulf Kalashnikov. The thing was ungainly, and fed from an absofokkinlutley massive homemade drum magazine. “Or, God forbid, those stupid fokking .50 BMG open-bolt automatic pieces of shit made in junkyards from metal I wouldn’t use for paperclips…”

Lovikov scowled, but took no obvious action. Kraber had fought with him over matters like this repeatedly, along with many other residents of Defiance. There’d been people that threatened to throw the stolen PHL/Bundeswehr prototype MG2019 into the Umbagog or the Androscoggin, but Kraber had threatened not to treat them with loot if they did, or had simply beaten them up.

“Are you ready though, Comrade?”

As before, Kraber looked down at the lightly glowing runes, and smiled.

“Oh…. yeah.”

Carefully he aimed the immense medium machinegun, and squeezing the trigger so softly that the first blast came almost as a surprise, fired on the PER encampment below.

The .338 Norma Magnum rounds punched through trees and shattered the bones and muscle of any PER caught behind them. Those in the open were simply torn apart.

As Kraber fired again and again in controlled bursts, he noticed a smell like sulphur, and saw tiny flashes when the bullets hit anything. Klank magic shit. The PHL had been thoughtful enough that you didn’t need magic bullets - you could pick them up from any store, cause the magic was in the gun. Thoughtful of them. And practical - Ammunition was already pretty expensive.

“Support teams!” Lovikov called. “Open fire, rapid!”

All around the camp, HLF troops burst out from under leaves and behind rocks, firing into the PER. Those closest to the front, where ranges were closer, charged under cover of their teammate’s fire, blunderbuss-like shotguns in their hands. Bayonets had been lashed to the barrels, and the combination of blade and cannister shot punched into the hesitant defence like a boot through dry rot.

What some people forgot about the PER was that they did have armor. The units that had gone underground made use of homebrewed vests like the HLF themselves used, but ‘regulars’ protected themselves with high-end stuff looted from civilian gunstores.

Of course, the HLF ‘shopped’ with the same vendors. Like against like, could make for interesting fare.

‘This slaughter is brought to you by Ammunation.’

Of course, the new MG2019 ignored all that. Its bullets pierced through any body armor presented to it, punching through riot shields and barricades alike, perforating PER and leaving them grasping missing limbs and great holes blasted in their bodies, or convulsing on the leaf-covered ground as they went into shock.

The smell of blood rose on the dawn breeze, mingling with the metallic reek rising off the old mine’s tailings and spoil heaps. Sniffing it, Kraber bared his teeth in a lupine grin. Beside him, his friends weren’t doing too badly for themselves - PER shields went down before pipebombs or sheer massed fire, but Kraber and his new toy were felling the foe as if it was going out of style.

“I am the son of rock'n'roll
I got the masses under my control
I like to drink, I love the dope
I want your money and I want your hope!”

He saw one rookie, a fresh-faced girl from Quebec (and, allegedly, a survivor of the Tbilisi Massacre) who he might have thought was a bakvissie before the War. She was looking speculatively, jealously at the MG2019, as she fired an homebrewed autoshotgun loaded for slug rounds.

“Try and steal it, and I’ll tell them you got ponified!” Kraber cautioned her, knowing that he was a terrifying sight in the gas mask he habitually wore. Like many HLF men, he’d painted it… but his chosen paint was of a wolf’s head.

“Alright…”

Nodding fearfully, she turned away and stared down the sights of her own weapon, firing spasmodically into clusters of newfoals and PER. That was the magic of a good reputation.

A green pegasus newfoal, its eyes like glass marbles wedged into undersized sockets, dive-bombed Kraber. With one hand, he whipped out his .50 revolver quicker than anyone’s eyes could track and fired, splattering the creature’s skull across the leaves.

“Must have been a recent one,” he said casually. “The ones that have had time to age tend to steer clear from fokking machinegun surgeons!”

And yet, more ponies came, charging up the steep hill armed with bandoliers of potion, weapons suspended in clouds of magic, or weaponized spells. Iron and lightning and fire lanced through the early morning. One HLF woman Kraber knew to be named Anna had been set afire by a unicorn’s spell, and was rolling around on the ground, screaming as the fire ate through her armor. Casually, he stepped up and, with a booted foot, punted the screaming torch down the slope, at the bottom of which was a dry ditch in which soft soil had gathered. That extinguished the flames quickly.

Anna’d be fine, he supposed, but she’d look like roadkill for awhile.

“Die, you defilers of nature! You rapists!” screamed an earth pony.

And speaking of roadkill…

“DON’T YOU… EVER… FOKKING CALL ME A RAPIST!” Kraber yelled, nailing the earth pony in the balls with his revolver, leaving the new gelding screaming, hooves pressed to the bloody ruin that had once been his family jewels. The bullet, tipped with a blue fulminated mercury cap, went on, ramming a PER man in the left leg, exploding everything between his kneecap and the pelvis. As a final coup-de-grace, a shard of the man’s knee-guard, sent flying, took out a considerable chunk out of the stomach of a PER servicewoman standing beside him. “CALL ME A DEFILER OF NATURE TOO?! Oh, fokkin sure, we’re not the ones causing a fokking forest fire!”

“Ponify me!” the PER man screamed as he thrashed on the ground, his blood staining the leaves. “I… have to be useful… to Queen… Celestia-”

A red pegasus mare flew over, a tuft of purple cloud held in her hooves, ready to ponify him. Kraber fired the revolver again, exploding the mare’s head before she could get anywhere near him. Good.

“YOU MONSTER!” screamed a purple unicorn, crouched by a tree. He couldn’t have been more than a teenager when he’d been ponified. “He just wanted to serve his rightful ruler, and-”

“Shut,” Kraber said, one eye twitching beneath his monstrous gas-mask, “The fok. UP.”

He fired the pipebomb launcher under his MG2019. Now that was HLF-made. Like many members, he’d attached spikes to both ends of his pipebombs. When fired, the pipebomb embedded itself in the purple unicorn’s throat. Gasping, choking and wheezing, he tried to telekinetically pull it out. Friends, fellow ‘converts’, rushed to his aid like lemmings, bringing willing hooves and magic to stem the blee-

!!CRACK!!

The pipebomb exploded, vaporizing the newfoal teen’s head. Surfing the blast wave, nails and shrapnel flew out, ripping through flesh and bark alike. Shredded wood became more deadly debris, expanding the kill-zone to encompass an entire corner of the camp.

It was madness, and Kraber loved it, thrived in it. The trees were a canvas he and his own had painted red with blood, and the beautiful musical screams of the foe were his orchestra. Even the rising smoke of the fires gained a touch of art, pierced by the first rays of dawn. This was his stage, and he was the maestro. Every bullet, every explosion, everything was making one of the invaders, one of those goddamned race-traitors suffer.

One nearby woman suddenly screeched in agony, a pained, heartfelt solo that drew his approving ear. She was clutching at her cheek - except, as Kraber now saw, she had no cheek left. Instead, blood was welling up from from a gash that extended all the way down to her neck. He could see her teeth through it, and with a single bullet blasted a complementary hole through her brainpan, to balance the whole. Oh man, her face was everywhere! It even got all over one of those ponies! That was hilarious!

Further tableaus were revealed to his awestruck eyes as he pressed further into the camp, acting as the lancehead of the assault.

A young human acolyte who had caught a directly spray of splinters, clutching at her mauled face, fingers probing empty eye-sockets in screaming terror? Damn! That was impressive! He’d have to try that again, he didn’t know that was possible! Had to keep the potion away from her, though - that’d be too easy for the bitch.

A PER pony who had taken a six-inch railroad spike from someone else’s launcher straight through a leg, convulsing as he bled out in vivid, arterial bursts? Transcendent!

Onwards he pressed, the unstoppable Kraber Express, critiquing each montage with blade and bullet. “I'm gonna track down your grandparents and turn them inside-out, nobody can stop the blood train that will turn your loved ones into a red splatter across the tracks of humanity!!” he yelled.

It was artistry in swords, a gale of guns.

And yet, despite all the spilled blood and wounds that should have killed anything with a sense of pain, the newfoals affiliated with the PER kept on coming, limping onwards on mangled stumps, blood, tears and splitt comingling as they fought into their death-throes.

Let them come! Let them fokking come! He’d rip them apart, make them pay for what they’d done! MAKE! THEM! PAY!

“DON’T DROP THE SOAP IN THIS LEAD SHOWER!” he roared.

The frenzy ascended mountains of violence. Kneecaps were shattered and limbs split, faces while ground against blood-stained rocks. The blood was the life, and today it flowed like sweet wine.

Kraber observed all this through the tinted lenses gas mask, smiling at his handiwork. Beside him, the HLF, his brothers and sisters, whooped and hollered, hyping each other on.

“That’s Kraber for ya!” Emil could be heard to laugh, firing his own rifle into a squadron of airborne pegasus newfoals. The heavy rounds had fearsome penetrative power, punching straight through what looked like royal guard-issue armor and inflicting instant, catastrophic organ trauma. The newfoals were dead long before they hit the ground, and as their corpses dropped from the sky to burst like rotten fruit, the potion flasks they had been carrying rained down on the HLF.

Kraber was dimly aware of his friends being ponified, and vented his ire upon them with characteristic style.

“JOU FOKKIN SCUM BLIKSEM!” he yelled, firing again, shredding the line of newfoals as they struggled to hatch out of their old body-armor. “DON’T NEVER HANG AROUND UNDER A PEGASUS KILL-ZONE!”

It was a lesson that, sadly, none of those newfoals could ever put into practice, torn asunder as they were by the churning fire of his MG.

“GRENADES!” Lovikov suddenly yelled. “Unicorns and pegasai, three-o-clock!”

Without a word, Martineau, the thin French dancer (Ah, Martineau! Kraber thought) fired her homemade pipebomb launcher straight into the advancing unicorn phalanx, the two crude explosives shattering their magical shields, their formation, and their bodies, in a one-two goregasm.

“Kaboom,” she whispered.

Exploiting the opening she’d blasted, Lovikov sighted above a pegasus about to take off, and fired his own shotgun. Caught, the creature backflipped into a stall and crashed to the ground like a broken bird, blood pouring from every joint of his barding. Kraber laughed, realising that Lovikov’s rounds had gone right through one of the ‘sweet spot’ gaps in the pony’s barding, and ricocheted repeatedly off the inside of the armor plates, multiplying the internal damage to ludicrous levels. His organs were most likely paste.

Then, an earth pony, ‘stealthed’ by Equestrian magic so as to be invisible and inaudible save for the crunch of his hooves on the mulch, rushed at Kraber, jumping and pinning him, a potion flask in its mouth. Shit. Too close!

“DONKIE KONT!” Kraber roared, ripping a knife out of his shoulder holster, and slewed it in front of him in a quick ‘z’. The first pass connected with the phial, knocking it out of the newfoal’s mouth; the second and third tore open the abdomen and exposed the meaty innards within. Freed from the pony’s body cavity, steaming ropes of guts poured out over Kraber, bathing him in ichor.

Rising, daubed in blood and intestinal juice, he kicked the dying animal in the face.

“JOU FOKKIN POESNEUS!”

Then he stamped on the neck for good measure, and was rewarded with the crunchy sound of vertebrae collapsing.

FOKKING ponies.

Satisfied for the barest instant, Kraber turned, trying to find a fresh target. And he got one, though not one that he’d wanted.

“Emil...oh, fok.”

The potion phial he had struck away had burst on the young trooper’s flak-jacket, slathering his face and neck with purple squick. The resulting transformation was already well advanced, and what looked like a puddle of writhing, bubbling flesh was beginning to sprout fur and pull itself together...

“Poeskak!” Kraber cursed, as Emil completed the metamorphosis. Where the kid had been, there now stood a pink unicorn newfoal, blue energy already swirling around his horn as he warmed up a spell. Seeing this, the bearded man sighed, and picked up the youth’s dropped shotgun.

“Emil, I’m so sorry!” he said.

“Emil?” the newfoal asked, cocking his head and launching the spell as if cracking a whip. “I’m Pas de Deux now! Won’t you dance with m-”

Kraber easily sidestepped the clumsy bolt of magic, hefted the gun in one hand, and fired. Both barrels discharged together, and the newfoal’s face was shredded instantly by a hail of buckshot, fresh pelt and skin peeling away to expose white bone in a flash. Some of the shot penetrated all the way back into the brain cavity, terminating what passed for thought in the golem’s skull.

“I’m… so… so sorry,” Kraber whispered, as the still-smiling husk went ‘splat’ on the forest floor. He dropped the shotgun onto the corpse, which still twitched, as if something inside was fighting for life, the body unaware that its owner’s soul had already fled. Emil had been… well, he was a wonderful dancer, and such a great kisser. He and Kraber had shared many a night together, looking up at the stars, sometimes falling out the tent and rolling down a hill… and he had been able to make dishes slopped together from forest mushrooms, stolen butter, and meat of unidentifiable provenance feel utterly delicious.

He’d been a kind soul, except when it came to ponies.

When off the field, he’d been almost saintly. On it, he’d been a nightmare.

“GODDAMN HOERKIND PONIES!” Kraber screamed, spinning and bringing his new toy back up, muzzle already flashing.

The best way to honor Emil’s memory was to follow his example. And as he pasued to swap out a clip, Kraber quickly scanned the battlefield, and came to a delighted conclusion: the enemy was still trying to advance.

He smiled, despite himself. If this livestock wanted to wade into the meat-grinder, then he was happy to oblige. This was gonna be perfect.

Oh, so many ponies were going to die...

“MAKE WAY FOR SCHARNHORST!” Lovikov yelled.

Scharnhorst? Kraber thought. Scharnhorst?! Oh, f-

BRRRRRRRRRRBRRRZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

A sound like tearing fabric heralded the arrival of Scharnhorst, a true giant of a man in a woodland-camouflaged, armoured hazmat suit, over which he wore a hydraulic Kawasaki exoskeleton stolen from a PHL construction site. He needed the mechanical struts to support the weight of the immense General Dynamics minigun carried in his hands. ‘Liberated’ from the wreck of Mirai a beached Japanese cruiser, the 20mm leviathan fired depleted uranium rounds designed to shoot down inbound anti-ship missiles.

Against living targets, it was beyond lethal. Ponies caught in Scharnhost’s sights simply became burst of red paint. Entire trees were felled as his arc of fire swept across their trunks, the splintering crash of their fall harmonising with the chainsaw buzz of the gun.

There was a reason Scharnhorst had nicknamed it ‘The Lumberjack’. Now the motorised patriot was laughing like a madman behind his oxygen mask as he let off burst after burst, each pulse of bullets sounding like sheets of metal being ripped in half. Where he fired, ponies and PER died. Their own weapons, low-velocity shotguns firing slugs charged with potion simply burst on his armoured carapace. Even the few grenade launchers they had, launching potion-charges from frames identical to those on which the HLF’s pipebombs were mounted, were futile in the face of a man wearing enough kit to wade through a flamethrower’s spray without even getting singed.

“SCHARNHORST! SCHARNHORST” cheered the HLF fighters, and Kraber roared along with them.

‘Emil, oh poor Emil…oh he would have loved to see this!’ he mused to himself. ‘If only I’d been quicker! If only I’d saved him, like I had…’

The epiphany, when it came, was surprisingly gentle. It neither struck him like a blow or beat him around the heat. It was more like a wave that gently washed over him, before running back out through a metaphoric hole in his gullet.

And with it went all of his rage and fire, leaving him naked and empty, alone with himself in the dark nadir of the soul.

Who had he saved recently, if he was honest with himself? Prisoners, maybe, but… had he been heroic? Had he left someone thinking “I am genuinely grateful for this man’s existence?” Had he felt satisfied for saving someone?

Not… recently. He’d killed ponies.

But… somehow that didn’t feel like enough, he thought, even as he watched Scharnhorst mow the newfoals down.

The forest blazed, and the troopers roared.

It was the height of summer, he was wearing full body armor, and yet Viktor suddenly felt cold...

“It was unearthly, and the men were - No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it - this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled, and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity - like yours - the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate power.”

What remained of the HLF had finally made it to the PER camp, thank to Scharnhorst and Kraber’s efforts. They had paid in blood and treasure to spells and ponification, but they had arrived.

Now for the part Kraber had been most looking forward to.

“Kwaai,” he said, slapping Scharnhorst on the back as he stared at the remaining tents and clapboard structures. The armored man-mountain looked at him in confused, childlike bemusement.

“Blanchett?” Lovikov called to a woman whose face was coarsely scarred from a unicorn’s fireball. In response, she produced several molotov cocktails and began distributing them. Kraber pulled out his lighter, smirking as the flame flickered into life. He placed it to the tip of the old beer bottle until the scrap of rag that served as a wick caught alight, and then tossed into the entrance of one a tent. Oh, these konts were going to fokking burn.

His squadmates did the same, setting the whole camp ablaze. The flames burst and spread, lighting the tents from the inside. Kraber watched the diffused glow closely, waiting...

“You sons of bitches!” screamed a woman, who staggered out of the tent, flames licking up the back of her jacket. She had a vial of potion in one hand. “You-”

Lovikov shot her in the head with his Lolife pistol. All around them, more tents were burning, and had Kraber not been wearing a gas mask, he would have savoured the wonderfully sweet aroma of cooking flesh. All the horsefuckers, the goddamn race-traitors and betrayers, the merry-go-round toys were burning to death.

Not exactly an ironically fitting punishment, but not an undeserved one either.

More screams, the squeals of ponies and humans burning alive. Good.

“HELP!”

A discordant note, an interruption that ran against the music of the anguished cries. Everybody snapped to alert, weapons out and scanning the area.

“HELP!” the voice yelled again. “They’ve got us in the tunnels!”

Using handsignals to communicate, Lovikov pointed towards the bluffs at the back of the old mining camp. There was certainly at least one adit back there, the kind of easily-guarded hole that was perfect for holding prisoners…

Following the Russian officer’s silent commands, the unit split into fire-teams, using the ruins of the old mineyard to flank and approach the foot of the slope. As he moved, Viktor holstered his lovely new MG and unlimbered his shotgun. It consisted of two Mossberg pump-actions that had been welded together. Answering a nod from Lovikov with a small salute, he approached first. Just as insurance, he’d already changed the filter on his gas mask.

“Please!” the voice called out.

“You heard the guns!” another chimed in. “They’re here to save us!”

This speaker sounded younger. Like a child. Oh, if the PER had taken child prisoners, he was gonna slaughter whoever was left.

“Shut up!” someone else yelled, and there was the sound of a hoof against flesh.

Kraber kept his silence as he rounded the back of a crumbled assay office, looking towards where a rock-hewn adit tunnel opened into the yard. A single unicorn newfoal was standing guard, and immediately spun towards Kraber, casting clumsy spells. They were easily dodged, but the newfoal’s focus on the South African gave a Front sister the perfect opening to slip in behind the beast and snap its neck between two gloved hands.

“Nicely done,” approved Lovikov. “Guard down, without expending any ammo.”

Viktor however had already moved to take cover at the entrance to the mine tunnel, and was cautiously shining a torch down it with one hand while cradling the double-Mossberg in the other.

“Sound off!” he called. “If you’re prisoners, identify yourselves!”

“Yes! They’re holding us captive!”

“Silence!” screamed an incoherent voice, and Kraber winced.

“How many are guards are in there with you?” he demanded, ignoring the guard’s protestations.

“Only the two! He-ARGH!”

The sound of a body being beaten gave the needed opportunity. While the guard was engaged with beating his prisoners, Kraber threw himself out of cover and sprinted down the tunnel. His eyes did not have time to adjust to the dark, but there was no need, not from the pocket of light cast by the horn of a male unicorn as he laid into his victim with a levitated crowbar. A female stood beside him, a phial of potion in her mouth. His focus entirely on the stallion, Kraber ignored the mare, whose head exploded courtesy of a well-placed sniper round fired down from the tunnel mouth.

The ‘CRACK’ of the bullet was deafening in the closed space, but not as loud as the smash as Kraber brought his shotgun’s stock down on the stallion’s head. The animal ducked at the last second, rolling aside so that the swipe missed him. The glaze of his wide, almost swollen-to-bursting eyes told his entire story: newfoal.

“They deserved it!” he shrieked. “You’re all apes, monsters, and-”

“I don’t fokking have time for this, jou bliksem,” Kraber sighed, kicking it in the face. The horizontal adit was plunged into darkness as the light of newfoal’s horn was snuffed out, but the Afrikaner heard his opponent landing at his feet, and grabbed it by the tail.

With little pause, he dragged the unconscious beast out into the open air and pressed the snout of the double-shotgun into the soft vicinity of its sheathed genitals.

D-DHOOM!

He fired with both barrels. Everything below the pony’s ribcage simply vanished, leaving the approach cutting to the adit slick with blood and viscera. The hindlegs flew off in separate directions, slamming into the rock walls with wet, meaty thumps. Ignoring the explosion of blood, Kraber reloaded the gun and, turning, returned inside the mine...

...only to find a stunned Lovikov.

“Where’s the prisoners?” Viktor grunted, before the wannabe-zampolit pointed with his torch at a few silent figures cowering against the rough-hewn side of the tunnel.

Ponies.

The beam of light illuminated a stallion and a mare, along with three little foals. They were crying, miserable beyond all belief. ‘Mutilated’ was a mild word to describe what had been done to them. The walls of their hooves had been peeled away, leaving bloody nubs of soft tissue on which it would be impossible to walk. Each equine was covered in the scum of their own tears, shit, spit and blood, leaving them so filthy that Kraber couldn’t even tell what color they had been when they’d come out of the womb. Their cutie marks had been cut off, wings clipped back to the bone, and their horns chiselled away.

And worst of all was their silence. You could see the pain and grief in their eyes, but they could not vocalise it. They had been systemically traumatized beyond even screaming.

“P...pliss,” whispered the stallion. “I… am PHL. I am important to them.”

He repeated the words, almost as if it was a mantra. Time and again he spoke, invoking the name of the Ponies for Human Life as if it was an invocation, a warding spell of protection.

And Kraber? Kraber...

...did not kill them. No, instead he shot ‘Comrade Lovikov’ in the balls and bitchslapped Blanchett to the ground with the gun. Then he’d carried the stricken family to a getaway vehicle and driven them to safety.

...yes, that was it. He’d run away with them, and joined the PHL. Repentant, he had patched up refugees as a trauma surgeon, once more devoting himself to life and healing rather than death and destruction. He’d risen high. He’d crippled the HLF by bringing along plenty of other disaffected ‘reformists’, which essentially ripped out their conscience, but made them desperate enough to do downright stupid things. At the end, the HLF would just be a hate group, trusted by few and reduced to such terrible actions that they’d be guaranteed little (if any) sympathy. Oakes would be dead, Birch would be dead too, and maybe - just maybe - he’d helped people.

He’d been skilled, and gifted, and gained enough traction as the resident ‘House, MD’ to convince command to finance the medical radio drama he’d longed to create...a dream that he nurtured from the day when Miranda Severance (who worked at PHL biology now, didn’t she?) linked him to a version of episode 19 of Night Vale, with Kevin and Cecil’s reactions synched up to show the contrast between them. And maybe, just maybe, using the traction he’d gained from that after the barrier somehow fell

how was it going to fall?

he’d be able to finance a movie about his life, maybe directed by Ilya Naishuller, maybe by Neil Blomkamp. And he’d be played by Sharlto Copley, of course… and vice versa.

He’d taught himself to draw, to paint and write. He’d given himself over to reinvent himself, to be anything other than the bastard who shot prisoners-

No. That was a lie.

What Kraber had done, what he had really done, was laugh hysterically.

Yeah. Confronted with that brutalised family of newfoals, he had laughed, and mocked the father’s ‘words of power’ as he and Lovikov dragged them out into daylight...

They’d killed the foals first, with Scharnhorst tossing them into the air for Kraber and Lovikov to test their marksmanship on moving targets, like skeet-shooting.

One daughter, a pegasus, had tried to fly away with her tattered wings, and the crunch she made as she hit the ground had been hilarious.

None of them screamed. Even then, none of them had made so much as a sound. That had been a little disappointing. They might have had the good grace to make things as amusing as possible.

So Kraber had filled the silence by laughing. When it was time to execute the parents, he’d done it personally, admiring the pretty rorschach patterns the sprays of blood had made against the rock and dirt.

Amd he’d relished every second, gleefully slaughtering each of the invaders. Each of the spies. Each of the fuckers - or buckers, that’s how they said it, ja? - that had brutalised and persecuted mankind, abused human trust and exploited human kindness.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

The mare and the stallion he’d killed slowly, placing a bullet in each limb and then gradually working his way up through the abdomen to the neck. Blanchett had taken comparative notes, and expressed surprise when the stallion refused to die from blood-loss alone.

No, finishing that bastard off had required one last slug right in the socket that had housed his horn. The rage, the betrayal, and condemnation in his eyes as he stared up at Kraber had been striking, not just for its sheer intensity, but for how impotent it had been…

...as Kraber proved when he’d laughed one last time and pulled the trigger.

BANG!

He’d gone into the camp skop, skiet, and donner, he had completed his slaughter of that familiar with a laugh, and a contemptuous kick.

Which was only natural, of course. They were ponies, they were the invaders, they’d destroyed the world and killed billions….

At least, that was what he told himself, for the longest time.

“But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself and, by heavens I tell you, it had gone mad.”

“Viktor…. We’re still newfoals, Viktor,” said the equine in the other end of the canoe. It was a grotesque thing, covered in blood and eyes full of worms, one foreleg missing, a jagged stump where there should have been a horn.

Kraber shook his head as he paddled the canoe across the Umbagog. Aside from himself, it was empty...burdened down only with himself, and the colossal weight of his thoughts.

His treacherous, worrisome thoughts...

On that morning back at the mine, all that he’d done had seemed natural. At the been he’d been unable to understand how the PHL could side with the goddamn kickstands.

Oh, how the narrative he’d built for himself had seemed so simple, so logical and right. Each morning he would wake up, strap on his guns, and maybe squeeze in some target practice, wasting as little of their precious ammunition ammunition as possible.

His entire mind was set to the destruction of the ponies. His moments of relaxation, when he attempted to write, or teach himself to draw, were the only interludes he allowed himself from that focus, that lodestone of his being. But those moments did not bring him peace, no, only quietude.

Peace was what he got gesuip for, drunk to all hell. And the killing, that brought him peace too, in the knowledge that he was fulfilling his purpose.

Yes, the life of Viktor M. Kraber followed a simple creed: ponies and traitors were targets, humans who did not associate with them were heroes. Simple.

But then… Emil had died. And that family of ponies had died. Some of his friends had been ponified, again, and he’d been forced to kill them, again.

He’d laughed at the mine, laughed to fill the silence of the foals. But as they’d driven back to Defiance, old shadows had pressed into his mind. That night, not for the first time in a while, he hadn’t been sure...

When they’d returned from slaughtering everyone in that PER camp, Kraber had been sullen, quiet, withdrawn. He’d been thinking, turning towards introspection when normally he’d at this point been searching for some rotgut to quell the unease, to sink into drunken, unquestioning peace, free of doubts.

Not that night. There’d been an accident at the stills earlier in the week and three people were consequently missing limbs and various digits. The base command had consequently put a freeze on the production of liquor, and in true Prohibition-style, those who had some hoarded stocks of booze to trade had boosted their ‘prices’ to astronomical highs.

With two days the cheaper stuff was gone, and by the day of the attack at the mine, the last sips of 200-proof had been traded for twelve full mags of hollow-point ammo and a satchel of grenades. Consequently, Viktor was now going cold-turkey on his doubts, and he was not alone. Morale in Defiance was plummeting like a sub in a crash dive.

So, Captain Lovikov had suggested setting up a temporary checkpoint ‘over on the highway’, to let some of the troops vent off their frustration, and maybe even ‘salvage’ some useful supplies.

That was how Kraber’s path had crossed with that of the car driven by a pony-pounder. He’d opened the trunk and discovered the mare and the filly hiding inside, and then…

‘...a simple creed. Ponies and traitors are targets...’

Staring down at that foal, finger on the trigger of his revolver, things had suddenly seemed not so simple. He’d tried to fire. Tried to call out what he had discovered, but…he’d not had it in him. He later swore that he’d seen Kate and Anka (not Peter, oddly enough) looking back at him from behind the eyes of those ponies.

It was not quite a hallucination. It had felt, for a moment, as if his family weren’t ponified, as if he’d somehow stepped into a different universe, where they were still alive.

And in that moment, the filly had transfixed him in the light of her pity. He was not ready for that, an expression so much deeper than the shallow, unseeing joy of newfoals. Not even the dead, worm-filled eyes that dominated his dreams had held such power.

Through the eyes of a child, his had seen his family, and they had been disappointed in him. Forgiving, yes, but still disappointed.

And pitying him.

Somehow, that was even worse. He didn't know why - wouldn’t Kate and Anka want him to avenge them? Still… at least he wasn’t-

-inflicting the same anguish that he’d suffered through?

No. Couldn’t think that way-they were the Enemy and they-

-deserved to experience the same horrors that they’d dealt, deserved to see their children die in misery, just like every boy and girl who suffered? Just like him?

Yes! Yes they deserved it! That was justice! An eye for an eye, a limb for a limb-

-and so everyone ends up blind and crippled.

NO!

He’d tried to stem down those disloyal chains of thought. That kind of thinking put you in with the ponypounders.

Was it any wonder that, with no respite in the depths of a bottle, he’d needed to get away and think.

So, he’d volunteered for Lake Patrol, which consisted of taking a kayak out to the islands in Lake Umbagog and checking for any ‘unwanted guests’. It promised a solitude in which he could wrestle his mind into line, and even better, was a full 40-minute drive away from Defiance. So, after covering the ground in one of the Front’s kitbashed ‘roadsters’, something that looked like a nightmare from out of Mad Max, he paddled out into the placid lake, making for one of the islands near the mouth of the Magalloway.

It was almost like paid leave (as if any of the HLF’s soldiers expected financial remuneration for their services, and pay was a sketchy thing in the HLF. You could get anything in return for a job, be it a little cash, bullets, a gun, food), but he’d needed a day to himself, and time to try and find some accord between his warring doubts and drives. Command had been surprised at his volunteering for Lake Patrol, but who were they to disagree with one of the best surgeons in camp, and the man with the best gun that didn’t require Scharnhorst’s exoskeleton to heft? Upon returning, no doubt he’d be the murder machine they all expected him to be, screaming something about meat and fluid, but for now…

...now he could just try and find some peace, in nature’s magnificent desolation.

But as he’d paddled out across the mirror-calm, misty waters, he’d found himself plagued again by the thoughts, and confronted with the grotesquely animated newfoal from his nightmares.

He tried to ignore it, focusing instead on the beauty of his surroundings. By contrast Defiance was an ugly, sprawling collection of tents and vrek. But...he always loved open spaces, and this lake was one of the most unspoiled.

‘You can almost see the PER’s point, can’t you. Look at this serenity...’

He stamped those doubts down, even as the hallucinatory newfoal in the prow of the kayak smirked at him. And yet, yes, what he loved so much about Lake Umbagog was the lack of people - there were no ugly McMansions cluttering up the shore, no restaurants selling terrible fried seafood, buffalo wings or bear cla-

‘Bear!’

Oh, yeah! There was an actual black bear over there on one island, a young adult that had climbed up into the canopy of a tree. He snapped a photo of it on his phone, but did not reach for the .50 revolver at his hip. Unlike their grizzly cousins further west, Ursus Americanus rarely confronted humans.

”So unlike yourself, huh Viktor?” mocked the dead pony, slumped back with one bloody hoof dangling in the water. ”Is that what you are, an animal that lashes back because it was hurt? A machine following primitive code? Hah! You’re nothing more a newfoal on two legs…”

Kraber wanted to shoot that newfoal so much. But, trying to calm himself, he watched the bear in silence, wondering what'd happen if it touched the Barrier. Reports of what happened to earth animals were rather...inconclusive. They didn't seem to like it, but they could usually survive.

Usually. The higher primates, genetically closed to humans, were an exception, unable to survive the passage, and apparently some of the more intelligent marine mammals were the same way. But Africa's diverse wildlife had survived, anyway...and apparently thrived.

”Lions, Tigers and Krabers, oh my!”

But it never lasted...he’d read enough stolen intelligence reports to know that Equestria were ruthlessly ‘pacifying’ their new colonial possessions.

“The White Mare’s Burden…”

There were descriptions of thousand-pony safaris, and prescribed fires all across the Congo, clearing lands for agriculture and settlement...

”You don’t like considering that, do you...the chimps and the dolphins dying, the decimation of the jungles...because then this war becomes an attack against all sapient life, and it’s not just humans being targeted…”

Shut up. Shut up. He tried to focus on other thoughts, focused on the bear - idly he considered if it had a family...

“...and that means the PHL have a point…”

Family. Oh God.

The memories flooded back. Memories of that filly and her mother, of those ponies in the mine…

And of his own family, Kate, Peter and Anka welcoming him back after work. Not like some picture perfect vision of family life but in a way that was real and genuine...Kate calling out a greeting as she chatted with friends on the phone, Peter nodding ‘hi’ as he played videogames.

All the feelings and emotions that he’d tried to compartmentalise and push away, they all came back. Those were the years that, while strenuous beyond belief, had been his best.

And then he remembered that clown laughing… that mank genaaide bergbok Pinkie Pie...the giggles of the things that had been his beautiful children.

The rage flared again, a familiar drug that he latched onto for a second, only for his grasp to slip through it like smoke…

And he understood...and lashed out in denial.

“Don’t fight it!” said the newfoal, but this time it sounded remorseful, and sad. “Don’t deny it Viktor, accept that truth!”

The truth…

His stomach suddenly lurched, and he leaned over the side of the canoe, breathing heavily. He managed to keep the vomit down, but looking down into the water, into his reflection…

...he saw that filly, the one he had let escape.

She’d pitied him, yes. But there had been something else in those eyes, something he saw in his own every day.

Fear, and hate. Hate and rage against injustice, against the monster stealing away everything wonderful and good.

Now he was looking down into Pinkie Pie’s face reflected in the water...

That was the truth. He’d become the monster.

Shaking, he pulled himself upright, and hugged himself closely. He was shaking, almost catatonic with shock.

Despite everything, it was perhaps the most lucid he had been in weeks, months, or even years...

Shivering, his eyes drifted towards the island, where the bear had climbed down from the tree, and was walking away into the scrub. For a second it glanced back, and Viktor did not know what to make of its melancholy expression.

Why did he care? Why was that important to him? What was it in the bear’s mournful eyes that spoke to him?

“Oh, Viktor”, sighed the dead newfoal. ”Where’d you go so wrong?”

This time, it had spoken in Kate’s voice.

“I found myself back in the sepulchral city, resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts…”

Author's Note

Experimenting to see if I can move chapters around a bit without automatically shunting them to the bottom. This is just a test.

Toothpick

Some folks got the patience of the angels
Not me, my heart, well, it yearns for vengeance
When I leave their place, I'm gonna leave it smoking
Hearts to be healed and their ribs to be broken
Hearts to be healed and their ribs to be broken
When I leave their place, I'm bound to leave it smoking

Gas to the floor, I see no moving ground
Park brake holds me down
Release and I'm halfway across my town

Eat red lights, chew tram tracks
Stole my morals, I don't need them back
Now they got a stand in a problem museum
Evening is dull, stick a toothpick in their skull when I see them

Biting Elbows, Toothpick

”He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is detestable. And it has a fascination, too, which goes to work upon hm. The fascination of the abomination - you know.”

And back...you’re coming back…

Back from madness, to lost innocence. From rage and pain, to love and care.

Back to the filly named Dancing Day.

“You’re saying you saw Kraber… around there?” Cheerilee asks you over a videoconference connection, concerned.

Right now you’re in a building the PHL has commandeered for evac efforts - this one is in Littleton, not too far from Colebrook, and it used to be a big box store. It’s been fortified, and is patrolled by armed guards, though a small section of it extends into what was once a parking lot, open to the public and bristling with various PHL sensors. And autoturrets, of course. Though only a fool would try to bomb it.

You’d been looking forward to seeing Quebec City, but Johnny, Kiki, and mommy have gotten scared, so they took a u-turn and drove back here for your safety. But it’s not a problem because you like Littleton - you like it a lot. From the car you could see that wonderful scenery surrounds the town and there are these two other foals to play with, Amber Maple and Rivet. Their pappa Mr. Aegis is almost as big as an actual Earth horse. On top of that, there’s a railroad running right through the town. Johnny says it’s just ‘come back’, and now trains go by all the time. The ones in Equestria seem so tiny by comparison, because these ‘diesels’ are massive, almost house-sized.

On the way back, Johnny C asked your group detour through Bethlehem to visit what he calls a synagogue. You don’t…you don’t exactly know what it all means, or understand the language he speaks when in prayer, or the concept of a religion where your god(dess) can’t walk down and say hello, or praying to ask... some celestial weather team, you think?... that the weather will be better.

You, and Mr. Aegis’ foals, liked Bethlehem as well, from the tiny glimpse you got to see. It’s a funny place, an artist’s town, and Johnny C claims to have many happy memories there.

“Well, I didn’t see him, but Kiki did,” Johnny C explains to Miss Cherilee over the phone. “Same with Dancing Day and Astral Nectar.”

He gestures you over. You would desperately like to be off indulging in summer activities, but evidently, you are needed for…’debriefing’?

According to Johnny C, ‘briefs’ are human underwear, and that gives you a quick giggle.

Viktor Marius Kraber, you think. You can’t believe you didn’t know it was him before. Not the worst of those horrible HLF man. That’d probably be that nasty Mr. Carter or his daughter. But Kraber’s certainly up there, and Kiki says he’s got enough crimes to his name to spend a looooong time in prison.

“Ms. Palmer, do you think you can point out exactly where you were?” a local officer named Rachel Womack asks Kiki, one finger placed on a road map of Northern New Hampshire that has been projected onto the far wall.

‘Google Maps’ - that’s a funny name. You almost giggle, but want to seem grown up in front of these adults.

“Hmmm...” Kiki says, holding up a large stick brought in from from outside, running it along the length of the road until she suddenly stops. “Right there.”

Everypony, even little you, knows what Kraber has done, of course (to varying levels of detail). They also know that where there’s one HLF man, there’s probably more.

Insanity loves company, after all.

Nearby, Typewriter Ribbon, a PHL earth pony newsmare is typing something out on an awkward, ugly keyboard custom-made for hooves. She’s practicing using minor TK fields extruded from her hooves to work a normal human keyboard, but it’s not easy.

The headline she is writing for the new PHL circular, the Beacon, says, rather unflatteringly: “Serial Killer Epidemic: The HLF are Nearby.”

You later learn that ‘Serial Killer Epidemic’ is a common shorthand for the HLF, invented by a drunken Scotsman named Francis ‘Franco’ Begbie. There'd been other, catchier terms in his drunken tirade that were even now making its rounds on the internet, but 'serial killer epidemic' was the only one that was actually printable.

Right now you wondering in all seriousness why anybody would want to hurt breakfast cereals. Count Chocula never hurt anyone.

“Was anyone else you remember there?” asks Johnny C.

Kiki and your Mom all look thoughtful, very wise and contemplative. You try to, even as someone offers ‘the brave little filly’ a chocolate chip cookie the size of your head. Gracefully you accept it, and try to chew on it in a manner that at least looks worldly and knowledgable.

Yummy. Maybe Mr Kraber and his friends just need cookies like this to see why they’re on the wrong team…

...and then you shudder. No. No amount of cookies would be enough to ease the animal pain you’d seen in those nights, only the night before last.

So what would help? What would a man like Mr Kraber need to feel happy? Because as much as you hated him in that moment when he had a gun in your face, you do feel sorry for him. There was something in him that had been torn out and might never come back. Nobody deserves to lose that much.

As you ponder this dilemma, the grown-ups rattle off various details about the HLF members they hear. There are unfamiliar names tossed around, like “Randall Lovikov?” and a few others.

“Thenardiers?” someone asks. “Could they be involved.”

“Nah. This isn’t their territory, elusive bastards that they are. It’s not the most unbelievable thing I’ve heard, though,” Aegis says.

Apparently he’s known for keeping silent. He seems very chatty now though, in a quiet sort of way. “But... why would Kraber do that?”

He seems to be asking the same question of himself as you are.

“Do what?” Rachel asks.

“He let my friends live,” Aegis says, gesturing to Kiki, Mom, and yourself. “...why?”

“Maybe he was planning on following you?” suggests Cheerilee. “Tailing you to your destination?”

“No. We weren’t followed…” Kiki says. “I pulled over after five miles and parked in the bushes for ten minutes. Nobody from the HLF overtook us.”

“There was this shifty-looking guy with a huge widow’s peak, green eyes, and stringy blond hair outside the bar, though,” your mom adds. “Looked like a starving coyote stuffed into human clothes.”

“Did he do anything?”

“No,” she says.

“I feel kind of sorry for Mr Kraber,” you put in, and everyone looks at you like you’ve grown a second head.

Aegis will say you’re far too calm for a young filly.

You talk to him all the time whenever you meet up with him. After one of your magic lessons with the lovely Ms Nkiruka (a mare with beautiful black stripes all over her grey body), he says he worries about how you’ve grown up so fast, being on the run, being so afraid and hungry.

“How are you going to go back to normal life after war?” he asked, and you thought at first that he was being silly. “No, wait, scratch that. What’ll normal be?”

You pondered on that as much as you could. What’s the problem? It has been nice to unwind in New England, meeting locals who’ve taught you so many interesting skills and facts, like how to not leave a trail, or how to shoot a gun from the assault harness that’s being fitted for you. Honestly, you’re fine. What’s abnormal?

Aegis later tells you that he suspected pony refugees are trying to become like natives of earth in a sort of rebellion against Equestrian propaganda, but he can’t prove it. He’s not a psychologist, and he hates those who posture themselves like that.

Your main concern though is what will happen when the Barrier makes landfall? Will you and momma be on the run again?

And more importantly, what about all your human friends, and the dozens of kind people you’ve met along the way. What will happen to them, and all the thousands (you’re getting good with big numbers!) of other people who live on Earth that have proven a ‘fucking’ lot nicer than some of the ponies back in Equestria.

You’re getting good with ‘big’ words too.

“You feel sorry...for Kraber, Dancing?” Mr Gransvoort says. “Really?”

“Something really terrible happened to him,” you explain, glad to have the grown-ups listen to you, and trying to not look like a little kid.

“I could see it,” you explain, gesturing with the cookie. “It was like there wasn’t anything behind his eyes…something had ripped what should be there out.”

“Even so, can’t see why he’d have any pity,” Aegis said. “I saw him at Agua Caliente, and it was...”

You are still for a moment as he continues speaking. Aegis tells you stories, but never talks about Agua Caliente, or, as it’s known among some troops, A.C, sometimes ‘Ass Crack’ or ‘Air Conditioner’. Whenever you ask him about it, all he’ll say is that “Agua Caliente was a grudge match curb stomp, not a battle.”

You’re not sure what the means, but you have seen pictures of Agua Caliente looks - spells everywhere, grass and bushes growing over the buildings, and horrid bloodstains all over the ground, you gained some idea.

You did wonder about the thousands of little holes visible throughout the pictures, but after trying out your new gun-saddle for the first time today, you now know bullet-holes when you see them. Thousands of them...

“...it’s not his usual stomping ground but I doubted he’d have missed it for love or money,” Aegis is saying. “The bastard just had no mercy. That’s vouched for by the HLF suvivors - about all of whom are in our ranks now, or trying to reform-”

Your mother and Johnny C snort at this. HLF reformists are, putting it lightly, delusional.

“They’ve kept him on a short leash since.”

“I met that man once,” says a mare named Tempest to the assembled PHL before her, a story flowing naturally from her mouth.

“The mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all of the past as well as the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valor, rage - who can tell? - but truth - truth stripped of its cloak of time.”

”It was in Year One. Back in Innsbruck, before the Barrier started moving. The Three Weeks of Blood had left people confused and scared. Most, if not all of us ponies ‘Earthside’ had been horrified by Equestria’s actions, and yet that hasn’t stopped the riots. We had no idea what was going on, we still thought Equestria was Equestria, not an Empire.

The army was sent in to control the city, and the local Bureau had gone ‘proactive’...kinda a precursor to the ‘official policy’ that was yet to come. They were herding humans in like cattle, saying that the Bureau was a secure place to ride out the violence, and then persuading as many as possible to take the potion. Enhanced persuasion methods were being used.

And me, well I’m in like a neighborhood watch, just trying to keep the peace on our streets. And it’s hard...we’re fighting people who’ve gone made from the violence across the world, and the fights are getting uglier. Some of them are bringing guns, and we’re having to use knives and home supplies…

That, that was the week when I made my first kill. Some kid with a shaved head, screaming about how Equestria was out to kill us all. She came at me with a police baton, and I closed my eyes and swung a box-cutter in my hoof TK...cut her right across the neck…

But there was one man in the neighborhood who was worst. He just showed up with some other crazies, not locals, about two weeks into the madness, and gave us five or six days of hell, climaxing when they blew up the Bureau. Before that though they worked themselves up by going after equestrian expatriates, torching homes with molotov cocktails, flushing ponies out of burning houses and then laying into them with guns and cudgels. They had, like...military equipment. I think the German HLF found some old Nazi stashes lying around and distributed them.

Because these guys were HLF...like new recruits inspired by the May Day attacks. And one of their worst thugs was a guy in a gasmask, weidling a baseball bat, a revolver, and an MG34. He didn’t care about anything-or-anyone. If anyone came at him, he’d hit them with the baseball bat, disassemble them with an LMG, just cut them up. Didn’t matter if you were neighborhood watch, police, army, or innocent - if you walked on hooves or associated with ponies, he butchered you.

That man was Kraber.

How’d I know that was him? Because there’s a video. Somebody filmed their escape outa the neighborhood with a smartphone, and caught footage of ponies running out a burning storefront, only for that bastard in the gas mask to pummel them with a bat and throw them back into the building.

All the time, he’s screaming in Afrikaans, and at one point he bellows his name and pounds his chest like he’s fucking King Kong. Don’t watch it.

I don’t want to know what expression he had under that gas mask. On the third day after his arrival, a police officer tried to arrest him...and Kraber just shot her in the leg, and belted her with his baseball bat till there wasn’t anything left to hit, ranting in more languages than I know.

Knowing what I know now about guns, I don’t think he was shooting to kill, just to wound. Then he could get in close and beat the shit out of them with his hands.

There are so many people that owe crippling injuries to that bastard. So many friends dead.

Soldiers came after him, you know, right as he was putting the torch to this shop. And he killed them all. He would duck out of sight whenever they found him, open fire with that MG34, just chainsaw right through their body armor. The stragglers? For them he’d get up close, holding this quad-barreled ten-gauge, and cut them apart. The ones still standing got a taste of his knives. Always the same M.O. Wound from a distance, then get up close and...well, you get the picture.

He killed children. Foals, even. He crushed the skulls of newfoals. He’d stab ponies to death, skin off their cutie marks. He hung Reitman’s activists from lampposts, garrotted them, left them to die of shrapnel in their windpipes.”

“Let the fool gape and shudder - the man knows, and can look on without a wink.

“There is so much blood on that man’s hands,” Tempest finishes. “From his week in Innsbruck alone, that it doesn’t matter how many of either side he killed.

She looks hollowed out and empty. Momma had tried to cover your ears seconds into the story, but you’d ducked away and insisted that you needed to hear, and needed to understand.

“...Kraber needs to go down,” Cherilee agrees onscreen. “Any trace that can lead the law right to him is valuable.”

“Yeah,” mutters Mr Aegis. “And, if we’re lucky, it’ll open a bigger can of worms.”

“Look Dancing,” Tempest says, “Don’t waste pity on the man. By the Golden Lyre, I don’t think there’s much left in him to separate him from the beasts...”

And after what you’ve heard, you’re inclined to agree.

“Principles? Principles won’t do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags - rags that would fly off at the first good shake. No; you want a deliberate belief. An appeal to me in this fiendish row - is there? Very well; I hear; I admit, but I have a voice too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced.

Homebase ‘Marlow’, Maine

“AWWWW... It’s so cute and fluffy!” Kraber laughed, petting the fluffy white samoyed dog that was currently trying to lick his face off. “Look at youuuu, oh, I just want to keep hugging-”

“Are you quite finished?” Colonel Galt asked, glaring down at him.

"...nah," Kraber said, verbally flipping off the commander of the Thenardier Guards with a shrug, before going back to petting the dog, who was panting, its tongue hanging out.

They were in the back room of a hardware store in one of the towns outlying Portland, Maine. Kraber and his ‘escorts’ were in the company of Galt and that annoying Russian aide of his.

Atlas Dagney fokking Galt. Despite all of his prattle about ‘equal opportunity for each man to prove his worth’, he was probably blanching at Defiance not having sent someone classier. What a snob.

Still. That was Galt for you. The picture of the average HLF ‘code-head’, a commanding officer obsessed with phrases and codewords, obsessed with his own philosophy. Obsessed with making things by his own hands, be they tables, weapons, maps, plans, or units.

But what Galt didn’t want to admit was that in this case he was a beggar, essentially forced to take what came to him - which, in this case, meant he had to take what few safehouses and allies he could get.

If Galt had his way, his best options, they’d likely be in a hotel with some even more pompous codeword attached to it in official HLF communications, even if the so-called ‘communications’ were just children that were probably too young to remember things before the War, and almost certainly too young hold anything larger than barroom .32 pistols.

He would’ve even taken a farm run by a sympathetic survivalist with a lot of guns, but all those contacts had dried up. The money, or at least what little of it was left nowadays, was in employing Earth Ponies as work to squeeze even larger yields out of the fields and orchards. That, and the fat government subsidy for employing earth ponies was too much for all but the most radically anti-government and anti-pony HLF to ignore. And the government had a nasty habit of confiscating the property of those who refused to provide for the country during wartime, like with Clive Mudget.

“Bloody fascists!” was the HLF’s usual response to this.

Which was why this meeting was at the back of this hardware store in Portland, instead of a farm like Mulvey’s. Galt was looking speculatively at the shelves, and giving particular attention to a shiny new Black & Decker power drill.

“I see Birch isn’t here?” Kraber observed, taking a brief break to look up at the Thenardier Guards that had come to visit.

“Why, you miss him?” asked one woman, a redhead in clothing that looked like it was made of more patches than original fabric.

“Fok no!” Kraber said, briefly throwing up his hands. “Bastard’s got more neurosis than Woody Allen in a drugstore!”

The Samoyed, belonging to the HLF sympathizer who owned the store, briefly looked up at him, making a high-pitched whine of concern.

“No, no,” Kraber said, looking down at the dog, reassuring it. “I’m fine, I’m fine…”

Searching for the animal’s name, he held up the dog’s tag.

“...Fluffy. See, I’m fine, it’s just that Birch is batshit crazy,” he continued, still adressing the samoyed.

‘Fluffy’, cocked his head, visibly confused. Arroooo?

“Well,” Kraber explanation. “Our boy Birch talks about seeing ponies kidnap people before the war, zionists, chemtrails, reptilians…and he desperately wants the sane people to share in his madness, so he preaches this shit all the time.”

Chuckling, he scratched the dog behind the ears. “God help us all if that man ever becomes a officer. You wouldn’t want to serve under Lieutenant Birch, would you?”

Fluffy whined, and licked Kraber’s face.

“Awwww… stop it, stop it!” he laughed, unmindful of everyone staring at him. “That’s what I thought, though. You know, you know a lot about this stuff...you’re a very wise dog, brother Fluffy. And for that I salute you! Where’s a dog biscuit?”

“You’re one to talk,” muttered the youngest of the group, a twenty-something standing just behind Galt, dressed in civvies, augmented with a pair of under-arm holsters. Her hair was tied back with a bandanna, and her entire body had a youthful roughness to it that was simultaneously offputting and beguiling. Her bearing however was professional, and her twin pistols bright and polished.

“Verity Carter…” Kraber stared at her, wondering where he had last seen her. Had he run into her recently? Damn silly name she had. Wasn’t it latin for ‘truth’?

The youth shook her head in revulsion, eyes glinting. “You’re disgusting.”

Dismissing his wandering thoughts, Kraber smiled, showing his yellow teeth and wild eyes. “I didn’t even say anything this time! But yeah. I am, bakvissie. Doesn’t that at least give me some right to judge? Can’t I have standards?”

Shaking her head in disgust, Verity pulled on a short jacket that neatly hid her weapons and tugged on her ponytail, revealing it to be a clip-on. With it removed and a scruffy baseball cap (turned backwards) replacing it, she suddenly looked five or six years younger. A denim skirt pulled on over her jeans completed the image of a disaffected teen. Yay for counter-culture.

“Redd, you’re with me,” she beckoned to a young man dressed similarly to herself, before saluting Galt smartly.

“Colonel, requesting permission to proceed to the waterfront and finalise preparations for the mission with ensign Flamel.”

“Granted, Captain Carter,” Galt said blithely, not even looking in her direction. The girl and her one-man escort left with another lip-sneering glance in Viktor’s direction.

In her absence, uncomfortable silence reigned supreme for a few seconds.

“Well, at least Viktor doesn’t talk about zionist conspiracies,” Lovikov said when the quiet became too much to bear. “That’s one up on Birch.”

“Because Judaism, bru,” Kraber said.

“-Or any conspiracies that don’t involve the PHL or that bitch Yael,” Martineau finished. “That means our madman is better than yours. Besides, Viktor here does surgery.”

Galt threw up his hands. “Fine. Your insane person is better than ours.”

“Don’t remind me about that bull-dyke kike Yael,” Andrei Rianofski sighed, drawing the ‘evil eye’ from Kraber. “Our allies have lost over a hundred to her raids alone!”

For any members of the Front near to the Canadian border, Yael Ze’ev had become a sort of local boogeywoman. Not more famous than Marcus Renee, of course not. That’d be silly. But she and a pegasus mare named Heliotrope were infamous for leading brutal, cutting raids against the HLF.

It hadn’t helped that they frequently played the Front’s fragmented structure against itself, exploiting the convuluted code phrases and passwords some units so loved, misdirecting and distracting them in friendly fire, then shooting up the remains. She’d apparently been demoted just yesterday for burning one Canadian redoubt to ashes with a squad of flamethrower tanks, but that was unlikely to stop her.

“We have far more important things to discuss,” Galt said, leading them into another room. “Myself, Rianofski, Captain Carter and several others have come up with a plan that might just cripple the PHL locally…if only for a moment, but a moment is all we need.”

And that was why Galt was where he was, and why he had even Kraber’s attention, if not his respect. The guy was very good at planning and executing daring raids. He’d built the Thenardiers around himself on the results he could produce on demand. Non-descript infiltrators like the Carter girl were the silken blades to Galt’s armored fist, opening up cracks and seams into which a booted foot could then be driven.

Infiltration, Assassination, Exploitation, Paralyzation. Any wetwork Defiance needed done, the Thenardiers could deliver.

Which to Viktor was why it was so delightful to be here on their own terms, as the shock troops Galt needed to pull of his plan. It must have been galling to the man who’d cast himself in the role of a Randian uber-being.

Not even trying to hide his displeasure, the Colonel placed a chess piece, a black King, on the map, sitting it about thirty miles out to sea from Portland.

“Tell me”, he asked, voice as treacherous as water flowing over rocks. “Have any of you ever heard of the Sorghum Exile?”

‘I feel a reference coming,’ Kraber thought, still running his hands through Fluffy’s fur.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve heard of it. Some mobile rig of theirs?”

“That’s right,” Galt answered, like he was talking to a child.

‘As if I was some kind of fokking retard, like Sheja, that kontgesig,’ Kraber thought, struggling not to pull out a revolver and splatter Galt. But that’d bring people running, so that was out.

“The Exile is a mobile drilling platform, bigger than anything else of it’s kind. The PHL took it over from Phalanx Energy last year, and thanks to their ‘magic’, it’s now capable of also extracting and distributing oil brought up from any wells it’s tapped,” Rianofsky explained.

“Yeah,” said Lovikov. “Just imagine the boom it’d make!”

He rubbed his hands together.

“I get the implication it’s one of a kind,” Martineau added.

Galt nodded. “It’s also a-”

“-slow, fat sea cow of a boat that needs tugboats to keep it moving any faster than the bare minimum speed needed to outrun the Barrier, and it has enough defenses that any… Oh fok I’m actually saying this… privateers...who get too close end up as red mist if they show undue interest. So we’ll have to be real careful with whatever you’re planning to do. So we can’t go in skop, skiet, and donner.”

All of that had come from Kraber, which earned him another baleful stare from Galt.

“...Yes,” the Colonel grunted.

“I told you, that Viktor’s more than he seems,” Lovikov said.

“Trauma surgeon,” Kraber said, as if that explained anything. Internally, he was wondering if Lovikov was talking up his reputation to sweeten his legacy when he was reported ‘K.I.A.’

He refused to let those thoughts show however. For now, he was stuck in this situation, and would see where it led him.

“The platform is due to be relocated from its current position on Usherfall Bank in one week’s time”, Rianofski was explaining. “There’s consequently increased activity to and from it in preparation for the tow.”

“This is our opportunity,” Galt continued.

He tapped another chess piece, a White Queen, on the table.

“Through my contacts I have commissioned an ‘amenable’ shipwright down south. He has modified a ocean-going tugboat for our purposes. It’ll have a submerged basement of sorts for you to keep additional personnel, as well as concealed weapon lockers to arm yourselves… anything you could need.”

Everyone was now intrigued, as Galt slid the Knight across the table towards the King.

“Captain Carter has obtained us the passcodes and documentation necessary to get aboard the Sorghum, and then... ”

“We make like Captain Kidd and go Errol Flynn on them!”

Galt’s eyes swept over all of them, with especial focus on Kraber. “Don’t kill the enemy forces you encounter. Your primary goal is to take hostages. Then, as soon as you’ve secured the platform, place those hostages under guard in a location where you are unlikely to be visible to snipers. I’d also suggest destroying any PHL tech or weaponry that you find.”

“Excellent,” Lovikov said. “We can all do tha-”

“I wouldn’t say that’s a good idea,” Kraber interrupted. “Enemy tech can be useful.”

“Kraber, shut up,” Lovikov hissed.

“As a last resort, we might need their toys,” Kraber persisted.

“You sure that PHL gun you have hasn’t made you a ponypounder?” Mariesa asked, eager to please.

“No, I’m just saying it makes sense to turn the enemy’s tools against him,” Kraber said, slapping his new runically-enhanced MG. “Your guns don’t break shields like this thing. It’s just… it’s something I’m worried about. PHL guns break shields, Equestria has more newfoals. We’re going to need to step up, cause I’m getting worried about where we’ll be next November-”

“Your tugboat,” Galt said insistently, packing as much of an incentive to shut Kraber’s mouth as he could within those two words and three syllables, “Is in Portland, Maine. Our agents have logged a falsified profile with the authorities, as well as the PHL themselves...”

(In at least one week’s time, during the Great HLF Purge, most of those same agents will be either dead, incarcerated or forced into penal reserve battalions, if they haven’t been found ‘resisting arrest’. In the telling, Kraber makes clear that he was a lucky survivor)

“As far as the Sorghum is concerned, you’re heading out to set up the initial tow south,” Galt said. “As soon as you take the hostages, we can make our demands.”

“Which are?” asks Lovikov.

“The release of our comrades, such as Yelena Schmidt, Fedorova, and Captain Carter’s father, as well as military supplies,” Galt says. “If they do not acquiesce to our demands, we’ll maneuver the Sorghum into the mouth of Portland harbor and fire on the city with the platform’s defenses.”

“But… the city’s full of refugees!” protests Mariesa.

“It is,” Galt said, unconcerned. “And there are also ponies there, PHL…”

“Yes,” Lovikov murmurs thoughtfully. “There are…”

“In the event of an escape,” Galt continues, placing a White Knight on the table, checkmating the Black King, “there’s a fleet of narcosubs in the vicinity. They can be used as an escape.”

“...the foreign shore, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance…”

It was raining, and the sky was the color of a television tuned to a dead channel.

So it was gray, then. Thunder roared off in the distance, and the rain poured down and down on the city.

Before the Barrier, Portland hadn’t been what it was today. There were so many languages spoken here now, with signs in the languages of so many atomized countries dotting the streets. The pedestrians - the human pedestrians, anyway - were dressed downright weird, in whatever clothes they could find, which weren’t many. There were weapons carried openly, either professionally manufactured or hammered together in caves or someone’s basement. Kraber thought it reminded him of Blade Runner, Sunset Overdrive, or that one… that one Mexican flash animation he loved as a kid, the one with the smileyfaces and the giant robot clown.

Of course, that didn’t mean he liked how the city now looked. He would have loved a melting-pot like this back before the war, but it was another thing to live it. All the rich people, virtually anyone with enough money had left to go east, buying themselves a few more months to live in comfort on the west coast, in deserts, in America’s heartland, or in the mountains. Anywhere that’d buy a few more hours of (comparative) luxury before it was destroyed.

And filling the gaps were… Kraber’s lip curled into a sneer. Ponies. Zebras, even a few griffons. None of whom wore any clothes.

“Fokking disgusting”, he said to himself, and yet the invective that should have lent venom to the words was missing.

Foods from other countries were combined with poor amounts of ingredients, substitutes and replacements, to form strange new culinary combinations. Kraber had happily visited a restaurant selling Nigerian ice cream alongside more American flavors like Moose Tracks and Husky’s Lover, which was vanilla malt ice cream with pretzels, peanut butter and chocolate swirls. The same fusion was tangible, visible, and even audible wherever you went, what with mongrel pidgin slang, mingling with dialects and languages from all over the world.

Improbably enough, there were a few places selling stolen Equestrian goods and ‘Equestrian-prepared baked goods’, which nobody in the HLF would touch. There was graffiti over the signage for these stores, and signs of broken windows, and yet, business seemed brisk.

The city’s primary industry had always been shipping, but the routes that outbound and inbound vessels now followed changed by the day, with cargos of wood, ammunition, food, and other necessities departing for southernmost Africa and America. Imports consisted for raw materials, scrap metal, neglected Soviet or American military hardware, all commodities that would be reused in the war effort. A cargo of steel ore might end up smithed into guns, or forged into rails for more locomotives, or any other possible permutation of human skill and technology. Who could say? There was even a huge ship, emblazoned with the Crowe Labs logo, armed with strange blocky guns and offloading multicolored containers.

They found the tugboat, as promised, near the Maine Street Pier. It stood out next to all the other vessels nearby for being utterly normal in appearance. Compared to the junks around it, made of half-sunken cars and scrap, held together with cable and ropes, the meaty ocean-going tug looked trim and ready to put to sea. As they approached, a pair of diesels could be heard turning over, and fumes belched from the twin exhaust stacks aft of the orange wheelhouse.

That was another difference from the other boats, many of which appeared to run on strange, magical engines pioneered by pony expatriates - Kraber noticed one outbound fishing boat, helmed by a mixed crew of humans and ponies, all clad in oilskins, that appeared to run on clockwork wound steadily by a hefty earth pony and a small, slight woman. He had to admit, it was fascinating.

“Alright, this is our tub,” said Lovikov warily, “the Arctic Warrior.”

“Ain’t she a beaut?” called out the young corporal Kraber had seen leave the briefing with Verity Carter. Redd Flamel was his name if memory served, and right now he was coiling ropes on-deck. “Welcome aboard!”

Kraber jumped down on deck and nodded. “You a seaman?”

“Yessir. Raised on my family’s fishing boat, Antonia Graza. I’m your deckhand and engineer for this voyage.”

He seemed squirrelly, excitable, and yet utterly in command of his environment. Kraber liked that.

“Where’s the Carter girl?”

“Up in the wheelhouse, readying us for departure. Both herself and me were trained by the builder to operate the boat, but the fake Master’s Certificate is in her name.”

Kraber shook his head. A twenty-something slip of a girl as the captain of a vessel. Well, that wouldn’t do.

A quick inspection of the Warrior showed everything to be in order. As first impressions showed, it had been kept almost immaculate. By comparison to the other floating wrecks in the harbor, anyway. The tug wasn't pristine, but on the other hand, it was full of the concealed weapon lockers Galt had promised.

Even better was a hatch apparently leading to the bilge, which in truth opened up onto a secret compartment outfitted with bench-seats sufficient to seat twenty. It would be… perfect.

Over the course of the next hour the troops arrived in groups of two or three, keeping their numbers discrete. Thenardier Guards, and Menschabwehrfraktion alike, they came aboard. Most headed for the submerged compartment, cramped, smelly, dirty, and more than a little leaky, but the best place to conceal such a force.

At last, with everything ready and all supplies loaded, and the light of day dwindling into evening, Verity gave the order to cast off all lines, and turned the Arctic Warrior’s prow towards the harbor mouth. Down below, Kraber watched with approval as Redd busied himself with the twin diesel motors. The young man was clearly born to the sea.

Leaving him to it, Kraber himself went up to the immaculate wheelhouse, where Verity Carter was manning the helm, looking deceptively small as she stared forward through the reinforced viewports out towards the dark eastern horizon. Although she still wore her turned-back baseball cap, she’d swapped her civvies for body armour concealed under a heavy seaman’s jacket. To his delight, Viktor had earlier found a matching garment that fitted him hung in the captain’s cabin, along with the requisite peaked cap.

“Avast!” he cried as he entered the wheelhouse, a smile on his face and one hand on his revolver. The other hand was clenched around the snapped-off hook from the coathanger, completing the appropriate pirate-y image. “I be Kapitan Kraber!”

“... Shut up,” Verity muttered, pointedly tapping the framed Masters Certificate made out in her own name. Mariesa on the other hand, the only other woman in the crew, was smiling.

“Fok you, I always wanted to say that,” Kraber laughed, stepping outside onto the bridge wing. The tug was ploughing steadily through the swells, her navigation lights and portholes aglow with light, and she seemed to be a pocket of light and warmth in the ever-increasingly vastness of the Atlantic.

Pausing, he leaned on a gunwale and enjoyed the scent of salt on the warm evening air. His fate and appointed doom were furthest from his mind now. All the mattered for the moment was the op. If everyone kept their heads and did their job, something great would be accomplished.

Their comrades would be free, the geldos and the horsefuckers will be dead, what could be sweeter?

What could be? Kraber asked himself, a little too insistently. Was that to be his legacy?

Yes, something still eluded him. Even under all this bluster and excitment, he knew that he was just not getting something. Some deep, important puzzle piece.

And why didn’t he feel right about this op? There was something, some sensation that something was off…

“Platform ahoy!” Mariessa announced at last, sighting forward through a pair of binoculars. She seemed to have somehow become Verity’s first-mate during the few hours it had taken to head out to sea. Following her gaze, everyone sighted a cluster of lights on the horizon, a slice of Christmas adrift at sea…

“Big bliksem,” Kraber muttered. And as the tug grew closer, the structure grew even larger - a massive leviathan kept afloat on two submerged hulls, like a giant catamaran. Four cylindrical columbs supported the superstructure, whose small, jagged skyline bristled with light and activity. The columns themselves seemed to shimmer softly, ripples of something (magic perhaps?), descending to radiate in the sea.

As they closed to within five miles, a sudden squall of rain came down, drawing a curtain around the tug and hiding the platform from view. With it came a shroud of anxiety, the unspoken fear that now was when things would go wrong.

“State your business, Arctic Warrior,” Kraber heard the radio crackle, the hiss of static whispering in tune with the rain fizzing on the windows.

“Platform Sorghum Exile, this is commercial tugboat Arctic Warrior. I am her skipper, V Carter. We are approaching on a bearing of 100 south-easterly and are under instruction to moor up beside your north-western column. Over…” Verity said trimly into her radio handset, having yielded the helm to a scowling Lovikov with the whispered orders to “keep her straight and point her where I tell you.”

“Arctic Warrior, please state your business. Over.”

Kraber stifled a laugh at the sight of the young girl strutting around the wheelhouse as she continued to banter with the platform, switching between coded frequencies on demand. Annoying and bitchy she may have been, but the girl’s balls clanked like wrecking balls. He could see how she survived in a unit like the Thenardiers.

“Please confirm security passcode?” the platform’s radio officer demanded at last.

“Break a fucking broomhandle off in Celestia’s flank,” the youth said. “Over.”

“Thank you Arctic Warrior, your documentation has been filed and you have permission to approach. Please turn to heading 154 and reduce speed to six knots, then proceed to final. Over.”

And like that, a pall had lifted over them. Verity twirled the radio handset on its cord with all the cocksure confidence of a gunslinger, and hung it on its hook with a satisfied smirk.

“We’re in,” Lovikov said, a smile on his face. “The hard part is over.”

“The sight of it made the earth seem unearthly. They were accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there - there you could look at a thing monstrous, beautiful, and fre-”

”Really?” you ask, in the not so distant future where you find yourself on the same side as Kraber.

And here’s where he breaks into laughter. He laughs hysterically, a bellowing guffaw that switches in pitch near-constantly, like you haven’t heard him laugh since the… incident… with the ponified, yet not zombified, HLF infiltrator in the brig below, screaming, driven mad with hate, almost certainly in the throes of a mental breakdown.

You find it hard to say she doesn’t deserve it though.

“...ya done?” Aegis asks, raising an eyebrow.

Kraber shakes his head no, doubled over laughing. “Oh, no. It only got harder after that,” he manages to get out, eyes moist from tears of laughter.

But then he grows somber, and produces a book, a book in which he has underlined choice quotes, mining them for inspiration…

“Heart of Darkness?” you asked, managing to read the cover upside-down. “What’s it about?”

“It’s about me, little Day...and about you...and about people…and where my story took me next. There’s lank I could use, but this… it fits better than Trainspotting or anything else I could think of.”

And he turns to the very last page, to the very last lines, and read aloud...

“The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky - seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.”

Dope Fiend Massacre

Light Despondent, chapter 6:
Dope Fiend Massacre

Co - Authors / Editors
TB3
Rush
VoxAdam
Kizuna-Tallis

“It wasn't just the baby that died that day; something inside Sick Boy was lost and never returned.”
Renton, Trainspotting

I had a vision
I saw Mr. Brown on the television
He was talking crap as he always does
I had to reign him in, why? Because

I don't like who he is
And I don't like who I am
I don't like what he does
And he makes me a man
On the verge of his mind
A spectacular view
Mr. Brown, I've got an issue and its got to do with you
Biting Elbows, Dope Fiend Massacre

February 2023

The story of a life’s journey is a winding narrative, threaded through the rocks and shoals of time’s ocean, spanning ravines of thought and traversing deserts of memory...

“I! FOKKING! WANTED! TO GO! SKIING! JOU FOKKIN BLIKSEM!” Kraber will yell, kicking one HLF man in the face.

And sometimes it crashes off the rails and straight into the cornfields, into less poetic territory. In the life story of Viktor Marius Kraber, this is one of those moments…

The HLF man will fall to the ground, clutching his face, and Kraber will whip out his heavy revolver, landing a shot on another Frontman down the street, one who had been aiming a rifle at them. It’s a sloppy shot at this kind of range, but enough arterial blood will spray up like a fountain from the remains of the man’s shoulder to guarantee he won’t stop falling for a long, long time…

“Did you want to try skiing, Aegis?” Kraber will say, almost conversationally.

Beside him, immense equine bulk and enchanted kevlar providing cover for Kraber, will be Aegis, Kraber’s best friend. A stallion to whom our unlikely protagonist will soon enough entrust his life.

But all good things in time.

“Ah… I’m terrible at it,” Aegis will reply, his loud rumbling voice conveying more than a little uncertainty. “Tried it once on the backside of the Canterhorn and ended up off the course and in a gully, wrapped ‘round a tree.”

He will pause for a second, suddenly contemplative. “But maybe, hrm...I wonder if they could find human skis that’d work for me while I’m rearing up.”

And on that runnel of introspection, Aegis will blaze away with the twin F3-Thunderlords on his back firing in percussive tempo, the MMG’s bullets stitching a line through the HLF forces poking themselves out of cover in this snow-choked mountain town. The earth pony titan’s long thick limbs and head (which is disproportionately small compared to his massive frame, almost as if another pony’s skull has been transposed onto some muscled golem) will be impassive as he bites down on the trigger, and the red-tinted goggles that cover his eyes will reflect nothing but death.

Beside these two brudders-in-arms-and-forelegs, Johnny C and Fiddlesticks will stand their ground, Johnny firing his Leshiy and Fiddlesticks opening up with the two enchanted M249s on her battle saddle. A small layer of snow builds up on her ancient, battered, nicked stetson as she fires.

“Don’t understand!” a cowering civilian shall wail from the back of a car from which she had been selling various hot foodstuffs for the winter. “The HLF! We thought we could trust them but they’ve just gone crazy! It’s all gone mad, trusting geldos and horsefuckers, but the HLF ARE CRAZY! They just went insane when that weird newfoal got here!”

“Oh, they were crazy a loong time before this,” Johnny C will call over. “Hey, Kraber, remember that story you were telling Dancing Day? The one with the Sorghum Exile?”

“IS THIS REALLY THE FOKKING TIME FOR A FLASHBACK?!” Kraber will yell, reloading his revolver in case he needs it later, holstering it, and bringing his new MG2019 up for a killing burst.

“Fiiiine. Maybe later?” Johnny C will beg, almost pleading.

Kraber and Aegis will shrug.

“Okay. That’s doable,” Aegis will say. “How bout… near a fireplace, with hot chocolate?”

“EMBRACE CELESTIA’S SUN!” a PER member will call down, opening up with what looked like a paintball gun.

“Gotta be really fokkin good hot chocolate though,” Kraber will say, far too casually. “Maybe with mint…”

“What about peppermint?” Aegis will suggest.

“Even better!” Kraber will gasp.

“And now these PER assholes are here too,” Fiddlesticks will curse, before ducking back into cover and wearily beckoning to Kraber. “Viktor, show them the light.”

“Aww yeah, you want enlightenment, I’ll give your fokking enlightenment!” Kraber will yell, tossing a thermite grenade up at the PER man. “Here! HOLD THIS! YEHI ‘OR!”

Yehi‘or. Fiat lux. Let there be light…

“OH CELESTIA, THE BURNING!” the PER member will scream.

And Victor will look upon the light, and yea verily, see that it was good.

Fokking good.

“YEAH, YOU BETTER RUN!” he will yell, firing in the general direction of the immolating men. “YOU WANT ME TO DO THE FOKKING BEER TRICK?!”

“Oh shit! It’s them!”

“NOT THE BEER!”

“SPARE MY POSTERIOR!”

“MY GENITALIA!”

Music, sweet music.

“...You’re going to do it to them anyway, aren’t you?” Aegis will sigh, firing off his Thunderlords again.

“Why? Do you disapprove of the coors beer trick?” Kraber will ask.

“No, no,” Aegis will say. “They’re PER – fuckers probably deserve it. I’m just…well some things are just you being you.”

“What can I say? I’m a spirit of violence, and you can’t cage a free spirit…”

Wanton violence against PER is endemic to him by now, if we’re going to be honest.

Kraber will line up another shot and fires, nailing an HLF man in the knee, dropping him from a rooftop, sending him falling to an awning… only for him to bounce upwards off it, and awkwardly ram into the side of a van and bounce, landing on his stomach on the icy street.

“MY SPLEEN!” the man will scream.

Seeing the ragdoll slapstick comedy, Kraber will attempt a roguish smile and a punchline. “Besides. They’re resisting arrest, right?”

More than anything, his attempts at Hollywood badassery are just disturbing.

“...That is so fucked up,” Johnny C will sigh, half-jokingly, though he’s used to Kraber’s insanities and bloodlust at this point. “Stop trying to be cool and keep shooting, you batshit fuck.”

“I don’t need to try. Besides, who cares that I kill them? They’re PER,” Kraber will ask. “A couple months ago, I counted as one of the sanest men in the HLF.”

“...That’s even more fucked up!” Johnny C will yell back.

“I know, right?” Kraber will agree, momentarily leaving Johnny C speechless at this singular moment of clarity. “And as I said, who’s gonna miss these kontgesigs?”

“Friends, family…” will be Fiddlesticks’ dry response. “Ever wonder how many happy widows and orphans you’ve made?”

“You’re such a buzzkill at times.”

December 24, 2022
PHL base in New York

For you, Dancing Day, the unicorn filly listening to this rambling account, it feels as if it has been a long time since you started this story. Right now you’re looking through some of Mr. Kraber’s books. They’re odd things, with weird titles like The Scar’, ‘Marabou Stork Nightmares, Perdido Street Station, or Veniss Underground. You remembered Venice from the pictures, from the short found-footage projects of lost cities and landmarks that are so common nowadays, but you had questioned why it was spelled with two ‘S’s.

“Cause it’s the future,” Kraber had explained upon your question, awhile back. “It’s implied to be pretty degraded there.”

Kraber and Aegis are telling the story, and this time, more foals and children, even a few adults have come to listen. Babs Seed and Scootaloo (that poor pegasus! What happened to her wings?) are listening intently, curious for this man’s stories. Some foals lie against human children, and vice versa, sitting on mattresses and chairs that somebody brought into this room. Even Vinyl Scratch is here! You love her music so much....

A brown earth pony mare lurks at the back of the room too, secured to a wheelchair and escorted by a smirking zebra shaman. She’s got a particular loathing for Kraber it seems, from the fire blazing in her curious, blue-rimmed eyes.

“So you’ze sayin’ Sutra Cross’s murder didn’t start the Great HLF purge?” Babs Seed asks.

“That was just the spark that lit the fire. There’d been people thinking the HLF could be trusted, that they were chommies to all refugees – so long as you didn’t count ponies.”

To that, Kraber can’t restrain his disgust, and his self-loathing.

“We said it was only bosbefok radicals that stole from people with nothing left to rop, but Sutra...well what happened to her destroyed that idea,” he glowers, like a banked-over fire. “And… Honestly? We were all kind of bosbefok radicals. And any that weren’t then, sure are now.”

His gaze drifts over to the blank-flanked mare in the wheelchair, and spares her a momentary, mocking sneer. “You gotta feel sorry for those poor deluded bastards that think they can outdo the PHL…”

“Even da reformists?” asks Babs.

“Yeah, they’re just sorta low-wave varknaaiers – total dicks,” Kraber says. “Like, if the main body of the HLF is New York, then the reformists are New Jersey. Nobody gives them any heed, and most of the HLF like to point and laugh at them. Even if they have good ideas, they get ignored because the ideas of, say, John Birch mean that more ponies die. Aren’t even aware of how much harm they’ve done. At least I admit I’m a piece of shit.”

“Don’t get us wrong,” Aegis says, struggling to get the conversation back on track, “Sutra was a wonderful mare, kind to everyone, good friend of mine… but there was a lot more going on. First, she was one of the most prominent PHL members - she was one of the first, and she joined medical organizations to help earth right out the gate. I think she even met Reitman before she went nuts. But, when push came to shove, she had to join the PHL. Let’s say she didn’t consider the potion to be ‘medicine’, so she was fired from the hospital she worked at and blacklisted by the Equestrian medical community for not accepting a position at a Bureau… and for protesting the Potion. Poor mare nearly lost an eye in those riots... But the HLF had been assholes long before that.” He’d looked over at Kraber. “No offense.”

“Why would I take any?” Kraber asks. “They’re kontgesigs.”

“Don’t ask what that means, my little ponies… and mares. Anyway, continuing on from that, the HLF managed to piss off Salem, Boston, and the entire state of Massachusetts by torturing her.”

“I should point another thing out,” Kraber adds. “American HLF… mostly, they’re the paranoid kontgesigs you would’ve seen carrying kalashnikovs into a Panera before the War… The rest of the HLF from other countries are mostly refugees, Boston was almost three quarters refugees at this point, so they alienated the fok out of their target demographic.”

To the outside observer, it’d seem bizarre to hear Kraber say business jargon like that, but then again, Kraber reads China Mieville books without a dictionary, and the works of Joseph Conrad in the original Polish.

In the background, the mare in the wheelchair is being removed against her will. She might be too sedated to fight, and her voice hoarse from days of screaming and mad laughter, but at this rate she might just discover her newfound earth pony strength and rip a new ‘plothole’ in Kraber’s story.

“I am gonna get so much kak for that when she can move again, but that was worth it,” Kraber says to himself. “Adieu Verity Carter, adieu…”

As for yourself, Dancing Day, well you remember the day that the name Sutra Cross went national. Very, very well. Too well, even – you still wake up screaming from the memory of what was done to her.

“Boston’s one of, if not the closest port to Europe,” continues Kraber. “So Massachusetts had a lot of refugees. A lot of which just didn’t have the money to leave, so they were practically stuck at the umkhuku – that’s Zulu for chicken coop, you can guess what it means back home – by the docks or on someone’s roof until one group or another took pity on them.”

“It’s one of the reasons the PHL came there, and Sutra Cross had brought enough supplies to help everyone there. It was an enormous convoy,” Aegis takes over. “Hell, I’d helped make a lot of the supplies there. Even repaired some of the trucks! They were for people suffering from severe malnutrition, a hell of a lot of diseases, starvation…”

“And what do the so-called fokking liberators of fokking humanity do?” Kraber asks sarcastically. “They rop all the supplies, fill two of the ponies with more lead than the plumbing in a high school dorm, gorge themselves on them and get chwee chweereekeys off the painkillers in the most fokking horrible bust-up in the history of man or equine, and decide to fok over the nurse administering it every way they can! Klein kakfokkers…” he muttered. “Even made me and Burakgazi think they’d gone too far. I just… It made me ask what the point was. I mean, what the fok were we accomplishing? We were flou, pure and simple. IF THERE WAS A FOKKING THING THEY COULDA DONE TO PISS EVERYONE OFF, IT WOULD BE–”

“...And ‘flou’ means?” Scootaloo asks, ever the blunt-speaking roadblock in the path of a diatribe. Aegis mouths her a faint thank-you.

“A weak, unfunny joke,” Kraber explains, calming down slightly. “I actually did try to help out in Boston. I felt responsible for it, kinda…”

“But you weren’t there,” Vinyl says, confused.

“Well, I... I wanted to help somehow,” Kraber says. “I felt like I owed them. Anyway, what I’m getting at is that there’d been plenty of incidents between HLF and PHL. ‘friendly fire’, defections, all kinds of things. It was at fever pitch, and the HLF’s raging inferiority complex towards the PHL just got worse and worse…”

July 25, 2022
Off the coast of Maine
Near the Sorghum

It was amazing what industry a few horsefokkers – Perdnaaiers? – could manage. That wasn’t what Kraber would think in a couple month’s time, but that’s how it was back then.

As the good tugboat Arctic Warrior eased its way through the night and sleeting rain, they saw the colossal bulk of the Sorghum Exile. The mobile platform truly was an immense rig, its light shining out even into the darkness outside. It was dusk now, almost true night, and everyone there was getting a little twitchy as the boat closed the final mile to the target..

“Stay on course,” cautioned Verity, checking repeatedly forward through a pair of binoculars.

Everyone else stood alert, but Lovikov in particular had a huge smile on his face, staring up into the huge cannons mounted on the PHL rig.

Or at least, what they presumed to be cannons. Kraber wasn’t sure how Lovikov thought, but something in him was ever-so-close to breaking.

If it wasn’t gone already.

“Oh, it will be!” chirped a forest-green newfoal mare, balanced on the gunwale like a sprite. Kraber whipped out his .45, ready to shoot it in the face, only to find that-

“Oy va'avoy...”

She was covered in blood, one eye a mashed and jellied mass, pulped against a bullethole in her skull. Kraber could see her mane visible through the hole in her skull. A little hair actually appeared to have gotten stuck in there, waving out the empty eye socket.... her smile appeared to be held open with rusty hooks, blood oozing out from where they pierced the skin, the fur and skin underneath discolored by both blood and rust. Maybe she had once been beautiful, or as much as a pony could be nowadays… but there looked to be lines through her face, around her eyes. She looked like a porcelain doll, a decayed piece of Victorian automata, steadily cracking and unwinding...

“Isn’t that just wonderful?” she giggled.

‘Fok me, another hallucination?’ Kraber groaned inwardly. “Who are you?” He thought, doing his best to think at it. He was on a tug with the Thenardiers, after all. He had to… he couldn’t get shot too early into the mission.

“I’m you, silly! I’m Victory, your Pretty Private!”

FOK! It even sounded like Pinkie Pie.

“Or at least, I’m what you will be…”

“FOK JOU! I’ll never… EVER take the FOKKING POTION!”

“Oh, don’t be so defeatist! Who knows what the future holds? I don’t, but it looks wonderful…”

“Hou jou fokkin bek…” Kraber gritted his teeth.

“Now, now. Don’t be that way! You’re so grumpy aaalll the time. I miss your smile, Viktor!”

“Well, what the fok is there to smile about?!”

“As a human, there’s nothing,” the newfoal said. “But if you become me, you’ll be happy all the time!”

She jumps down off the gunwale onto the deck, trailing a string from her back that’d gotten stuck in a scupper…

… A pullstring, like you’d see on a child’s toy. As she hits the deck it comes taught, and she moans lewdly.

“You’ll be happeeeeeee, nice and happeeeeeee…beyond measure, purest pleasure. Sexy, sexy pleasure!” she giggled, sounding like she was on the verge of an orgasm.

“Fokking turn into a hoer to the Queen Bitch,” Kraber said. “I’m not a mare.”

He sighed, “Goddammit,” not knowing that in the future, foals would nitpick the story for how unbelievable his reaction seemed.

The truth was, Kraber was just too tired to know whether to be disgusted or disturbed.

“The queen can fix thaaaaaat….” the newfoal that called itself Victory said, fading away into the rain. “Seeya soon, Vicky…”

It was at that moment that Kraber became acutely aware of just how much he hated his life. Under his breath, he muttered a quick prayer – “Shema yisrael, adonai eloheinu, adonai echad…”

“Hey, Kraber.”

Kraber stood bolt upright, hand on his .45 pistol, ready to shoo-

“Whoa! Take it easy!” Mariesa yelled, hands up. “You’ve been jumpier than usual.”

“Jammer,” Kraber apologized. “I’ve… I haven’t been sleeping that well lately.”

“Wait, you actually sleep?” Mariesa asked, raising an eyebrow. “A lot of us hear you trying to sleep in that tent you have. You never sound good, always thrashing around… some of us are worried you might be going hatchers.”

”Even the HLF had standards awhile back. ‘Going Hatchers’ was their word for bosbefok,” Kraber explains, then, noticing that Aegis is the only other one in the room that understands Afrikaans, he explains: “Shell-shocked. The stress of battle getting to you. You know.”

You do know, yes. Too many ponies and humans have had that happen… especially Mr. Kraber. It’s sad, really – sometimes, you can see glimpses of who you think he once was. But those are fleeting, and you’re not sure what to look for.

“Anyway, we called it ‘going hatchers’ cause of this one woman, Beatrice Hatch. She was an old HLF, she’d known Mike Carter personally, and it seemed fokking nothing could shake her. She’d go in skop skiet and donner, come out unscathed,” Kraber continues, “But then… They were at a battle, somewhere. Probably the East Coast. And her son got ponified. But the newfoal, well, I don’t know what happened to the poor bliksem. Last I saw, her son had been running, going voetsek for a portal with a load of C4, trying to kill himself and take a bunch of ponies with him, but he fell in the portal and survived, right as the potion got to his skull…”

He pauses, and shudders like a skyscraper in a quake.

“The newfoal that came out, it was wrong. No, seriously. The regular newfoals already set the ‘wrongness’ bar pretty fokking high. But this... its eyes never focused on the same thing, and it kept babbling randomly. It didn’t want to kill anyone, it couldn’t talk without the words spilling into each other, but it wouldn’t leave Hatch alone, and it was always fokking crying.”

Everyone in the room, even Aegis, stares up at Kraber, disgusted and horrified. You think you’re going to be sick, and you feel a lump in your throat as Kraber continues.

“Was that… was that where the slang came from?” you ask.

“No,” Kraber says. “It’s from what his mother did. Hatch, well, she couldn’t leave things well enough alone, and smuggled it back to Defiance. Somehow, she’d managed to get herself exiled to this kakhole cabin a bit west of Defiance, and she forsook the HLF. I don’t know how she got the idea, but she’d gotten too bosbefok to be left to her own devices, and one day I was heading off to Errol for… for graze or something, maybe to use the wireless, or maybe I just wanted to see a pub. Decided to stop by – even if I didn’t like her keeping a newfoal, I felt sorry for her. And… And I found her with the newfoal on her kitchen table, sewing a fokking speaker into its stomach. It wasn’t protesting, it just looked like it had gone limp, its tongue hanging out as the needle steeked him. She just… she turned herself into the thing’s nursemaid, talking to it as if it was alive and still her son. Still human.”

There is an uncomfortable pause.

“What was… what was the speaker for?” Scootaloo asks.

“She claimed she could hear her son’s voice coming out of it,” Kraber says simply.

You are all mesmerized, staring in rapt attention at this sudden ghost story. “Well, could she?” you ask after a brief silence.

“That’s not important for awhile,” Kraber says, a bit too quickly. “I’m not sure I want to ova about it.”

“Trust him, it’s pretty fucked up,” Aegis says.

“Anyway, Mariesa had just asked how I was. And I’d said...

“I… I don’t think I’m hundreds,” Kraber said.

“What?” Mariesa asked. “Sorry… most of us don’t speak Afrikaans.” She paused. “Or, well, whatever other languages you speak.”

“Means I don’t feel fine,” Kraber answered. “Just – I can’t shake this feeling. I keep on asking myself… the fok am I doing? I’m hallucinating my family calling me a bliksem–”

“No we’re not.”

‘Hou jou bek, you.’

“And the worst thing is,” Kraber continued aloud, “they have a point.”

“Are they telling you to join the Tyrant Sun?” Mariesa asked. “I’ve heard that the PHL have hypnosis spells they can use to lure you in…”

“No we fucking don’t!” Vinyl yells. “Only the PER does that!”

“Yeah, well the HLF are…” Kraber muses. “Well, here’s the thing. They do not fokking understand the PHL any more than I can understand vaporwave music or seapunk. Or normalcore.”

“The hell is normalcore or seapunk?” Vinyl asks, head cocked to the side, one eyebrow raised over her huge purple sunglasses.

“Fokked if I can explain. It’s too tumblr for me.”

“You mean they don’t understand us?” Aegis corrects him.

“Right – sorry. Even if I’d say you’re all my chommies, it’s just a bit hard to get used to,” Kraber says. “We exist in completely different stories, different levels of reality. I mean, it’s like… the Europe Front, and whatever the Dragons of the East are doing. Same world, but different kinds of stories,” He took a breath. “I’m not kidding. The PHL – you guys – are from a story where there’s always hope, where you just have to work together to save the world. Where you can solve problems with science and magic… then apply it to bullets for a big fokking gun right out of District 9. Maybe we’re in Warframe?”

Aegis and Kraber share a Look at that. A look of ‘Ah, memories!’ that reminds them of testing massive grenade launchers, and that time Kraber used a thermite gun on newfoals.

“The HLF, though…” Kraber continues. “They live in Mad Max. They’re in a world where we’ve lost everything, where everypony or everyzebra or whatever is the enemy, where you’re with them or against. In the PHL, you’re – no, we’re fighting to protect the spirit of freedom for all species. In the HLF, it’s already dead and nothing is sacred. They don’t understand the PHL, they don’t understand why I joined or anyone else did. So they made excuses.”

“...That’s pretty bleak,” you say, visibly disturbed at just what that implies about the HLF.

“It’s why the HLF you see that joined, like this one Scotsman I met in a pub with these Englishmen… Angus Reid, I think – he practically had fokking sensory overload!” Kraber says.

“No, nothing like that,” Kraber said. “I’m just wondering what the fok I’m doing. I’m thinking, maybe I should have… I don’t know, helped build a railroad. Go work in a hospital, do something, anything that’ll help people out of Defiance.”

“We have to be ideologically pure,” Mariesa said. “If one of us brings back something from ponies–”

“Are you fokking saying that, or is Lovikov?” Kraber asked. "We're human. Let's live up to the name and do some fokking liberating."

She looked open-mouthed for a second, and leaned against the tug’s gunwale, watching the waves below. Kraber did the same, right next to her.

“I just… I look at Defiance. Then I look at the rig. I look at the gun I have, and the shit they have on the news, those… those damn rainmaker grenades."

"I heard about 'em from one of the Canadian brigades that got away from Yael," Mariesa said. "They're a holy terror. Thank god they're in the prototype ph–"

"And what happens when they're the standard? Or if the PHL have fokking AGLs of them… and I just realized this, but I’d really love to fire one. What the fok happens to us if they turn the rainmakers down on us and our chommies?” Kraber asked. “The PER, they have magic gear, and a couple billion newfoals on their side. What the fok do we have? And what do we do with it?”

“That’s dangerous talk!” Mariesa hissed. “Lovikov will kill you!”

“He wanted me dead anyway,” Kraber said bitterly. “Not like it’ll make a difference.”

“Please, keep your voice down!” Mariesa insisted.

“The HLF isn't a dictatorship,” Kraber said. “This… Our age is fokking ending. I don’t know how I know, but I know. One day, things will have gotten so much harder… and we won’t even wake up and realize it. It’ll be after a battle, or maybe just around midday, and I’ll just think: ‘My God, we’re fokking obsolete’.”

“I was… I was working off old anxieties there,” Kraber explains. “I mean… The MG2019 I had was a prototype. It’d be standard soon, and when that happened we’d be fokked. Thing put the war into perspective…”

"What're you talking about down there?!" a voice called down from the bridge. "Kapitan Kraber..."

It was Verity, and the snide on the last two words was acidic enough to etch steel.

“NOT YOUR FOKKIN’ BUSINESS!” Kraber replied, yelling over the roar of the tug’s bow-wave.

“I don’t care what you call yourself, Kapitan, but right now this is my boat, and that makes your business, my business!”

They glared at each other before Mariesa stepped in between, one hand placed on Kraber’s chest and the other held up towards Verity, palm out.

“Please, we’re all on the same side here. We’re all HLF...and that’s what we were talking about, Captain Carter. The cause.”

Verity tipped her head and made a half-shrug. “Fine.”

She didn’t move away however, she and the tall, muscled man continuing to cross-examine each other in silence. The young woman staring down from the bridge wing, and the soldier gazing up from the main deck.

“Alright, what’s the deal between the two of you. Why do you get along so badly?” Mariesa asked, projecting her voice ever so slightly.

There was a pause, as Kraber stared up at the pilothouse, feeling Verity looking down on him.

“I think kids should have a chance to be kids,” he said at last. “I mean… look at yourself, Verity. You’re twenty-something years old and you’ve spent your entire formative years as a soldier. Before the war, even. You never finished college, were never in lov–”

“Don’t you dare make guesses about me, Viktor!” Verity yelled back. “The way I’ve lived my life is my decision, my choice!”

They could see her bunching her fists on the rail, and her shoulders shaking, trickling with raindrops as the sky itself wept.

“All of it, I chose all of it. Because neither of you saw… saw what they did to my mother.”

“And you never saw what the potion did to my kids…” Kraber answered softly, and the two hardened warriors, divided by age and gender, but brought together by circumstances managed to share a smile.

“I met your mother once, did you know,” he said, tone cautious. “It was at a convention, once. The Boston Comic-Con, 2015 – I slipped out of class for it. I needed a fokking break...”

“Comic-Con 2015…” Verity mused, and both of the observers saw her visibly slip into nostalgia for back when people had big, flashy, decorated conventions like that, when there was money, clothes, and materials to spare for whatever costume you needed. When pop culture was a hell of a lot more important than living hand-to-mouth on what scraps you could find. “That...that was my first cosplay… I was in an Autobot exosuit. Wait, were you the guy with the pompadour, at the IDW panel!?”

“I’m assuming you don’t mean the stocky fat guy in the Kill La Kill shirt, right?” Kraber asked. “He was a funny guy. Could stand to shave a bit more, though… I saw him dressed as one of the Galaxy Girls the next day...”

“So close… and yet so far...”

“At least he looked good in tights…”

Verity waved a desperate hand. “No goddammit no! The guy in leathers, dressed like a greaser… kept asking my Mom all the questions about her work for DC and Dark Horse, who was he cosplaying…? Oh yeah, Sweet JP from Redline!”

“Oh, that dipshit…” Kraber said. “Yeah, that was me.”

“You looked kinda funny,” Verity admitted.

“Hey, I smaak Redline! I even ghostwrote a paper on it for a friend in film school!” Kraber defended himself. “What the fok was I supposed to watch? Tailenders? Sies, man. Hated that so much.”

“Yeah, I saw that,” Verity said. “It… wasn’t all that good.”

“Say, did you know that JP’s real name is actually…” Kraber sniggered. “James Punkhead?!”

“No way!”

“I’m not tuning your kak, it really is!” Kraber protested.

They chuckled softly, sharing a memory. Then Kraber’s expression darkened.

“Your mother was a brave woman. What the ponies did to her, that… that wasn’t right. Look, Verity,” Kraber said. “We might not get along, we might be too similar to really… get each other, but I understand your–”

A crack over the radio snapped the conversation’s tail off.

“The hell is that?” Mariesa asked.

“That’s the PHL’s local radio station,” Lovikov said. “It’s broadcast from the Sorghum by some horsefucker and her friend. I was hoping to take it over too. Add a little… personal touch.”

“I like your style,” Verity said approvingly. “Go ahead!”

“You… you can sympathize with Verity?” Amber Maple asks.

“We all lost something in this war. Our pozzies, our chommies, our families, our lives… though that doesn’t mean it wasn’t hilarious what happened to her,” Kraber says. “Except the PER. They gave it away.”

There is an uncomfortable pause after this sentence.

“What about Kasparek?” you ask.

“Kasparek damn near killed himself to get to the PHL,” Kraber says. “I can’t hate a man like that. And he gave us all big fokking guns.”

“...I’m not sure what to say about your attitude towards forgiveness,” Aegis says.

“Well, it’s not easy,” Kraber shrugs. “We’re not so different, really.” He pauses. "...now I feel pretty fokking terrible about what I said to Verity.”

“Well, she’s HLF, cast adrift, left without…” Vinyl starts, her sentence stillborn.

“So was I,” Kraber says. “If I didn’t have Aegis, I’d be fokking ponified, dead… or stretched out on a table somewhere with a toolbox next to me.” He looks up at Aegis appreciatively. “She’s got nobody, pony or human.”

Aegis moves closer to Kraber, comforting him with his great pugnacious bulk, and Kraber leans against his barrel, gently sipping some hot chocolate that you suspect to be alcoholic.

“Thanks,” Kraber says, a warm smile on his face as he moves slightly, Aegis inclining his great neck towards Kraber for a hug.

“Just… don’t squeeze too hard, alright? I still think you cracked some ribs,” Aegis says.

“Sorry,” Kraber says, looking a little embarrassed as his best friend – his bru, his chommie – hugs him, and Kraber hugs back. “I love you so much, Aegis.”

“Me too,” Aegis admits, blushing slightly, the expression out of place on such a huge stallion.

“Hold on,” Kraber says, something dawning. “...I’ve got an idea. For Verity’s christmas present… Verksoon my a mo, I’ve got to talk to the Major! I’ve got a Hanukkah idea!”

And with that, he and Aegis have dashed out the room to requisition, leaving you looking confused.

When they return, Kraber talks about the rig, and how it was...

In a word, enormous. Saying it was a city unto itself would have been trite and cliche, though it was one of the only descriptors that Kraber could think to use. It was massive, colossal towers, drilling platforms and pumphouses and inscrutable rugged-yet-kitbashed PHL machinery balanced by improvised buildings that made it look like nothing so much as a mass of paint, girders, and rust. Shipping containers and deceptively hardy driftwood dwellings had been hammered and welded into place where possible. A few didn’t look to have ladders down, and were perched high up on the rig. Probably pegasus houses? But beneath all that, Kraber could see those huge PHL weapons, bristling like hairs from the upper echelons of the four pillars that bore the Sorghum’s weight. The cannons had been modified in some odd, exotic manner, with additional machinery added on, strung and bound with cords that steamed softly in the drizzle, glowing lightly in the cloudy night.

The light cast by the platform reached down and illuminated the darkening ocean below, which was populated by a multitude of boats, swaying gently in the sluggish, frigid current. Most were tugs, running the gamut of the four types America could manage –

New at the time of the war...
Fairly modern, which usually became...
Long overdue for scrap...

Or finally...

The rare homebrewed one made from said scrap and odds and ends lying around, or old boats frankensteined together from spare parts. The latter types were smaller, rarely built on any large scale, weaving in between the boats guarding the rig, its various tugboats, and the other semi-permanent boats docked and anchored near the rig.

To Kraber’s amazement, there looked to be small stores on the boats weaving in and out of the mass of vessels. Most of those were taking turns at the docking ports around the feet of the rig’s support columns.

Squinting, he saw that on one moored-up boat a large earth pony in a lifejacket was passing baskets of fish up to a longshoreman on the rig.

Supplies, this was how the floating community kept itself found. And there were many more boats clustering around - tugs not-so-different to the Arctic Warrior (bar of course, the submerged compartment full of ruthless soldiery) along with a smattering of gunboats, both purpose-built and improvised, and patched, half-scuttled ships that clung to the Sorghum’s bulk like pilot-fish to a whale. Kraber doubted that a lot of them had more than one voyage left in them, save for the last desperate trip down south as the Barrier made its way to America…

Down below, hovering just above the waves, he saw a pink pegasus hammering in a large metal patch to a boat that looked like it should have been scrapped… in the nineties. It listed to one side, on account of the various houses bolted onboard like odd growths or barnacles. The label ‘Winterstraw Market’ was emblazoned on the side of it.

Yeah, Kraber reflected, Someone out there definitely has a sense of humor about this.

Tethered to the market and other boats, he could see aerostats made from a reclaimed and incredibly large potioneer ships, the PHL logo sprayed over eight-layer-thick graffiti on the gasbag.

If the rig was a city upon the sea, then here was the umkhuku suburbia, exiled from who-knew-where or making their way down from the wilderness of northern canada. Some of them looked to have beaten to high hell. Lots of the boats bore the scars of some kind of offensive magic, such as strangely transmuted wood with grain that appeared to be interspersed with metal wire, or shoots of plants growing up from the wood.

The largest of the support ships bore the name Genesis, and appeared to have began life as a bulk grain carrier. Now, its lengthy foredeck was a colossal hydroponic greenhouse, glassed and tented in to grow crops, likely the closest that most ponies on the rig would have to an orchard or vegetable patch. Kraber had heard that most of the PHL’s ‘oceangoing’ ponies were pegasi – their ability to fly made staff changes easy, and a life on the ocean wave satisfied their avian desire to roam, but a ship like Genesis would probably have at least some earth ponies at hoof to staff the greenhouses and artificial orchards.

‘Pegasi are simple, they usually have SMGs or bombs or molotovs, but earthlings favor those ridiculous little assault saddles with the light machineguns...there’ll definitely be some unicorns, if only because the PHL is addicted to with their magic...’

Still, even with those considerations in mind, the majority of the ponies present would be ‘peggies’, who tended to be overconfident and had lightweight, easily broken bones. So this should probably be an easy job.

“Shit,” Mariesa said. “I didn’t think there’d be this many people...”

“Huh?” Viktor grunted, and then realised that he had been so focused on the ponies that he’d neglected the veritable army of human security personnel patrolling both the rig and the large ships. So many guns were out there… and of course, he doubted the people on the boats were unarmed. That was a luxury few could afford nowadays.

“That makes things interesting,” admitted Verity, who had come out onto the bridge wing to join them.

“...Are we changing plans? Doing something else?” Lovikov asked, clearing balking at the thought of taking orders from someone so much younger than him.

“No. If we wait, the actual tow will arrive, and then the rig will leave. And once it’s under way, getting aboard is going to be near to impossible,” Verity said. “And since they swallowed our cover, they’re expecting us, so we have to do it now. There’s no other option.”

Hundreds, Kraber thought, making a mental shrug of acceptance. Not like he had a way out of this sort of thing.

With Verity keeping up a string of repeated commands from the rig over the radio, the Arctic Warrior muscled itself through the teeming vessels towards the nearest of the pillars. Wider across than the tugboat was long, the vertical pillar was coated in umber-red anti-fouling paint, and featured collapsible jetties around the base that unfolded for vessels to tie up to.

“Redd, be ready on the aft lines,” she instructed. “Viktor, go forward, and don’t try be a pirate. Just take the coil of rope and sling it to the guy on the jetty…”

“...and then shoot him in the gesig while his hands are full?”

“...And the gesig is…”

“Face.”

“Wait, so you keep saying ‘kontgesig’, so… DAMMIT! No, you hick. You want his buddies to return fire? Are you trying to get killed?” she snorted. “Once we’re made fast I’m going to use the tug’s engines to whip the whole jetty sideways and knock em’ to their knees. Then you can go Johnny Depp batshit. But no guns. Keep it silent.”

It was a beautiful, elegant plan…

...and unlike most, it survived first contact with the enemy.

The enemy however, did not.

“Alright, you’re tied up. You can shut off your engines n-hey! Hey! What are you doing! Go ASTERN, TUGBOAT WARRIOR, GO ASTE-ARGH!”

“This part isn’t easy,” Kraber said. “...Not the outright worst fokking thing I did in the war, probably. But it’s the one that hits the most.”

Perhaps, in years past, this would have been a dream come true for Kraber. He would have strode straight into a building, smile on his face and a huge gun in his hands.

The crew on the mooring platform had gone down as free and readily as good whiskey. While they were still dazed, Kraber and his crew had jumped aboard and ‘helped them to their feet’. It was partly common sense, but also important that the cluster of boats not realise what they were seeing and report it up the chain of command.

So yeah, jump onto the jetty, grab each of the defenders (two per man, keep it simple), and then hustle them through the door into the support columns inner shell. The rest was just the free application of violence.

And now the Arctic Warrior was secured tight to the column, the boarding-party were disembarking from their secret compartment onto the platform…

… and nobody or nopony knew that it had happened.

“Beautiful!” enthused Lovikov as they climbed the stairs to the upper works. “A perfect insertion, just perfect. Almost fun.”

‘He’s getting worse… Fun, yeah’, mused Kraber. It had to be fun, didn’t it? It had to be fun killing the damn invaders and their toadies, those fokking mank genaaide bergboks!

He made a promise to himself. He had to give himself over to this, body and soul. If he was going to die here, as Lovikov had promised, he was going to be damn good at this.

The top of the column’s spiraling staircase opened up into a courtyard in one corner of the platform’s main working deck. Pipes as great and huge as felled redwoods rumbled, spat and hissed, forming a lattice roof over their heads. It was like walking through an industrial jungle.

“Hey. You’re… you’re the new tug crew, aren’t you?” asked a viridian-colored pegasus trotting up to them. He wore a light, inconspicuous assault yoke with two PDWs that vaguely resembled a P90, though Kraber could still pistol grips for humans protruding from the bottom of the things. Good touch. “Don’t think you’re supposed to be here.”

Now, there could have been a bloodless, easy way to do this. The HLF could have appealed to the reasonability of the PHL. They could have held the pony hostage. They could have been convincing. There could have been minimal bloodshed.

That would have made too much sense.

“Don’t think you do either,” Kraber said, and before he knew it, his revolver was in hand.

The pegasus’ head exploded all over the hot pipework, congealing and cooking immediately upon contact. The smell of burnt flesh and blood filled the cold air as more of the sanguine red liquid poured from the pony’s twitching corpse.

In perfect time, the assault team poured up the stairwell and spilled around Viktor and Lovikov, and like parasites introduced into a body, began to divide, and spread, and slaughter.

Author's Note

Edited a bit to show how the HLF took the rig. Red was a bit pissed about that...

Sunset City / God Bless us Every One

Light Despondent, chapter 8:
Sunset City / God Bless us Every One

Co - Authors / Editors
TB3
Rush
VoxAdam
Kizuna-Tallis

”And here, we come to the biggest flaw of the HLF.”

“Jealousy?” Scootaloo suggests.

“Overconfidence?” Babs offers.

“They’re total dicks?” Vinyl adds.

“Their insanity in hiring you?” snarks Dinky.

“Let’s just say I had an… impressive resume,” Kraber answers. “Funny you should mention that, though, cause I ended up having to be the fokking sane one a couple weeks from the rig.”

He pauses for effect.

“YOU?!” Dinky gasps.

“...What,” Vinyl says, bewildered beyond even including inflection in her voice.

“I know!” Kraber agrees. “It was fokking awful! I mean, there they are, planning to blow up a dam, and I’m just there saying ‘AM I THE ONLY ONE THAT SEES A FOKKING PROBLEM WITH THIS?!’ And then they go, ‘DO NOT INTERRUPT MY BEING INGENIOUS!’ while about to do some stupid fokking shit, like, I don’t know, using mustard gas that could blow back into the camp and kill everyone.”

“...I would have thought that was the thing you mentioned earlier,” you yourself say. “The… different levels of reality thing?”

“Oh yeah. Good points... all of you. Except for you Dinky. But anyway, I talked to Sebastian Irving about it, right after I tried that thermite gun,” Kraber says. He rarely talks about his friend “Said they promote people just for hating ponies.”

“That’s terrifying!” you say.

“It is. Sometimes, you get someone competent, like Galt, but most times, you get varknaaiers like Birch.”

“And now that I think about it, most HLF officers,” Aegis adds. “Which reminds me - wasn’t that why Angus Reid left the HLF?”

“Heh, yeah. He said that the old man in charge was concerned with their public image…” Kraber adds. “Which is where you see the flaws. The PHL promotes people for effectiveness, eccentricity be damned. Which is how I’m where I am now – Hauptgefreiter Kraber.”

“I gotta admit, it came as a surprise, but congratulations, bru. You worked hard for it,” Aegis says.

“Why thank you!” Kraber says, genuinely surprised, as if he’d never expected to hear that. He puts an arm over Aegis’ neck. “But the HLF’s the reverse, so you get clinically fokking insane people commanding the ranks.”

“...Like you?” Babs suggests.

“I’m bosbefok, not crazy,” Kraber dismisses her. “Besides… I wasn’t good at following orders, or organization back in the HLF.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed,” Babs says.

“I know, right? Turns out that exploding a newfoal’s skull with your mind is therapeutic…” Kraber sighs contentedly.

“Wha– HUH?!” Scootaloo gasps.

“We’ll go into that later,” Kraber says a little too quickly.

“Who is Birch, anyway?” you ask. “You mentioned him a while back.”

“This one kontgesig from the HLF that nobody likes,” Kraber says.

“Oh, I remember him!” says one ex-HLF woman, only just approaching the end of her teens.

“Where’d you see him, ah…” Kraber’s voice trails off as he racks his brain for the memory of her name.

“Elena Shapiro,” she explains, to Kraber’s thanks. “It was back in ‘21, over in Atlantic City. Typical conspiracy nut, believed in reptilians, chemtrails, illuminati-”

“-So, basically Lazarus from Deus Ex,” Kraber interrupts.

“-I loved that game! Probably gonna get ponified in a year, if he hasn’t been already. But the weirdest thing was that he believed that he’d seen ponies kidnapping people all the way back to 2016.”

“Actually, Kraber and you colts and fillies,” Zecora calls back, leaving her irritable and weakened charge out in the hallway, “I find that it might not be so silly.”

“Eish?” Kraber asks.

“Potions and medicine demand a test,” Zecora explains. “As you may know, the first version is rarely best.”

“But that would mean…. hmmm,” Kraber says thoughtfully. “Alright. It is pretty weird that nobody ever considers the test subjects. Anyway, he was a crazy, bosbefok guy that–”

Meanwhile, in the future…
November 18, 2023…

Kraber will be lying in a hospital bed with a cracked scapula and several torn muscles, along with a few minor injuries from the downright fokking awful train ride here. He has the stuffed animals he’s carried with him all this way. His nose is broken – amazing how he forgot that – and his eyes have dark circles under them, he’s trembling, his skin is almost gray, his eyes dart from side to side, his hair is lank and greasy… he looks almost dead. He’s dimly aware that something should hurt like hell. Thankfully, nothing major has broken, but Kraber will be in the bed more for rest than anything. Besides, Major Bauer, Lieutenant Trixie, Colonel (emphatically not ‘commander’) Renee, and Cheerilee wouldn't want him to be in that other Equestria. He and Aegis would be the first to admit it – Kraber would have a psychotic break as soon as he got there. Only an idiot would have thought he should go there. Still, he will have to wonder about... About Pinkie Pie. He'd liked her when he talked to her over the phone, in spite of his distrust of PER. So... What was the real her like? What the FOK was she going through?! Nobody deserved that....

Wait...

Suddenly, so many things about Maud and that bizarre fokking note in the PHL archives will make sense. While he hates the betrayal, he can't hate her. They’re not so different, are they?

He will decide he hates the queen more than ever – that fokkin teef saw some of the most trusted ponies in her empire just as assets, and made them into monsters just to ensure loyalty. Worse, she did it the most sadistic fokking way possible.

“Shouldn’t you be asleep by now?” Aegis will ask. They will be playing Warframe, and Kraber will be playing Mesa, having armed himself with a Brakk and Boltor Prime.

Aegis, however, is using Rhino. How fitting. He’s also armed himself with the Twin Gremlins and a Karak. The one from the game, not the common frankengun that Kraber's had the misfortune of using.

“I’m not sure I want to at this point,” Kraber will say, stifling a yawn.

“Hey, you said you’d sleep when you have time,” Aegis will reply. “And here we are...” he will cast one foreleg out, pointing to nothing in particular with his hoof, “We have time!”

“I know, I know,” Kraber will say. “It’s just… the kak I’ve seen…” he shoots one Infested ancient in the face. “I saw experiments. I saw the potion get made. I fokking saw Twilight Sparkle begging for mercy, as she experimented on people that... couldn’t have all come from after the Manifestation,” he’ll realize. “Son of a bitch.”

“Wait. So you’re saying that Celestia kidnapped people before the War, which means… which means... Birch…” Aegis will continue, similarly aghast.

And they will say in unison:

"MOTHER FOKKER!”

“Oh, the shit we two know, huh?” Kraber will laugh afterwards.

The stamping of feet on deck and the first distant gunshots drew attention fast.

“What’s going on Seafo–” blurted an older soldier with a shotgun and older equipment, rushing into the courtyard before taking stock of the situation. A UN patch shone blue on his shoulder.

He saw everything. The invading troops, Kraber and Lovikov… and the dead pony.

“Seafoam! YOU SONS OF BITCHES!” he screamed, unholstering his shotgun. “I’ll–”

Kraber’s LMG is lifted clear of his duffel bag, or perhaps the duffel bag fell off around the LMG. Instantly, he’s fanned the trigger and three blazing rounds through that man’s gut, leaving the varknaaier screaming, clutching his bleeding, crimson stomach.

The Battle of the Sorghum had commenced in earnest.

It would be hard for Kraber to ever describe the firefight to secure control of the platform. Not for the violence involved, no. Nor was it because of brutality, or some new cruelty visited on people, like his masterworks of disemboweling PER members (and then tying them to trees for wolves to eat, cooing as the adorable fluffy wolf pups nibbled on the stomach), or that time he pretended to dump potion on someone’s head and it was really… well, that wasn’t important.

“See, in action movies,” Kraber would tell a grouping of fillies and young adult mares a little over a year later, “...And most of my life, actually, firefights are choreographed long-range spectacles. Blood spraying everywhere. And the Conversion War, that’s pretty fokking large-scale.”

This… this was small-scale, at point-blank range for an MG2019, and it ripped them apart, punching massive holes.

Inasmuch as a firefight could be, it was an intimate affair, personal and tender.

As the HLF force inveigled themselves through the corridors and compartments, ponies revealed themselves, along with men and women holding shotguns. They placed themselves behind corners and barricades, weapons at the ready… only for the HLF to launch grenades and pipebombs at them, the shrapnel and nails inside shredding the poor varknaaiers and adding dashes of colour to the industrial grey of the platform’s decor.

PHL with combat vests (often festooned with glowing markers that showed them to be shielded) were priority targets, with grenades tossed at them. They hadn’t expected this - how could they? The typical HLF response to combat-ready PHL soldiers was simple. Toss out some of the nonlethal grenades such as flashbangs that hadn’t been all that prominent in the war, and take advantage of the lull to pour bullets into their skulls, legs, or areas with weaker armor, wearing down the shield under an avalanche of fire and improvised explosives. The armor was durable enough that aiming for center of mass was almost a moot point.

PHL shields were durable. Enough that you could empty a magazine from one gun into them without so much as a spark on the shield, if you were unlucky enough. But then, the combined weaponry of several Thenardier Guards and Menschabwehrfraktion at near-point-blank range, that was enough to give the scant few soldiers on the rig pause.

Best of all, the HLF had the element of surprise on their side when going up against soldiers. And, most of all, numbers.

The rig's workers were most, if not all, of the defenders. People in jumpsuits and fluorescent vests, with a museum’s worth of arms. Some had cheap milisurp, Century Arms weapons that John Fitzsimmons from Maine had told Kraber not to bother with, and some had things that might have been taken from actual armories, but those were the minority. Most were armed with pistols, hunting rifles and shotguns that had likely never been intended for actual combat, and still others had taken the target rifles and bird guns ignored by more fortunate folk. They were the firearms of the desperate majority who had been unable to acquire actual military-grade weaponry, and against HLF body-armor, many of them had all the stopping power of a wayward breezy.

“...My God, we barely have a real military here!” Kraber heard someone scream. “They’re just murdering workers! And us, if we don’t-”

Her voice was cut off, as Kraber saw a woman with dyed-blue hair falling to the ground choking, clutching a .45ACP-sized hole in her throat.

And so a pattern established itself. Advance into another room, receive sporadic defensive fire, return with extreme prejudice. The defenders were loaded for bear, and the aggressors were loaded for tanks. Kraber's .338 rounds punched through up to two, even three of the PHL kontgesigs at a time, leaving bloody ruin and glistening trauma in their wake, pink and purple and putrescent.

He barely even had to shoulder it – at this range, he could just spray, with no need to pray. Any round he fired would probably hit something.

And hit they did. So many people and ponies fell to the ground, clutching massive holes, screaming as Kraber fired… and fired… and fired again.

When the MG2019 ran out of ammo, he simply pulled out his .45 pistol and fired that, the .45ACP rounds punching through head after head. When that was done, Kraber tried for the revolver – headshots with that thing didn’t leave pretty little holes, all he could see were a few remnants of the lower jaw when he fired.

This was fun, wasn’t it?! WASN’T IT?!

“You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?” that new hallucination, Victory said, as Kraber slipped into another room. “Go on! INDULGE YOURSELF!”

She was holding her own pullstring in her hooves, and yanking it in tune to every dying scream and gurgle.

“Hi I’m Victory, the Pretty Private. Hi, I’m Victory, I’m your death. Hi I’m Victory, your pocket-monster psychopath, hi, hi, hi, DIE!”

“No, Kraber! This isn’t you!” the older newfoal screamed, screamed in Kate’s voice.

“HOU JOU FOKKIN BEK, JOU VARKNAAIERS!” Kraber yelled back, not sure if he was yelling at the PHL or the two newfoals in his head.

Shouldering the MG2019, he aimed for one PHL man’s knee, the round tearing through it and shattering a pony’s hoof as it exited on the far side. As added insult, Kraber strode up to the PHL man, and kicked him in the face.

“You fucking sonova–” the PHL man screamed, just before Kraber’s boot shattered his jaw again, cracking his skull against the wall. The pony behind him, a purplish-colored earth pony stallion, tried to jump up, but fell, the stump of his hoof oozing blood. He gritted his teeth and tried to move, but–

“Hi,” Kraber whispered, getting down on his knees in front of the pony and slipping on his brass knuckles. “I’m Viktor, the smiling psycho.”

Kraber drew back his fist and bliksemed the PHL man, fist driving into his skull. In the corner of his eye, he could see Victory applauding him, and rushed on, laughing hysterically.

“JOU FOKKING INVADERS! JOU THINK JOU CAN SCREW WITH US, JOU BLIKSEM?!” Kraber screamed, lashing out, gouging and punching, again and again.

His victims, pony and human alike screamed incoherently, and Kraber finished each by driving a razor-edged fist into their throats, feeling a grim satisfaction everytime something went squish.

“Oh!” called out Victory, offering out her own golden horse-shoes. “Do you want to try these out? They’ve got bladed tips and are perfect for this kinda fun. Course, you’ll need hooves, but we have just the medicine for that.”

“Stop it Viktor!” screamed the shade of Anka, her voice high and piercing. “Please, just stop this and listen to me!”

But Kraber was beyond listening. Right now he’s managed to reduce one pony’s skull into a concave bowl, and is far from spent.

“JOU LIKE HURTING KIDS, HUH?!” Kraber screamed, feeling something crack, and the corpse’s skull splits, releasing the soft centre. “JOU LIKE HURTING PEOPLE THAT JUST WANTED TO FOKKING RUN AWAY?!”

Another punch.

“JOU FOKKIN POESNEUS!”

“You… you’re one to talk,” the shade of Emil sighed in disappointment. “You… you’re just scared little children, murders and rapi–”

“AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGH!” Kraber yelled, and headbutted a fresh pony, the spikes on his helmet impaling her eye. The mare screamed, a high piercing note that made Kraber’s ears ache.

“NOBODY! FOKKING! CALLS ME THAT!” Kraber yelled, pounding his fists into the earth pony. This was… it felt good, right?! IT WAS FOKKING SUPPOSED TO BE RIGHT! NOTHING WAS RIGHT!

Maybe if he pounded a corpse further into dust again it’d be fun. Maybe then he could finally feel like a hero!

Maybe... if he punched her again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again–

“Kraber…”

There was a voice screaming his name, but it didn’t feel unimportant.

And then a pair of hands caught his fist, twisted his arm behind his back, and forced him into a submission hold, breaking his focus… and slamming him face-first into the floor.

“I know who you are, you bastard,” the man hissed, and Kraber was thrown at a wall, choking as the wind was knocked out of him. He wheezed, and coughed up blood inside his mask as a booted foot slammed into his stomach.

Kraber could see the name written on his PHL vest - Imbeault. “Viktor Kraber,” he said. “They’ll pay me good for your body.”

Kraber headbutted him, and Imbeault looked stunned… if only for a moment, before throwing Kraber at another wall.

FOK! He was so strong!

Kraber was thrown out of the room, the door smacking against his back, as he tumbled back outwards. Oh, fok!

“Dodge… this…” Kraber said, as he rolled over, unlimbering his MG2019, and opening full-auto.

Now, strong as Imbeault might have been, good as his shields might have been, it was still a machinegun chambered for .338 Norma Magnum at close range. And aimed at Imbeault’s head.

Imbeault staggered back, the weight of bullets smashing against him.

“But how?! How the hell did you get that PHL-”

And finally, impossibly, a hail of bullets shredded through Imbeault’s skull. He swayed for a second, and crumpled down. His armor was mostly intact, but his head was a pulped mess, barely more than a few scraps of flesh attached to the neck.

“...Oh holy shit,” Kraber wheezed. “Thanks for the save. Except you, Lovikov!” he yelled.

“I’m your commanding officer, you sonovabitch!” Lovikov yelled.

“Then why…” Kraber coughed, blood dripping onto his vest, “Didn’t you shoot the kontgesig?!”

“You know, he’s right,” one Thenardier Guard said. “What the hell was with that guy?”

“We’ve gotten as far as the radio suite” called down one other Menschabwehrfraktion woman named Katrin, originally from Amsterdam. “They’re resisting pretty heavily!”

There was a scream, and a bang.

“What goddamn resistance?!” the newfoal asked in Kate’s voice. “They were just doing their jobs! They were doing something that’d help during Barrierfall! And you've refused to do anything like that! Oh,” the creature said in his voice, playing back what he’d said last night, “And if I'm near one pony, one of those fokking invaders that destroyed our home – then they’ll kill me. Ponify me! They can’t be trusted! I’m willing to bet they’ve done more to help humanity than you have in the last couple years!”

“Oh, don’t stress about it,” trilled Victory. “I mean, its all just more dead humans and traitors. You’re actually making it easier for Her Majesty by reducing the surplus population. When you’re me, you’ll thank yourself too! Keep up the good work.”

“Shut up…”, Kraber hissed as he walked in the direction of the Menschabwehrfraktion man’s voice, eventually finding himself in the radio facilities, a small cluster of soundproofed rooms, each broadcasting on a different frequency and topic.

It wasn’t a long distance - for all its size, the rig occupied a very small footprint, after all.

He practically waded through blood to get to this deck. Ponies, most of them pegasi, lay dying on the floor, some of them with their heads...

‘What manner of liberator does this?’

...their heads missing, blown apart by HLF munitions, the gray-pink residue of their brains spattered against the wall. Some were still alive, and two HLF members, a short man and woman with an AK74S-U each (Burton and Sarah Mallett) held a screaming pegasus down, sawing her wings off with a hacksaw.

‘Does this accomplish anything?’

One dead pony looked to be a foal, and Kraber’s heart seized up as, for a moment, he saw the foal he’d saved two nights before superimposed over her. Looking at him with pity again - not anger, pity. An ass-mark of what looked to be ballet shoes fitted for hooves, whatever they were called, was emblazoned on her flank, but when he walked past her, it… It wasn’t there. He turned around – had she only gotten a cutie mark on one flank? He turned around a little, curious, to find that it wasn’t there on that side either.

It wasn’t there! Okay, just a…. just another hallucination. He had to keep going but–

He remembered something. Something from back in Istanbul, a moment with Burakgazi. Right after they’d blown up the Bureau there...

July 29, 2019
Istanbul, Turkey
Right after the Istanbul Conversion Bureau bombing
A cafe with really good baklava

“Thanks for recommending this place," Kraber said appreciatively. "So... What was so important?"

"I found some textbooks,” said Burakgazi, the strange, stocky man that Kraber had met planning a completely separate terrorist attack on the Bureau, through the use of what seemed to be homemade chemical bombs. He was perhaps best described as ‘indeterminately brown’ – he looked Turkish, but there was a trace of something asian in his features, owing to one Japanese parent, which, he claimed, owed to the fact that Japanese and Turkish were very similar languages. He had somewhat wrinkled tan skin, early graying, prematurely receding dark hair, and a thick short dark beard that appeared to go out in every direction. “Textbooks from Equestria.” He looked to be somewhere into his thirties. It was hard to guess.

They were sitting at a cafe in Istanbul, looking on approvingly at the emergency services rushing by them, ready to rescue the Bureau personnel. Not much point, really – Kraber was half-tempted to stand up, take a look at the various mosquitos (as a Boston policeman by the name of Django Miller had termed the onlookers that flocked to a crime scene, back when Kraber was still in college) and others rushing to the site of their handiwork, and call out “STOP RUNNING, JOU FOKKING KONTGESIGS! THE HUMANS THAT RUN BUREAUS ARE FOKKING DEAD ALREADY!”

“Why the fok would you want to look at those, Mr. Burakgazi?” Kraber asked, disgustedly.

“Please. Call me Kagan,” Burakgazi said warmly. “We blew up that fokking concentration camp they called a…”

“You know, I’m Jewish, but the description seems accurate,” Kraber said.

Burakgazi breathed a sigh of relief… then he made a noise of disgust. “Was that bad to you, eh?”

“It was fokking Dachau in there!” Kraber exclaimed. “Praise the Lord and pass the thermite. But… why textbooks?”

“Well, I cherish knowledge,” Burakgazi said. “...Eventually, your knowledge of where to get thermite grenades. But I even cherish knowledge from goddamned gluesticks. They’re quite fascinating, really. Apparently, ponies have something called alicornal tissue – it’s thaumaturgon-superconducting...”

“Did someone read Perdido Street Station when they came up with that?”

“....Huh. That is weird. Still, I suppose it’s a good name for the particles that alicornal tissue can interact with. Damn, you’ve read that book too?”

“I love that book! New Crobuzon… amazing city, but I wouldn’t want to live there. I do like the point Mr. Mieville makes about criminals being marked for life…”

“It’s really not all that different when you get down to it,” Kagan agreed. “Anyway – turns out those ass-marks they have grow out of super-concentrated alicornal tissue pockets in their flanks – sometimes in other places, but that’s rare – and marks them with the skill they’re best with at, what they’ll be happiest with… No damn clue what it’d be. Usually it activates by the time they’re eleven.”

Kraber staggered against a blood-spattered window, against which sleeting sea spray was hurled by the wind, his head reeling. The navigation lights of ships on the ocean below danced in strange orbits, as he tried to comprehend the body before him. There were sporadic firefights all over the area, some of which were on the boats below. Let the kontgesigs come. He wouldn’t mind.

It had a cutie-mark. So that meant it wasn’t a newfoal – newfoals were always part of the PER or what have you. He’d shot a ch–

‘You fokking lying hypocrite…’ he thought, only for an unwelcome voice to finish the thought.

“You did this two days ago, and you laughed!” giggled Victory, the Pretty Private. “You stupid, stupid human! But don’t worry…” she said, waggling one hoof back and forth like a mother chastising her son, one of those STUPID FOKKING PSYCHOLOGISTS THAT TREATED HIM OR HIS KIDS LIKE SHIT! “You can forget this if you just go pony…”

“Don’t listen! Viktor… this isn’t doing anything!” the other newfoal pleaded in Kate’s voice. “This is your last chance for reclamation! There’s only so long before the PHL and the U.S armed forces slaughter any HLF that don’t surrender, or before the HLF do something so terrible that the police might just decide you all resisted arrest! They know you, Viktor!”

“Then,” Kraber said, looking uneasily at the remains of yet another pony, pinned to the wall with what looked like a railroad spike, “I have to fight, if the PHL will resort to-”

“It won’t be them that resort to despicable things” the other newfoal interrupted. “It will be you. You’re already doing them! You know what happened to that mare named Sutra Cross, Kraber. Surely you heard it on the radio?”

It was the first time the newfoal sounded so…. real. So powerful. So much like it was just next to him…

Kraber’s eyes darted around, not sure where the voice was coming from. Maybe the PHL would get him for this raid. Maybe they wouldn’t. But… moments like this… there was only so long the authorities could justify ignoring the HLF. And he’d have to be bosbefok, fokking crazy, to believe he’d get out of this with no consequences.

… If he lived, assuming the PHL or Lovikov didn’t kill him, what then?

Nothing, not even those fokking annoying hallucinations, had an answer.

All was silent, save for the sounds of Lovikov and various other ‘brothers and sisters of the liberation’ roughing-up the civilians in one of the radio rooms. There were no screams, not at this stage. He could hear the sounds of fists striking flesh, and dry sounds that...
Were those made by people? What few ponies were left on the rig didn't have long to live.

Looking and feeling a little gray, Kraber stepped through and surveyed the scene.

Yeah, no screaming. There came a point when it became impossible for the victim to scream.

“What kept you?” Lovikov asked, in what Kraber hoped was a joke. He didn’t answer.

“Well, Verity, your informant did us well again,” Flamel said. “Not sure I trust her, but she certainly got the job done.”

“Verity has an informant?” Kraber asked, surprised.

“None of your concern,” Verity said, a dangerous edge in her voice.

“You… sons of bitches…” one woman hissed through her remaining teeth, only to contract in shock when Lovikov shot an earth pony who had been laid out beside her.

“Now,” the Russian asked levelly. “Can I broadcast from this station?”

“You… You killed Shortwave,” the woman whimpered. “He… he was my f–”

“Ah, get off it,” Lovikov said dismissively. “Ponies aren’t your friends. I just did you a favor.”

“Favor?!” the woman yelled. “FAVOR?! You bastard, he had foals! He smuggled them out of Equestria, just to–”

“Kraber?” Lovikov asked. “Persuade her.”

This… this was what Kraber did. This was what he had to do… he was HLF, he reassured himself. He was protecting humanity…

Which was why he punched that poor woman in the face, knocking her to the ground and leaving her clutching the bloody hole in her face that had been her mouth, wheezing and whimpering in the agony beyond mere screams.

Ja, that was some fine-ass fokking protection.

“Now…” Lovikov said, pointing down at the woman as if the finger he had to her face was a gun. “Can. I. Broadcast from here?”

“YES!” she gasped. “We were on the air when you attacked! We still are!”

“Good,” Lovikov said, and pointed his pistol to her head-

“Hey! Stop that!” Verity yelled. “We still need some hostages! Not that you and that crazy bastard left many to work with…”

“Fine,” Lovikov sighed, sounding like nothing so much as a petulant child. Shoving him none-too-gently aside, Verity changed places with him, holding her sidearm to the poor woman’s trembling head, as Lovikov stepped up to the console and started to speak.

“I’m sure all of you brainwashed sheep listening into tonight’s scheduled propaganda have wondered who we are,” Lovikov said smoothly. “Well. We’re not your salvation – that’s a shitty excuse. You’ve had enough salvation. No, we’re your LIBERATION!”

He paused for effect before continuing. “If you heard our attack ‘live’, then know this. We have waited as you welcomed in those invaders, those fucking gluesticks. The ponies, the zebras, the like. We are the Human Liberation Front. You’ve now heard with your own ears what we are capable of. And unlike you–”

“...is it really for the best if we’re guilting them?” Mariesa wondered, earning herself a stern look from Verity.

‘We’re on thin ice’,Kraber realized. Then, unbidden: ‘Oh God, what if we’re… what if we’re just a distraction for the Thenardiers? Would Galt throw away one of his best infiltrators for a bigger score - are we just a diversion, a distraction for the PHL?’

“Of course you’re disposable,” laughed Victory, who was dancing up and down in the bloody cavity that had been Shortwave’s abdomen. “Sticks and stones break human bones, but newfoals never worry.”

His paranoia was mounting – he hadn’t been this wound up since that time in that subway with all the newfoals where there could have been a newfoal behind every corner.... And now Lovikov...

… Lovikov already planned to shoot him, and was acting under orders from Defiance command.

And if the PHL came, if by some miracle the government acquiesced to the HLF’s demands it was incredibly unlikely that they’d get away without consequences...

“Die by hand or die by hoof, or shed your doubts and be me. All your cares just melt away, when you drink Her mercy…”

“-we have not forgotten what Equestria has done! We have not forgotten our families and friends being ponified, our homes destroyed! Unlike some of you...” Lovikov continued, disgusted.

“A newfoal’s life is full of glee, why die to stay human? Embrace I’m your destiny, and murder all your creeeewmen.”

“...there shall be no be peace between us and the ponies, not until every last pony is dead. You have seen what ponies have brought to this world – they cannot be trusted! It is the end of the world, and madness to trust those that have brought so much suffering!”

It is a stirring speech, and this is a hell of a victory…

It’s the rant of a zealot and this was nothing even approaching anything that can be referred to in the same space as a triumph of any kind. It’s a massacre…

“Both wrong, foolish mortal mind, this is to our glory. Simply slaughter all your kind, that’s our scripted story…”

No, Kraber unravels, trying to nail down the voices in his head. He was trying to ascertain what they were accomplishing here? Wishing that they could do something bigger than hunkering down in the woods and just killing PER?

This was that greater destiny. This raid. It will be his epitaph, his legacy...

And yet… something didn’t ring true.

“A wise man,” Lovikov said, “Would trust in humanity. Which is why we, the HLF, have taken over the Sorghum Exile oil platform, just off the coast of Maine. We have hostages at gunpoint - and we will slaughter all of them, and bombard Portland if our demands are not acquiesced to within twenty-four hours. Firstly, we demand the release of Michael Carter, who is being held unlawfully by lackeys of the Equestrian column. Secondly…”

“Don’t worry – it gets better,” Kraber says. He pauses a second. “Well, no. I get better, trust me. But not by much.”

He stares down at you and all the terrified foals, and realizes, for the first time, that he may not exactly have the best judgment when it comes to storytelling. Or at all.

What a way to spend Christmas Eve...or the last night of Hanukkah...or the first night of Hearth's Warming… it really got confusing when the ponies starting lighting their own menorahs!

“...you kids sure you want to hear this part of the story?” Kraber asks, visibly concerned.

“Well, I don’t know about them, but I do!” you say. “I asked why… I wanted to know how you got to the PHL… but I have to know.”

“You’re sure? I mean, I end up hitting rock bottom three times in about four weeks. It’s pretty fokking bleak,” Kraber says. “‘Cept for the part where I meet Aegis…”

“Go ahead.”

“Do I get to narrate this story when I come in?” Aegis asks.

“Absofrigginlutely,” Kraber says, clapping a hand on the back of Aegis’ neck. “Remember what you said about me hogging all the screen time… on interviews?” he added hastily.

“Ah, yes… you kinda do.”

“Sorry about that. And don’t worry, you’ll get your turn,” Kraber says. “For now, we’re still on the rig. Anyway, Lovikov’s speech, about freedom and honor and safety among all those dead people, it–”

“Hauptgefreiter Kraber?” asked a white earth pony mare with a wavy blue mane. “That laptop you asked for is here.”

“Ah, okay. I’ll get back to that later then,” Kraber says. “I’ll be back in a few, then – I’ve got an apology to make.”

“To who?” you ask.

December 25th 2022 in New York dawned without the stereotypical fall of snow, except over Central Park, where some PHL pegasi had driven away the rainclouds (Thunderwing from the Stampede Fleet has released an academic paper, hypothesizing them to be a consequence of various atmospheric magic used with little thought about their effect on Earth, and blamed Queen Celestia’s shortsightedness) and, with their innate magic, conjured a winter wonderland.

“Come together one and all,
In the giving spirit,
Gifts abound here great and small
Joyously we feel it…”

From a makeshift hospital-cum-prison at 55 Central Park West, Verity Carter can not only see children and foals frolicking in the park, but hear the rising sound of voices singing in harmony. There is a church right next to the building, and from it comes the glorious carols, defying the horrors of the war.

“Blessings sent us from above,
Guide us on our way.
We raise our voice as we rejoice,
Bow our head and pray.”

Right now, she wishes she could just step on that church… squash it with her monstrous new hooves. Trying to drown that out, she awkwardly turns on a nearby radio. The first station’s playing something that sounds like pop-influenced house, and she can’t figure out how to turn its knobs with hooves, (How the hell did ponies manage so much without hands?) so she just sighs and tries to sink her head deep, deep into the pillow.

To add insult to injury, she can still hear the carolers outside.

“A miracle has just begun,
God bless us everyone…”

‘A miracle’, that’s what the doctors had called what had happened to her. They all insisted she should not have survived that level of exposure, that the dosage should have left her a gibbering wreck of cancerous tissues. Then again, according to Viktor, “that sort of kak’s a fool’s game worrying about. We’ve all been exposed to magic at one point or another, and if the Queen hadn’t been talking gara out her poephol, we’d all be masses of fokking tumors,” so it wasn’t as remarkable as people would have you think. While Kraber is trying to work in PHL medical, and steadily gaining traction as a reliable surgeon and medic, nobody’s willing to test his hypothesis on account of it being scary. Or so she’ll be told by ponies such as Wildfire.

She shifts restlessly in her bed, and feels the fur that now covers her body tickle against the blankets. The hairs are short, dense and glossy, except for on the back of her neck and the small of her back, where they grew out into a flowing mane and tail…

They’d had to secure her head in place to prevent her trying to chew that last appendage off with her own teeth, but then it wasn’t like she could pick up a scalpel and slash her wrists in her current state.

“To the voices no one hears,
We have come to find you.
With your laughter and your tears,
Goodness, hope and virtue…”

Lying there on her back, she curls into a ball, hooves tucked up under her chin, and weeps. It is Christmas Day, and in an instant she had lost everything, and is now alone. Trapped in enemy territory, in an enemy body, naked and exposed.

“Let me die…” she sobs. “Just please, let me die! Haven’t I lost enough?!”

And then somebody knocks on the door. Her head snaps to one side as the newcomer lets themselves in, and feels her huge new eyes narrow.

“You… it would have been you…”

Kraber honestly half-expected her to fly into a rage, but instead the freshly-baked mare tied to the hospital bed just begins to make snuffling sounds, a kind of DMZ between laughter and crying that only a pony’s vocal cords could quite manage.

“So… sniff… you’ve come to mock me?”

“No, Carter…” he says softly, and takes a laptop computer out from under his arm. “I’mma be honest. I felt fokking awful about what I did to you while I was telling that story.”

“You? Regret?” Verity asks incredulously.

“I mean… that was just fokking sadistic. So I brought you a Christmas gift.”

“You’re Jewish…”

That’s rich, coming from a girl who lies somewhere in the middle of a spiritual three-way involving agnosticism, Catholicism and the Prophet Joseph Smith.

“Well, then it's a Hanukkah gift... The spirit of the holidays transcends religion, my sister Tania always said. I’m also the man who’s managed to secure you a call with your father. And besides, Hanukkah ends in a day or two. So why not?”

“Wha... Oh… thank you Viktor…”

She sniffs back a tear. Though she’s not going to hug this man – it’s Viktor Kraber, after all.

“Thank you…”

The laptop is set up with a military-grade teleconferencing program. It had taken some work, but with a bit of effort he had been able to convince PHL High Command to allow Verity brief access onto the channels reserved for secret negotiations with the HLF. Despite their mutually opposed ideologies, the two bodies still maintain a few avenues of contact, for discussing the terms of prisoner exchanges and such-like. Originally, back when Lyra was alive, that had been meant for discussing potential alliances, PER activity, and enemy troop movements. There’d been contacts in the HLF, stand-up-people you could trust to work with you, that considered the destruction of PER more important than racial animosity.

The last time these channels had been used for their original purpose was during Agua Caliente. Most of those contacts had filtered into the PHL by now, and any hope of cooperation had long since died out.

But now, they're being fired up again.

He sits beside her and works the keyboard for her, raises the back of the bed so she can see. She begs him to not turn the webcam on as he opens up the connection, is put through to HLF HQ, (wherever that is) and searingly curses and browbeats his way into a conversation with Michael Carter, doing an almost dead-on impersonation of Robert Carlyle putting on a Scottish accent so thick that she has to wonder if the HLF on the other end are intimidated from its incomprehensibility, the profanity, or the pugnacious cause-ah-fuckin-well-sais surety in his voice.

“I never knew you could put on a scottish accent that convincingly,” Verity says.

“Ah, it’s an old habit,” Kraber says. “Ah played Begbie awhoil back at some theater down in Boston.”

“Wait… would this be the one where that woman went into labor and–” she pauses. “Oh.”

“Ah kept in practice in case ah had to go on the run,” Kraber continues. “Like that time back in college I burned down that-”

It is fortunate that they are then interrupted.

“Verity… is that you?! Oh Christ! I was so worried about you when you failed to report back in.”

Mike’s ragged expression of relief is almost painful for Viktor. He remembers a man who, with the voice of an impassioned preacher, called hellfire and brimstone and damnation down upon mankind’s enemies. What he sees now is not the man who had stirred armies with his rhetoric, but a tired and concerned father, aged before his time. He looks almost ancient.

“I’m… I’m okay Dad...they’re, they’re treating me well.”

“They’d better be! Let me know what their demands are and we’ll set you up for release straight away. Do not tell them anything except your ID!”

Kraber knows Verity is adopted. The sheer physical differences between the hispanic girl and her black father shows as much. But the sheer amount of love in the room could have fed an entire Changeling hive.

“Dad...there’s, something else...I had an accident on my mission.”

“Father, mother, daughter son,
Each a treasure be.
One candle’s light dispels the night,
Now our eyes can see…”

The touching reunion between a father and daughter had been enough to stir his own treasured memories of fatherhood, and for a second none of them had been soldiers anymore. Just people…

“Okay… I’ll show you what happened. Just… please don’t hate me, Dad.”

“Yuir sure ye want him tae see this?” Kraber asks gently, keeping his voice low and Scottish-accented. He felt it was best if Carter not realise just ‘who’ was supervising his daughter. There was bad blood between them, even before Kraber had left the Sorghum…. and the Great HLF Exodus had only made things worse. A lot of people directly blame Kraber for gutting the HLF ranks. Still, that was something to be proud of, wasn’t it? “There'll be no going back.”

“Who is that?!” Michael Carter demands. “If you've done anything to my daughter, I'll–”

“Ah promise ya – Ah daid nothing,” Kraber says. “She’s fine. Ye just have to trust in us...”

“Trust? In PHL?!” Michael Carter asks, as if the very thought is an absurdity.

“Just promise me,” Kraber says. “Promise me tae listen.”

“I will promise nothing until you show me my daughter right now,” Michael Carter commands.

Kraber inclines his head to Verity, visibly worried. There’s a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, that something’s about to go to kak.

Verity nods, and Kraber reaches over, slides his finger along the touch-pad, and ‘taps’ on the ‘camera’ icon.

The side-window opens, and Verity’s image appears in it. The stubby muzzle and expressive eyes, hazel with a touch of blue. The dark mane and brown coat.

The pony that Verity has become.

“Burning brighter than the sun,
God bless us everyone.
A miracle has just begun,
God bless us everyone!”

Carter’s reaction is slow. He has expectant, worried joy for the first nanosecond that he sees Verity - no, that’s not how he’d think of it, he’d think “The pony in the bed.”

There is a pause. Seconds? Minutes? Hours? It’s hard to say how long, and they all maintain eye contact, staring at each other. There is an incredulous look up at Kraber, the realization that he must have been the scottish-accented man. Clearly, Carter wants to demand that Kraber, the Great Turncoat, their Judas, tells him where his daughter is, and where this mare is. He’s in denial, the shock to great for him to even make demands...

...Which disappears as Verity breaks the ice with all the subtlety and delicacy of an artillery shell hitting a frozen lake and causing an avalanche.

“Dad, please, it’s still me! I swear, I’m not a newfo–”

There’s no sudden shock or recoil from his camera. There’s just a hint of confusion, a moment of recognition. Then denial. It's like that time Kraber had gone skiing in Tuckerman's Ravine, and watched an avalanche in the making. For a moment, the surface was icy and impassionate. Then, movement -– it collapses, cascading downwards in a multitude of shapes, running the gamut of shock, to denial to anger, to horror. Kraber can see a few glimpses of the man he once was as the man's face falls. The color drains, and he looks like he is about to cry as far too many men and women in this war have ever cried. For a moment, he’s a simple, grieving father, and anyone who doesn’t know the Carters may think they can reason with him.

No.

… And then the other man’s face hardens, contorts into a scowl that Kraber has seen all too often mirrored in spilt blood.

BLEEP!

The connection is closed. Mike hung up on her. She won’t accept it at first, pleading for Kraber to call back, to check and make sure the Wifi connection didn’t just happen to fail at that moment.

But there is no response. And with one exception, which would not come to light for a long time, that was the last time ever that Verity Carter ever spoke to her father.

Kraber himself later receives a message from Mike in the classified mail.

‘You South African pigfucking traitor. I will find you, and end you, and the fucking golem you made out of my little girl... I will kill you, chop you into pieces, and feed them to the neighborhood dogs while you’re still conscious!

Yeah, to say Kraber is mad is putting it lightly, having effectively just watched a young woman become an orphan. No, worse than an orphan, cut off from everything she held dear. She’d just been declared dead to everyone dear to her heart, and nothing, none of what she’d grown familiar with over the past few years, would ever accept her.

It had been his calm that surprised her at first, three words which were muttered – no, snarled – under his breath yet contained all the warmth of a blizzard at the height of winter:

“That fokking kontgesig.”

“Come together one and all,
In the giving spirit.
Gifts abound here great and small,
Joyously we feel it.”

It’d be doing Viktor a great disservice to say he’s not very good at offering comfort. Rather, he’s just… out of practice, and he hates that fact so much. He thought of himself as a father back in the HLF, so without that… what is he? Is there anything left of who he was before the War? So as Verity cries her heart out, grieving for the family she has now entirely lost, he tries defaulting back to the mindset of a soldier.

“You can join us…”

That cuts her sobs off, and she sits bolt upright in the bed, her restraints tearing right out of their mountings, defenceless against her sheer equine strength.

She stares at him, not saying a word. The blue specks in her eyes seem to blaze. Kraber, glad to at least see her no-longer weeping, repeats himself in greater detail.

“I hate to say it,” he says, trying to delve on what fatherly calm and nurturing he’d mustered when Peter had scraped his knee, or when Anka had hurt herself skiing, when one of the PHL’s foals or war orphans had done something similar. “The HLF won’t take you back. And even if they do, it won’t be home.”

She is shaking.

“I’ve fokking seen it,” Kraber continues. “Do what I did, and join the PHL. They became my family – you saw how all those ponies liked me back there. And Aegis, he’s a right solid bru. They can be your family too…”

She hits him, actually rips her way out of bed and cocks him across the jaw with enough force to knock him back across the room. The door collapses under his weight, and before Kraber can even response, he’s being born back again by her furious blows.

“How dare you! HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!”

It’s actually the toughest fight he’s had in a while. Neither of them are armed, but that has never proved a handicap before.

“AFTER EVERYTHING YOU’VE DONE, YOU TREACHEROUS CUNT! AFTER ALL THAT, YOU ASK ME TO BETRAY THEM!!”

Viktor isn’t holding back either, or going easy on her. His fight-or-flight response is heavily skewed towards one side of the spectrum, and frankly, being attacked tends to elicit only one response from him.

He kicks her in the face.

She stumbles back.

“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU! YOU AND ALL THE DAMN GELDOS! THEY’LL TAKE ME BACK WHEN I TURN UP WEARING YOU AND RENEE’S SKULLS AS FUCKING HORSESHOES!”

“JUST YOU FOKKING TRY!” Kraber yells, and kicks Verity in the face again.

“Why do you keep doing that?!” Verity yells back.

They managed to trash the ward. An oddity of newfoal transformations that Kraber has noticed is that the ‘wetware’ for their new bodies seems to come pre-installed. Verity is just the same, despite her unique circumstances, and she is punching, dodging, weaving and bucking as if she’d been born on four hooves. Still, they’re evenly matched, remembering the old HLF hand-to-hoof combat maxim that ‘It’s only an unfair trick if it doesn’t work,’ Kraber managing to suplex her and throw her into a wall at least once.

In the end, she manages to pitch him down a fokking staircase, just before three security guards manage to ponypile her and stick her with enough sedatives to send a enraged hippo off to slumberland.

Kraber is honestly stunned. If Verity hadn’t have been stopped, he would have almost certainly have ended up dead, and even barring that she still managed to dislocate both his shoulder and jaw, concuss him, and break three of his ribs, without him even laying a single incapacitating blow on her. She’d just ignored the pain, even though the average newfoal would have suffered a critical existence failure by this point. The pehrer itself becomes the stuff of legend and behind-his-back sniggers. Not that anyone would mock him about it to his face – they know what he’d do to them.

He’s there though, when Verity wakes up. In truth, he’s wrapped in bandages in the next bed over, and tripping on some kind of morphine alternative Zecora prepares from ‘dragon hibernation hormones’.

The first words she says are ‘thank you’. The fight, it seems, was cleansing for her. Aegis, standing next to the side of Kraber’s hospital bed, is relieved to see him alright, and glowers at Verity.

“Father, mother, daughter, son,
Each a treasure be.
One candle’s light dispels the night,
Now our eyes can see.”

He’s not convinced her to switch sides however – the old loyalties, and there’s much of them, have not been beaten and starved out of her like him. The HLF loyalty in Kraber that other HLF try to capitalize on hasn’t existed since August.

In fact, she will run off to try and shack back up with the HLF within a month or two. And so, come February of 2023, Kraber, Aegis, Johnny C, and Fiddlesticks will be sent to retrieve her from some hole-in-the-wall snowy town in Appalachia.

She shall come back willingly, tail between her legs, humbled by her experiences and the knowledge that there’s no place for her in the HLF. Even then however, she still racks up record stints in the brig, never quite able to let old grudges die…

‘V for Vendetta’, the others will come to call her, in time.

But as they lie there, reminiscing and laughing over past victories (the details of which are really disturbing to the ward staff) as Aegis lies against the wall on a huge pillow, reading a new China Mieville book, the music of the church’s evening chorale wafting through the windows, they do at least find some common ground.

And the seeds of doubt are at last sowed in Verity’s mind.

“Viktor… why did you defect?”

“Remember the Sorghum?” he grunts through a steadily healing jaw. “It was too fokking much.”

“Burning brighter than the sun,
God bless us everyone.
A miracle has just begun,
God bless us everyone!”

Merry Christmas, and Happy Hanukkah.

“You never did finish that story about how you left, though,” you say, trotting into Kraber’s hospital room, alongside Amber Maple and Rivet, Aegis’ foals.

Or in your case, happy Hearthswarming.

“Oh, get the hell out of here, you fucking–” Verity snarls halfheartedly.

“You okay, uncle Viktor?” Rivet asks, staring up at the hospital bed. “We were worried when we heard about that.”

“Ah, don’t worry, I can barely feel a thing!” Kraber reassures Rivet.

“That’s disturbing...” Amber Maple says.

“Well, it could be worse,” Kraber shrugs. Though the movement is a little tender for some reason. “You know that little things like getting thrown down stairs or being stabbed are just minor fokkin annoyances.”

“Trust him on this,” Aegis suggests. “I’ve seen him get shot in the head with a 9mm and just lose a tooth and get pissed off.”

“I’m glad you’re alright though,” Amber Maple says. “I wanted to see you light the menorah for Hanukkah!”

“Wait. Don’t you have menorahs too?” Kraber asks, confused.

“Yeah, but that’s for Hearthswarming! I wanna see what it’s like for Hanukkah!” Amber Maple explains.

Not for the first time, Kraber is struck at just how similar and yet different Equestria and humanity really are.

“Okay,” Kraber says. “I think I have some candles around here…”

“Can I hold one and light it?”

“When you’re older,” Aegis says. “Right now, you’re… a little too small to be lighting a menorah.”

“Shutupshutupshutup…” Verity muttered.

“Sssssh,” Kraber says, distractedly running his fingers across Aegis’ red bandanna, the one concealing the scarring the car-bombing back in England. “Ssshshshshshsh. I made her a promise, so I’ll keep it.”

“I gotta admit, I’m curious about the rest of the Sorghum too,” Vinyl says, walking in. “I brought some get well wubs too…”

She levitates a box to him, and Kraber unwraps, wincing slightly.

“A new Die Antwoord album! Thanks so much!” Kraber laughs, ruffling her already messy electric blue mane. She smiles, her eyes bright under the sunglasses.

“Okay, Aegis I understand,” Verity says. “But why her?”

“Well, we both ended up on punishment detail, and had to wash the dishes together,” Kraber explained. “I didn’t like it at first, but… well…” And a grin breaks out across his face.

“ And then she said there’s no way you can make a dishwasher that cleans dishes with wubs, and I was like ‘Screw that, I’m Vinyl Scratch! It was a good day!” Vinyl yelled.

“And he likes punk rock even more than Aegis,” Vinyl added. “ [AWWWOOOOOO! DO YOU WANNA BE DIFFERENT…”

“OR DO YOU WANNA BE STRANGE! ARE YOU AFRAID OF FAILURE, ARE YOU AFRAID OF CHANGE?!” Kraber belted out in response, the two of them singing some song that’s equally inscrutable to you, various fillies and humans watching, and Verity. Though you have to admit.. it’s familiar…

Yes! That’s the song! Sunset City, by the Bronx. From one of Mr. Kraber’s favorite videogames, made into an anthem of resistance by a brown earth pony colt from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil with an extreme fondness for gaming, who had brought the song to the attention of local PHL.

“THERE’S A NEW DAY DAWNING, YOU BETTER RUN AND HIDE! HOW YOU EVER GONNA CHANGE THE WORLD IF YOU NEVER TRY!” Aegis joins in, to Verity’s shock.

“SUNSET CITY’S CRUMBLING! THE TIME WON’T CHANGE A THING!”

“WE’RE LIVING THE NIGHTMARE! THERE’S BODIES EVERYWHERE! SUNSET CITY IS AT WAR, JUST KNOCKING AT YOUR DOOR! NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS! NEVER BEFORE!”

“WE MIGHT BE HUMAN! AND WE MIGHT BE DAMNED! BUT WE WON’T GO SOFTLY… WE WON’T GIVE IN!” Kraber calls.

“NOW THAT WE GOT YOUR ATTENTION... WE’RE HANGIN ON YOUR EVERY WORD…](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hcZE4pNLk0) Wait, do you know what comes after that?” Vinyl asks.

“...Fok, I forgot it too,” Kraber groans. “I love that song, but I just can’t…”

“Dammit, I hate that too,” Aegis adds. “You just love a song so much… but you can’t remember that one lyric, and you fall apart or you have to sing gibberish…”

The three of them look at each other and break into laughter. “Ah… that was a great fokking day too…” Kraber reminisces.

“You never finished your story, Mr. Kraber!” you remind him.

“Oh yeah….” Kraber says. “Where was I?”

“The speech Lovikov was giving,” Amber Maple says.

“Oh yeah. Well, anyway, that speech–”

“Speaking of which, can it come after the King’s Speech?” Aegis asks. “I spent a lot of time in Britain, so I’d love to hear it.”

“I was in England once,” you add. Your mother, who’s come by to say hello, adds that it was to see Lyra herself, though they were delayed by a car-bombing. And Mr. Aegis, that huge earth pony adds, “Wait, could I have met you?” and says one of those adult words that mares like your mother don’t want you to say.

“Yeah, I liked London!” Amber Maple agrees.

Now that they mention it, Amber does seem familiar.

And there’s a chorus of positive remarks to the effect of yes, yes. Let’s listen! from both ponies and humans alike. To be honest, Kraber was going to listen anyway. He’s met enough englishmen, and fooled enough scotsmen with his imitation of Francis Begbie that it’s hard not to feel something about this.

Besides, there’s english blood in him, from a long, long way back. So why not?

“Why the fok not?” Kraber shrugs, reaching over for the radio that had so vexed Verity’s hooves.

"People of Britain," a familiar voice spoke from the radio, "my subjects... my friends. I address you via radio and television for the first time in a long time..."

And so, in their way, they kept Christmas well. Even Verity.

And as Dancing Day was heard to observe, “God bless us, every one.”

Author's Note

...Uhhh, whoops. I had some edit-y trouble. Had to make sure that there was a good reason the HLF overtook the rig.
Originally this was going to be two chapters, but TB3 and I changed it so it would work more as a christmas story. That, and the next chapter kiiiiiiinda has a boss battle, so it's for the best. Also, note for Jed - adding in cameos of the King's Speech was fun. That story needs a bit more love...
Notes on the music
* Sunset City: I always wanted to use that in a Spectrum fic - it fits so well! Regardless of what you think of Sunset Overdrive, it is cool... and yes, Button Mash _is_ the Brazilian colt that made this an in-universe meme.
* Dandy In Love: ...Well, mostly I just liked the song. It seemed just melancholy enough to use in the story.

My Self-Defense Catastrophe

Chapter 9: My Self-Defense Catastrophe / Real China

Co-authors:

TB3 (Thank you so much! ….especially cause this is the minor hiatus. Go have fun writing Last Train!)
Jed R

Editors:
Redskin122004
VoxAdam

Pre-readers:
Kizuna-Tallis

“We sure liberated the hell out of this place.”
Anonymous U.S serviceman in Vietnam

I fear this and it feeds on me
My self-defense catastrophe
The Light Despondent, Biting Elbows. This lyric comes after a bitchin good guitar solo.

New York City,
December 25, 2022

The Filly, Dancing Day

When the King's Speech concludes, you find yourself... More than a little uplifted. There’s a fairly happy mood all around, and you’re all more than ready to listen.

"Continue, though?" you ask.

"Sure," Kraber says.

"Do you have to do it in here?" Verity asks, rubbing her hooves together as if trying to return feeling to absent hands.

"Officially, yes," Kraber says. "I can walk out, though."

"No you can't!" Nurse Wildfire calls over.

"She didn't break anything major!" Kraber calls back.

"Look, I know you burnt out most of your pain receptors, but just stay put... Kraber."

"Right. So, guess I've got no choice till they decide I move," Kraber said. "Anyway, we’d taken the Sorghum, and Lovikov was giving that godawful speech..."

"Somebody shoot me," Verity groaned.

Kraber looked over at her and raised an eyebrow.

Verity looks over at Kraber, and notices you. And, regardless of the fact that many ponies are referring to her in the grown-up words that they keep saying you must never use, you find yourself… liking her? No. But finding her bearable. As ponifications go, this is bearable, and she’s not a zombie, so there’s that.

She won’t be your friend any time soon, though.

But she can see all of you, that many of the ponies, and even some of the humans that had come over to see Kraber are heavily armed. There’s also a big revolver (What is it with Kraber and revolvers?) with the barrel mounted upside down, beneath the frame, on the table next to Kraber’s bed.

“Why..." she moans.

"As I was saying..." Kraber continues. "So, Lovikov's stupid fokking speech…

...was fokking grating on his ears.

“Mariesa?” Kraber whispered, as Lovikov continued to badger and harangue the entire FM spectrum.

“Yes?”

“What the fok are we doing?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Just… all this. Where’s the liberation?” Kraber asked.

“Is something wrong, Viktor?” she asked, whispering, desperately trying not to be heard in the background of Lovikov’s speech (as it happened, the microphone was just sensitive enough to pick up their whispers).

“Fine, I’ll fokking do this. I’ll going to make another sweep of the rig,” Kraber said, desperate to be somewhere without Lovikov. And, oddly enough, the blood. The red stuff was becoming a little unnerving somehow, pretty impressive from how much it had splattered, but something - be it his hallucinations, his conscience, what little he had left of a soul - was screaming out at him, get out of this room!, “I get the feeling the enemy could be holed up in a lot of places in here.”

’Who’s the enemy?’

“Just... be careful,” Mariesa said. “Don’t... don’t get hurt, alright?”

“I promise,” Kraber said, heading for the door and switching for a shotgun.

He half-hoped someone might get him as he searched. But… he had a duty. To the HLF. To humanity.

“Do you even believe that?” the newfoal asked.

“Of course I fokking do!” Kraber hissed, all pretense of sanity and normality gone as he argued with the… what was it? A ghost? A representation of his own guilt?

Ah, it didn’t matter. What it was, he decided, was annoying.

“No,” it said, “I’m right. And even so, I’m only annoying because you don’t fokking listen!” it mocked him, using his own voice.

“Tremble as your psyche unwinds, praise her in your madness. As your children so sublime, you will know but gladness!”

“Get… out… of… my… fokking. HEAD!” Kraber yelled.

“Ooh, that’s a bad habit you’re getting into,” the newfoal taunted him.

He strode down the corridors, shotgun held at the hip, ready to fire, searching for more ponies to kill. He kicked open doors, peered inside, prepped to throw grenades. He poked his head out from behind corners, scouring for anything that moved.

And he searched every door, every alcove in the rig’s accommodation block. He’d seen movies where children and others would hide, and soldiers would come to smoke them out. Speaking of soldiers, he’d passed Couldn’t remember the movie’s title-it was in black and white, so it must have been an old one.

He threw open cupboards, taking spare change and finding food. He threw open doors. He opened the doors to closets, kicked open crawlspaces, opened up whatever holes he could find.

The idea came to him to check some of the ancillary levels, or better yet, the honeycombed interiors of the other support columns.

Of course! What a great idea!

Of course! He didn’t have dogs he could use to sniff people out… He’d have to get a fluffy dog. Maybe a samoyed? Ooh, or maybe a wolf pup. He knew a few guys who knew some guys that had smuggled wolves out of Europe in a fit of pique, and were breeding them to eat newfoals...

’I know I saw this in a movie once, but which one was it? Ah, no matter…’

Flipping open a service hatch in the floor, he climbed down into a reeking, steaming vertical space, a series of descending catwalks threaded with creaking staircases, strung with hissing pipes and humming conduits. His MG2019 on his back, he slowly continued to descend down the length of the shaft, thankful he had a gas mask. He held out the LMG...

And then he heard it - down, almost at the bottom, low, just above sea level.

He rushed down the stairs, quiet as he could, and found his shotgun’s barrel…

”Hold on a minute,” Scootaloo asks. “Were you really at Agua Caliente?”

“Is this all that important?” Kraber asks.

“Well, no, but… you were around Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, blowing up bureaus, you got on TV once, you were at Defiance, and… how does all this happen to you?”

“My ass is everywhere,” Kraber says simply.

“His ass really is everywhere,” Aegis adds. “Well, except Okinawa.”

“My ass always wanted to go to Okinawa,” Kraber says, completely straight-faced. “It heard it was pretty there.” He paused. “Though really, I work for this kinda thing. Anyway, now I had my shotgun…

...pointed at the face of a redheaded child, her hair curly, smeared with unidentifiable muck. She pointed a cheap 9mm back at Kraber. Several other children were present as well, huddled together atop a rust-stained ballast tank: a girl that might have been the first kid’s sister, a youngish teenager in a jacket and ill-fitting kevlar, holding a 10mm.

They were guarding ponies. Mostly colts and fillies, sporting every color of the rainbow beyond the dull tones seen on Earth-born equines.

‘Well Vicky, hear they are. Behold the Enemy...’

Except, these didn’t look like the destroyers of the world, nor they didn’t look like they were anyone’s salvation or what have you. They didn’t look like they were ready to ponify anyone. They didn’t look like they had no regard for human life-well, though little love for him burned in their eyes, and Kraber found he could understood that sentiment. They didn’t…

His finger closed around the trigger and abruptly stopped. His will failed him.

They just looked like scared children that had given up on everything.

Not fillies. Not colts. Not ponies.

Children. Their eyes were full of an innocence betrayed, one that transcended species. Even if… even if they were the same as those kontgesigs that had destroyed his home and murdered billions, he didn’t have it in him.

The little girl with the 9mm shook. Her gun trembled.

Viktor knew that he deserved the bullet. This was his fault.

“D-drop it,” the girl whispered, aiming at his gas mask.

“Go on, fucker,” one teal unicorn said, staring him down, her horn weakly glowing. “Do it... “

This was not what he’d expected at all.

“...I’m not,” Kraber whispered, looking down at the ponies and children hiding in the little alcove. Oh lord, of all the things he could have found, it had been the thing that could make him so broken...

“What’d you say?” the redheaded boy asked.

And it was at that moment that Viktor remembered the name of the movie this reminded him of, the movie where soldiers had been searching through all those alcoves, tracking down elusive human prey...

Schindler’s List

And here he was, cast in the role of… No, he couldn’t be, he was Jewish, he went to synagogue when he could.

Oh God no.

The world dropped out beneath his feet, and one leg simply gave out under him.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” he heard himself say, his voice shaky, betraying his uncertainty. His HLF emblem, cut into his chestplate with a soldering iron, seemed to swim as he looked down at it. Something about it seemed to say ‘filth’ backwards.

“But… you’re HLF,” one colt protested, staring up into the muzzle of his LMG, or at the grenade he held.

“You’re a-”

“I know, I know,” Kraber whispered. “But first things first. You’re not in here. I was never here, and you have to stay down here for the next few hours. Got that?”

He didn’t want to think on what fate he’d brought to their mothers up on deck. To their fathers…

The terrible feeling as countless fathers entered their homes and saw the slaughter, searching in terror through an eerily silent house, falling to their knees as they smelled the psychopathic purple liquid and cried, NO NO NO NO NO for hours as they realized how much they’d been destroyed, the glee on their faces, the utter hate overcoming them as they took the knife to their torturer, hour after hour until morning turned into night and had it been fifteen hours already, they’d ask as they looked down at their victim, disemboweled and painting the room with their own blood, viscera and fluids and oh FOK

oh fok

oh no

NO NO NO NO he couldn’t - be he was HLF he was a heroic partisan striking against a corrupt

he was destroying families

no no no he

-killed children and foals dammit

he could have just as easily been them he might have been broken but he’d broken so many more

He was the PER. Alright, no. He was just as hateful as them. Still, they were monsters-

But did that justify what he’d done?

It... it didn’t.

Kraber turned away, hoping they wouldn't see him shaking like a leaf, or the tears welling up in his eyes.

He turned away, turned away, turned away. What was there to do?

He walked up the stairs, climbed the ladders, dragged himself out of this fetid hell, and slumped down, hunched over, all but gone in mind. When the PHL got here, they'd kill him. So would Lovikov.

Ah, fok! FOK! FOK! F-

Shit. He’d really beaten any meaning out of that word, hadn’t he?

He slumped down, sliding against the wall. He was idly aware that something had rubbed off on his back, maybe the blood.

What was he to do?!

“Hey? Annoying hallucinatory kontgesigs!” Kraber said. “Where the hell are you when I need you?”

There was no answer.

“We’re just figments of your imagination,” Anka - or rather, an earth pony with what Kraber was acutely aware to be said. “It’s up to you.”

“But…” Kraber sighed, and slumped even further against the wall. “I’ve got kak. I have no idea what the fok I’m doing, I’ve got nowhere to run…”

“We don’t come up with ideas, Daddy. It’s only you.”

“The HLF will…”

“Daddy? What’ve you been asking yourself for the past few hours?”

That the HLF were….

‘The Enemy...’

There was a dead PHL man in the room with Kraber. About his size, a similar enough build to him, dead fingers clutching at a Fostech Origin shotgun.

Suddenly Kraber was thrashing, ripping and clawing at himself as he struggled to tear off his own armour. It pulled away from his body with a clawing suction, as if trying to hold onto him. That emblem still blazed out: ‘Filth. FILTH’

“Filth? I’ll gie the fokking kont filth,” Kraber muttered, struggling to get it off. FOK! Why’d everything he wore get stuck to things? It was like the fokking vest couldn’t come off. It was dangling by one arm, and-

Whipping his arm to one side, the vest sailed down the hallway, bouncing and clanking against the walls.

His own shotgun was hurled into a corner.

Then, moving as if in a trance, Kraber, began to stripped the corpse of its armor and forced it onto himself when he noted the fancy case in the room. UN logo stamped on the side, the dead man’s name on it. Curiosity sparked in his mind as he unlatched the case and open it, staring at the item within.

New armor in digital urban gray camo, nearly pristine and filled with numerous of items for him to use. He stared at the armor in shock before he quickly slogged off the bloody armor he had on and began to fit the newer one onto his lanky frame. There was even a box of grenades nearby, with a note:

-Imbeault:

I don’t understand why you feel like you needed these. You’re guarding a rig, not PHL R&D or Cheerilee’s office, but apparently, the public responds well to us looking like hardy space marines. I was told to make some grenades to look futuristic and barely better than average, but I made a few with some Japanese research just for a laugh. They will work, but they probably aren’t meant to be used in close combat on the rig. Try the black one on a newfoal stampede after filling the air full of shrapnel, it’ll be hilarious.

Sincerely,
Sebastian Irving.

“Fok, this thing is laanie,” Kraber murmured to himself as put on the armor, it felt like a well-tailored suit instead of armor. He just finished putting on the last of it on when he felt it literally warm up to keep out the cold sea air. Give him long enough, and he might not even notice wearing it.

‘Perfect! A Space Marine is you!’

...it included a mask. A Crowe Laboratories Eel-type to be exact, with seven micro-cameras in place of a visor. A good gas mask... uncomfortable as hell, but worth it. Plus, it’d look funny when he stared at people while wearing one. They’d be unnerved, they wouldn’t be sure where to look...

He knew what to do now. Most of all, he had to do it fast - before he could tell himself not to, or realize just how stupid it all was. If this could get him killed, second-guessing absolutely would.

“There’s no bad choices,” Kraber remembered his dad saying back on the beach. “Well, maybe there are. But it’s more important what you do with a choice.”

With the gas mask secured, he put on the helmet on over it, making sure to line up the seals and latches that mated the two together. Then, with the dead man’s Fostech twenty-round in hand, he made his way back down to the kids who had barricaded themselves in the foot of one of the platform’s legs.

He hoped their parents were still alive. That he hadn't slaughtered them… no, there had to be something he could do to make that right, to undo it all!

But no, there wasn’t. All there was now, was the choice of leaving these kids to die, or to try and get them out.

“Come with me if you want to live…” he growled as he scrambled down into their little panic-room. He did not look at them though, could not bring himself to. They probably knew what he was.

Instead, he strode straight across the room and, by dint of sheer physical strength, smashed open the multiple locks on an escape hatch, stomping down on them with his HLF steel-toed boots. They were the one bit of HLF clothing he could bear to keep, with decent amounts of tread, a good ability to break things he turned his toes or soles to, and a nice ability to find a home in something’s skull…

Cool nighttime sea air poured in as he shouldered it open. They were not even six feet above the churning surface of the ocean, and high above, vaulted like an industrial cathedral, was the underside of the Sorghum’s superstructure. Not two hundred feet away bobbed the Arctic Warrior, still moored up where they had left it at the foot of the next column over. He could just make out the silhouettes of Verity Carter and Red Flammel, warding off other watercraft from attempting approach with a pair of mil-spec 40mm grenade launchers…

“Wait, when did Verity get back there?!” you ask. “You can’t just have characters teleport for no reason!”

“I walked back when we’d secured the rig,” Verity sighed, rolling her huge eyes. “The idiot over there just forgot to mention it.”

“Hey, fok you! I was having a fokking mental breakdown!” Kraber yells. “...And probably withdrawal symptoms too. Damn, Lovikov must’ve really been woedend at me. Anyway.”

There was an emergency boat stored in this hidey-hole, an inflatable ‘zodiac’ attached to a cylinder of pressurised gas. He tore it down from its mounting and spun the gas valve, before tossing the bundle of vulcanised fabric out through the hatch, holding onto a trailing line. Seconds later, a perfectly serviceable craft bobbed beneath their feet. It was dark and unobtrusive, the perfect escape...

‘This is desertion, disobedience. This is… this is….’

Ah, fok Lovikov and the rest, Viktor decided. Even if he survived this night, they’d declared him dead already. Probably planned to shove him off the deck of the platform and blame it on a pony or something: a martyr’s death.

What’d have have to lose? Nothing.

But these children, they stood to lose everything. Had he joined the HLF to kill? To murder? To orphan kids?

’Well, ja.’

Yeah, he’d jumped at the chance to do all those things, to leave a trail of dead gluesticks and horsefuckers behind him. Wait, no-

He… he hadn’t done it just to kill, had he?!

“Don’t lie to yourself!” said Victory the Pretty Private. “You’re a terrible person, but you can just let it all float away if you take the poti-”

No.

He wasn’t fokking giving up like that. He wasn’t going to stand in the streets and yell ‘CRUSADE ME!’ for some annoying fokking self-hating hipsters or misandric psychopaths to turn him into a pastel fokking zombie horse. He wasn’t going to go to the PER, so that only left…

The Ponies for Human Life...ah shit.

The notion went against every action he had taken since that fateful birthday, but then, this wasn’t about him anymore, was it?

It was for these kids. For Kate, then. For Peter, for Anka… Even Dietrich and Cousin Richard. For anyone that had been caught in the way of fokking PER, for his chommies back in college, anyone out there.

“That’s the man I married,” the nameless newfoal said approvingly, in Kate’s voice. “Be careful though, the PHL are coming, and right now they’ve got no clue as to your little change of heart.”

Kraber had no fokking clue how the hallucination knew, but… there was no time left to consider. Lovikov was still broadcasting out, and the boats down below were visibly full of trembling men and women. Some were scared, but the others were angry. A lot of them were pointing their guns up at the rig, and Kraber could see their hands shaking in the weak, artificial light. A unicorn aboard one boat was levitating what looked like an HMG…

The larger ships notwithstanding, the gathered fleet didn’t have to fear the Sorghum’s own cannons, which couldn’t depress far enough to fire down into its own footprint. Likewise the HLF had little concern for the effect of small-arms against the shielded underside of the rig.

But it was still a standoff, one that would only devlove into further chaos once the PHL arrived in response to the hijacking.

Holding onto the inflatable’s mooring-line, poised in the open hatch, Kraber realised that as of yet, nopony and nobody had noticed them. Instead their attention was focused up at the platform’s superstructure.

Except for a few who had turned their tails and fled towards the shore, towards the city. Hmmm...

Summer 2020

“I admire that in a man, Viktor,” Kagan had said. “I know you can get through this. We’ll meet up later, I promise. Right now… you have to get to one of the boats.”

“There’s guards everywhere!” Viktor hissed back, staring over the assortment of barrels.

“You can get in there, I know you can,” Kagan said. “You’re a slippery bastard, Viktor.”

Right. All he had to do was get these kids to shore. But no-way in hell was that going to be possible in the dinky inflatable, which lacked even an outboard engine.

And then he directed his attention back towards the inviting shape of the Arctic Warrior...

Oh God, no, he wasn’t going to…the HLF would kill him - they’d probably use him as a meatshield for potion-grenades, drown him, flay him to bits, hang him from trees if he d-

His conversation with Lovikov came back to mind. He’d been offered an ignominious death in the woods, shot by people that were more chommies of convenience than actual friends, or to go out ablaze with glory.

He’d chosen glory, but he’d never said for which side he’d go down fighting for…

“Stay here”, he murmured to the kids. “If anyone tries to capture you guys, put a bullet in their fokking faces… think you can do that?”

“Don’t think I have a choice,” said one filly.

“That’ll work in a pinch, kid,” Kraber said, ruffling her mane. Because even if she was a fokking gluestick, she was still a child. “If somebody has a gun to all of you, shoot the bliksem. The one that reacts first in a firefight wins, and they’ll be shocked to see children. That gives you an edge.”

They looked up at him, caught aback by his ruthless pragmatism.

“Sometimes, you have to do things before you have the chance to question yourself,” he explained.

After bestowing that good advice, he shimmered down into the zodiac inflatable, and lying prone with his hands as paddles, quietly made his way out towards the moored tugboat…

New York…

“What was it you called me, Verity?” Kraber asked lightly. “A treacherous cunt?”

“You still are,” the mare replied drily. “And if you hadn’t snuck up on me and knocked me out with the butt of your gun, I’d have taken you no trouble…”

Kraber snorted and waved her off. “Sure you would have.”

The half-sedated mare held up a challenging hoof. “Want to go another ten rounds in the ring with me, pony-pounder?”

Kraber laughed and settled back in his own bed, and Verity smirked.

“Yeah, I thought so. I was impressed with how you flipped Redd overboard though…”

Luckily, Verity had left the tug’s motor idling. Having incapacitated the two crew left behind (and none too gently tossed Verity onto the mooring platform), Victor had cast off all lines and clumsily brought the Arctic Warrior over to the hatch he had opened.

“Jump aboard! Quick!” he shouted, motioning for the kids to leap or climb down onto the deck. There wasn’t a moment to lose. From above he could hear shouting voices, and a set of navigation lights rapidly approaching in the western sky heralded the approach of several PHL helis.

Fok! They were coming!

“Get aboard, now!” he roared again from the wheelhouse, struggling to hold position as the current swirled about the foot of the column. As more and more passengers climbed aboard, he saw to his surprise that their numbers had swollen: now there was a number of oil workers escaping through the hatch as well.

‘One of the kids must have gone up to look for more survivors… whoever it is, he’s either crazy fokking brave or crazy fokking dumb. Kwaai!’

“That’s the last of us!” came a cry, and without waiting for further confirmation, Viktor spun the helm over and gunned the throttles, just as the approaching helicopters began to trade fire with the platform.

And so, leaving a firefight in its wake, the Arctic Warrior sped off in the direction of Portland, navigation lights dimmed and transponder silent, a cargo of children, foals, and wounded workers onboard…

...plus one half-crazed defector .Well, maybe ‘half’ would be doing him too much credit.

“Who the hell are you?” one man asked. “I haven’t seen you around.”

"Ah'm one of thae new guards," Kraber said, trying for that old Robert Carlyle voice he’d affected… Nine years back?! Had it really been that long since… Ah, fokking hell. It’d work for now. Best not to think about it too hard. He coaxed a modicum more knots out of the tug’s engine. “My name’s Ivan Bliss.”

It was another lie, another spur of the moment name. After all, he wasn’t sure how notorious his actual identity was among these people. Every place had its own boogeyman, after all.

“Viktor, you have to stop running away!” the newfoal pleaded with him. “Tell them-”

A series of flashes in the sky shattered the conversation as the PHL helicopters blossomed into flowers of explosive light and fury. The blazed wrecks ploughed into the black water astern…

...and then the Sorghum’s arsenal of cannons exploded into a fusilade of shots.

But then, that probably wouldn’t do me any favors either.

!!BOOM!!BOOM!!BOOM!”

...And neither would that.

Rounds and shells whistled overhead, tracer-fire painting their trajectory...

“They’re shelling Portland!” someone gasped. “My God, they’re firing on the city! Are they fucking insane?!”

Yeah, there’s no way I’m confessing to have been with the kontgesigs firing on innocents, Kraber ‘thought’ at the new foal angel sitting on his proverbial shouter. Do me a favor, and HOU JOU FOKKING BEK!

And blessedly, it did so.

“Verity,” Kraber sighs, “Why the fok did anyone think that was a good idea?”

“You seriously believe their propaganda?!” Verity yells, and for a moment, you’re glad she’s kept restrained.

“I wouldn’t know,” Kraber says. “I left.”

“You damn traitor,” Verity sighs.

“Look, you’ve both been through this,” you say, trying to mediate it. “Verity… just tell him what happened.”

“Alright,” she says.

Verity

“I wish so much that I could have gotten everyone in the HLF to say that you ran away,” I say. Dammit, why can’t you say anything?! I ask, looking up at the faces of every pony and human that’s listening to Viktor Kraber’s bizarre, outright fucking crazy journey.

“...Fine. I guess there’s more important stuff here. But I swear, we never wanted to bomb Portland,” I say. “I just wanted my daddy back on the Front, fighting alongside us, to protect humanity from bastards like you-“

And everyone is stone-faced. Even Kraber.

“What?” I say, looking up at him and Aegis, that huge earth pony that he likes, is unimpressed.

“You don’t quite count,” Aegis says.

“I’m still me!” I protest. “I’m still-“

“Let’s not go there,” Kraber says. “We haven’t gotten to the part where I set that newfoal on fokkin’ fire, or the thing with the Fillydelphia-“

“No, I need to say this,” Aegis says. “It’s for her own safe-”

“My own-“ I say, and I am so disgusted that I want to beat him to a bloody pulp, never mind that Aegis is literally twice as big as me. “My own fucking safety? I’ve had enough of ponies telling me what’s the best for me, like I have no fucking rights!”

“I wasn’t saying that,” Aegis says. “I was saying that you can’t go back. You try and escape somehow-“ he points to me. “And you will not get a hero’s welcome in the HLF. You stay here, you’re safe. Well, not by much.”

“Oh, you son of a-“

“What?!” says that little unicorn filly with the ballet hoofshoes, looking up at Kraber. It’s the one that he failed to kill back in Defiance. Or so I’m told. I didn’t like Defiance, it was a goddamn shithole. My parents took me outdoors, and that place was just awful in comparison. With so many people displaced by the goddamn geldos, there were lots of places to hide, places better than there. “I remember the Fillydelphia,” that little unicorn filly says, and she shivers. Despite yourself, you can’t blame her. The Fillydelphia was crazy.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for eating that man’s throat in front of you,” Kraber says. “I was under a lot of stress-“

“It’s okay, you did tell me to close my eyes-”

“Again?! Seriously?!” Bly yelled. “Why would you do this?!”

“We’ll go into that later. It wasn’t your fault,” Kraber says. “And I’m sorry. I lost control, and bad kak happens when I do.”

“Holy shit, can we get you back on this?” I say, incredulously. He was never even remotely this calm in the HLF. “It’s like you’re on make-me-see-God-O-Contin.”

“Sorry, other people need it,” Kraber says. “Can’t be dipping into my own keg.”

“Ain’t we got more important things to talk about here?” Rivet asks. “I just want to know. What… did you do. I lost friends that day.” And it’s hard not to see that he’s grown up too fast. That he’s imitating his enormous dad, trying to be grown-up. I know that look too well.

“I promise, we never planned to attack Portland,” I say. “I swear, I just wanted him back, I’ve lost everything, home, friends, loves, my mother. Without him, the HLF could… could…”

“Don’t dig yourself deeper, kid” Aegis says. And I hate him. I hate Kraber, that sonovabitching turncoat that sold us all out twice and was still indispensable, the one that has so much work out for him while I’m expendable. I hate that he lived with ponies, the goddamn sellout. I hate…

I hate that he’s like me. So much like me, and so different. I hate that he made something of himself.

“So we were on the rig, and people from the boats all round had gotten it into their head that they could fight us,” I say. “And we hadn’t gotten all the people on the rig. Most of the actual military had holed up in its armory, and we could see people clambering on. Thankfully, we’d stationed people anywhere important - the drill, the guns.” I blink. “Speaking of, why the hell do you have guns on a rig?”

“In case something goes wrong,” says Vinyl Scratch, that DJ pony the PHL seem to like. I actually liked her music back before the War. “If it gets attacked by a zep, or something. They’re for firing while running away, more than anything.”

“Can’t blame us for being paranoid, can you?” Aegis’ other foal asks. She’s tall and slender, with white fur, green eyes, and a red and purple mane. If I’d gone horsefucker, I might think she’d end up being attractive.

“Fair enough,” I admit. Hard not to be in a world like this. “I heard this secondhand, alright? Kraber had knocked me out. But someone saw you steal the boat and they fired on it.”

“...Why?” Scootaloo asks.

“Well,” I say, “We were scared. Not by the boat - there were plenty of boats out there that helped take that rig back. See, we’d been hoping for an answer, and the one that Lovikov got was not it.”

Lovikov was already a paranoid bastard. He’d been jittering as he was holed up in the room. That AR-15 he liked, the one with the .50 Beowulf rounds and ridiculous drum mag that made it list to one side, was trembling.

He thought the HLF around him couldn’t see him shaking. But there was a smile on his face whenever he looked at the corpses in the room, the ones that nobody dared remove. Even the human ones, or so I’ve been told.

Which… wasn’t right. I’ll admit, yes, we hire psychopaths, violent bastards that shouldn’t live anywhere outside a prison cell-

”Seriously?” Kraber asks.

And then the radio crackled. It wasn’t that other broadcast, the weird one with Gestalt. But… alright, we’ll get to that later. Anyway, Lovikov was a bit too happy admiring his handiwork, pony and human alike. We’re the human liberation front,

And I sweep a glare across all of them, that treacherous cunt Kraber, his horsefucker college roommate, the stupid geldos they seem to love so much, that gluestick DJ

not the murder-everything-in-sight front. I’m telling you, he’d gotten further in the ranks than anyone that enjoyed bloodshed so much ever should. Not until you, Burakgazi, and that Scottish bastard Reid managed to rip out the guts of our ranks...

I honestly wouldn’t mind if he’d gotten killed on the mission, even if you lived through it as a result. He was expendable, a violent Russian thug with delusions of grandeur.

“Ah yes, someone to negotiate!” Lovikov laughed. “Now, PHL high command?” he was giddy with the power. His best action against the PHL, and one of the HLF on the rig told me right then and there that they doubted he’d be willing to let the rig go. “Excellent to have the pleasure of speaking to you,” he said, and he practically crooned it into the mic. Another HLF person, Lauren Estacado, said that he said it into the mic as if talking to a stupid child. “We have seized your mobile rig, the Sorghum, and we have hostages onboard. We will execute them if you do not comply with our demands.”

“I’m listening,” said whoever was on the other end of the line.

“Firstly,” Lovikov started. “We demand the return of Michael Carter to the HLF, and-”

"Enough," someone cut in. His voice was full of the rough tones of a man from deep Appalachia, with a baritone as deep as any valley in there. It was the tone someone uses when they’re angry as hell, too much to even raise their voice.

“Excuse me, but I am-”

“I don’t believe it!” the man interrupted. “You are as stupid as you sound. I said enough.”

"Who the hell is this?!” Lovikov yelled.

"You people just don't know when to quit,” the man said. “Fine. If I have to take care of you personally, then I will. You people," the man said, sneering, “If you can call yourselves that. You never knew what you were fucking with, and I can see that hasn’t changed.”

"Who the fuck do you think you are?!” Lovikov yelled. “Come here and you will be dead before you get a shot off!"

“You have no idea who I am, do you?”

“I couldn’t give a flying shit even if you held a fucking umbrella over my head to stop said shit to care who the fuck you are! I am in charge here, ME! NOT YOU!”

“I will tell you anyways. I am Colonel Marcus Renee of the UN/PHL Taskforce, and you have my attention.”

You could have heard a pin drop. Lovikov was silent, and tried to stammer something.

“Do you think-” Marcus started.

“FUCK YOU, YOU HORSE FUCKER! FUCK YOU TELL HELL AND BACK! YOU GET CLOSE TO THIS RIG AND I BLOW UP ANY DUMBASS COMING! YOU HEAR ME! I WILL FUCKING END YOU AND YOUR STUPID GROUP WILL BURN UNDER OUR STRENGTH OF OUR TRUE HUMANITY!”

“I had you pegged for burning under some big gun from R&D,” Marcus remarked drily. “A laser, maybe. Or that thermite gun.”

“I like that thing!” someone called out in the background.

“THE FUCK YOU SAY! I WILL SKULL FUCK YOUR HEAD WHILE THAT PURPLE BITCH WATCHES ME! I WILL-”

“Lovikov!” a voice hissed over the personal HLF radio, a frantic whisper that could only be achieved by pure terror.

“I WILL RAPE HER OVER YOUR CORPSE! I WILL KEEP HER AS A LIVING FUCKING TROPHY WHILE WE RAM HER OVER AND OVER TO SHOW HER MY MIGHT AS A HUMAN! SHE LIKED THAT WOULDN’T SHE!”

“Lovikov!” The radio barked out again.

“I WILL MAKE YOU THIS PROMISE RIGHT HERE AND NOW! I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU THE MOMENT I SEE YOU!”

“So noted.”

“Lovikov! We have boarders on the rig, they being dropped by pegasus-*BLAM*!”

Lovikov and the entire HLF group in the room froze up as the gunshot blared over both radios, both the rigs and their personal radios.

“That wasn’t Lovikov, was it?” an unknown woman asked, the discarded radio picking up their heavily southern-accented voice. “One of you, promise me you’ll shoot that motherfucker. Just to shut him up.”

“I think its still transmitting.” Marcus’ voice came on next, causing everyone to slowly look at the paling look on Lovikov’s face. “Well then, this just got a lot harder. Lovikov, was it? Yeah, I am here. You have a promise to keep after all.”

“It would be a pleasure,” the same woman said.

Well, that clinched it. Marcus Renee. Marcus goddamn Renee. We’d tried to kill him near constantly, but none of it stuck. The best PHL medical treatments could cure him of any poison, he was always shielded when outside of a base, the man was goddamn indestructible.

And that was when WE were trying to kill him while he wasn’t geared up.

Outside, he was nearly impossible to get a bead on. He had the hardest and baddest of the UN at his fingertips. He had all the cool toys and armor, he had the backing of the entire world with him. He controlled the North America with words and backed up everything with progress. He wasn’t some Brass stuck at some desk in a bunker, he was a Marine who fought in the frontline with everyone else. Insisted on it, if the stories were right.

And he was here… on this rig… surrounded by the sea. A Marine and his group of trained killers were on this rig with only one boat out of here...

We might as well have served ourselves on a gold platter up to Kraber.

”Fok you, that only happened twice!”

“Why?’ Lovikov whispered, and his voice was wavering, as if coming from far away. “Why is he here? Why… Why in God’s name, no… Oh no…”

Wordlessly, one of the hostages, the one whose pony friend we’d killed, pointed up to a whiteboard and my jaw dropped at the words.

“COLONEL RENEE VISITING TODAY, CLEAN RIG UP, LOOK OUR BEST PEOPLE! :) ”

Yes, they actually had the smileyface emoticon.

It was around that time that I decided “Fuck this” and ran. Galt, Lovikov, neither one was paying me enough.

But on my way down, back to the waters (I didn’t have a plan, I just figured I didn’t want to be anywhere near the man that had said that shit to Colonel Renee) I saw Redd Flamel, still guarding the boat. His grenade launcher, a real milspec thing, not a pipebomb launcher, was steadily aimed at the boats all around-

Then someone standing behind him punched him in the chin, kneed him in the balls, and flipped him into the ocean, somehow managing to keep the grenade launcher onboard.

I thought it was PHL, maybe someone thinking they could take the rig back themselves. So I snuck onto the boat, looking for the bastard that did it-

He elbowed me in the face and threw me onto the jetty.

I was unconscious long enough that someone fished me out of the water, and I pretended to be a survivor long enough that I managed to swim to shore. I’m glad I was unconscious, though, because I didn’t see the utter fucking travesty that got them firing those guns on Portland.

Lovikov, being half-crazy with rage, and seeing the boat you stole, Kraber, ordered the HLF to fire on Portland.

“If you’re trying to pin the bombardment all on me,” Kraber says, almost cheerfully, “I will wring your fokkin neck as you choke on the teeth I punched down your throat.”

There is an unpleasant silence.

“...Kay then,” I say.

Well, he said to aim up into the sky, for any pegasi, or any helicopters full of troops. Unfortunately, the HLF weren’t used to having artillery, so they weren’t exactly good shots. And he told them to keep firing.

And that’s how we fucked up. There. Are you happy, dammit?

Kraber again

As they drew closer to the harbor channel they saw the burning coastline, a conflagration consuming the vast shanty-towns that had been built right down to the tide-line and even on the offshore islands in the bay. Refugee housing, colonial mansions, and old tenements built of brick and wood nearly as thin as paper blazed in a sick harmony, as the guns from the immense rig continued to bombard the city, illuminating the sky with a million shimmering embers, ascending and dimming like dying souls.

“Mother of God!” cried out one man. “That last one came down just a block from Mercy Hospital...”

“Fuck me!” added a mustard-yellow earth pony, practically galloping up to the tugboat’s bridge wing to get a better view, placing a pair of binoculars up to her eyes. “They hit my cousin’s house! And that’s… Huh. They hit the ruins of the Convie Bureau. Well, no loss there.”

“Portland had a Bureau?!” Kraber asked incredulously.

“They never finished it, though,” the earth pony explained. “It started construction early during the Three Weeks of Blood, and when the riots broke out, they started to convince PER doctors at Maine Medical to put patients in the Bureau, herd them in like cattle…”

“I remember that,” Kraber said, shivering. “Hope tae Goad I never see it again. Did… did most people make it oot?”

The earth pony turned his head back to Kraber. “Aye. Me and Patrick Saunders, this one hitter for the Portland Seadogs helped get them out. And the city burned the damn place to the ground.” The pony looked melancholy all of a sudden, his snout and ears angled downward. “Don’t know if there’ll be much left after th-”

The boat rocked as something impacted the ocean next to them.

“...They’re firing on us,” whispered one rose-colored unicorn mare. “FUCKING FUCK, THE HLF ARE FIRING ON US!”

It wasn’t intentional, Kraber guessed. Lovikov was just indiscriminately firing on the port facilities. But they could still die from a blind-fired shell as they could from one targeted specifically on them.

“Lovikov, you fokking kontgesig!” Kraber screamed to nobody in particular. “WHAT THE FOK DOES ANYONE HAVE TO GAIN FROM THIS?!”

“Hold on, everyone!” Kraber yelled, remembering everything he could about emergency boat-handling. He had to zigzag-

Another shell impacted the sea next to them, a spray of superheated steam splashing up into the air.

Right. Just. Keep. Fokking. Zigzagging.

I did this, Kraber thought watching the explosions and fire in Portland. Me.

Curiously, there wasn’t a follow-up barrage. It was just those shells, slamming right into Portland.

“We can’t get into the city proper!” he called out, seeing burning wrecks blocking the harbour channel. “We’re going to press on, up into the bay…”

There was an island ahead, a patch of serene dark amid the blazing inferno. It was one of the many small islets on the fringes of the city. Kraber couldn’t remember its name, but he recalled that there used to be a school of some kind on it, connected to the mainland by a causeway.

That didn’t matter though. All that was important was that, even though he knew the island to have been taken over by the PHL, the rig’s fire appeared to be ignoring it. The swarming mushroom-farms and prefab building stacks jammed in between the trees and permanent structures had yet to take a single shell, it seemed.

‘Where’s a jetty?’ he seethed internally, sweeping the tug around the island’s shore. ‘Where’s a fokking dock when you need one?’

There was none. Then, seeing the dark bar of the causeway ahead, he decided to ‘make port’ by another means.

“Hold tight!” he called out, and shoved the throttles to their stops. The tug’s stocky bow lifted itself skyward as they charged straight for the artificial shore, her stern trying to drown itself in the craft’s own wake…

And then they came ashore, ran aground, beached...or in layman’s terms, crashed into North America.

Kraber had expected a sickening smash or a sound like freight train running over a million marbles. Instead, there was just a slithering rush, an upward surge like an express elevator, and a sudden roar like a million beehives as propellers came up out of the water and accelerated to dangerous rpms.

He fisted the ‘emergency stop’ plunger, and the motors died…

Somebody took a breath, a child (or was it a foal?) cheered...

"IDENTIFY YOURSELF!" screamed a voice from ashore. Spotlights swept through the dark, blinding their vision.

What to do what to do what to do...

"We're workers from the Sorghum!" One of the evacuees yelled. “There’s a guard with us! He’s drove the boat aground, and-”

“INCOMING!” someone cried out, and everyone threw themselves to the deck as the whistle of a diving shell crashed down from above, ready to kill…

Nobody.

EISH?!

The projectile (A thaumic bolt? A huge artillery shell? A railgun slug?) had exploded in midair. It had not been shot down by a laser defense system or an autocannon, no. It had simply gone off prematurely, a slick of fire dancing against a shimmering lime-green patch of space that hung in midair.

“A fokking shield…” Kraber whispered, amazed.

“What’s so surprising?” asked a pale unicorn mare, her cutie mark indistinguishable in the gloom. She looked confused. “It’s just an upscaled version of the same protection on your own armour.”

Was that… was that standard? Kraber asked himself, confused. Oh, fokking fokking fok me, so many HLF are going to die when we really piss the PHL o-

Another shell impacted the shield.

Next week. So many HLF are going to die when the PHL comes after us next week. Fok, but that was a sobering thought.

“Ah,” Kraber said, trying to put on an act of ‘silly-me-how’d-I-forget’ but mentally screaming. The average dreamweaver-

“There aren’t that many dreamweaver unicorns on earth,” says one unicorn stallion - Touchdown, that’s what Kraber thinks his name is - with a Hoofball for a cutie mark. He has just walked into the room. He’s the only stallion close to being as large as Aegis, but then, as pony size goes, Aegis is a class of his own.

“Really?” Aegis asks, interested, as Kraber pulls himself up, wincing a little, to look over at Touchdown. Touchdown seems like a solid stallion, anyway, and he’s good at playing Borderlands, Warframe, and Destiny, so in Kraber and Aegis’ respective books, that makes him a true bro. They haven’t seen him much, but Aegis and Kraber have both been impressed with his use of ‘remotes’ - small, mobile, TK-controlled platforms loaded with shield projectors, thaumic ennervators, bombs, and guns. The tactical applications are near-limitless.

“Really,” Touchdown says. “The college I went to had a school dedicated to those disciplines, but it got drafted into the war effort before they could turn flank for the PHL. Only dreamweavers I know are my sister, and this other Zebra named Mojisola…”

“Wait. Zebra dreamweavers?” Vinyl asks, confused.

“Yeah. The school accepted internationals,” Touchdown explains. “I’ll explain later, though. Very interested to hear your story.”

“Thanks for that,” Kraber says, genuinely intrigued. “I’ll ask about it later.”

“I’d like to hear about it too,” Aegis agrees. “Wonder how it works without a horn…”

“Anyway, the average dreamweaver

-mnemosurgeon, or other unicorn with psychomantic disciplines would likely find it to sound like a hardcore R-movie marathon with everything cut out except for the screams and profanities...

Which wouldn’t exactly be out of the ordinary for Kraber, but this time he was panicking.

“Ah…how do I turn that on?” Kraber asked. “Ah, eh…” and here, he tried to act embarrassed. “When the HLF attacked the rig I kinda traded in my older kit for one of the newer suits…”

The mare eyed the ill fit of the armor and shook her head. “You took this stuff off a dead guy, didn’t you?”

“Oh, no, no, no, no…” Kraber said.

“So, why does the namepatch say ‘Imbeault’...”

“Ah...okay, you got me. I flunked the training program for the new suits but decided I was better off in one of these when I had the chance…”

“What idiots are running the training school…” The mare rolled her head again and grabbed hold of his arm. “You’re just lucky you didn’t get caught with your pants down.”

“Ah eywis can get dressed and undressed real quickly,” Kraber said quickly, trying to channel a bit of the old suggestiveness he’d used back in med school in Boston. That was what… Ah, fok, he felt so gross doing this! Like he’d just proposed to have sex with a moose, or, well, a horse. Siff, even if it did talk! But that was what PHL did, right? Fok horses? Had to stay convincing.

“I’ll remember that,” the mare said, a contemplative edge to her voice.

Oh, fokking SIFF!

“Anyway, look here?”

She pointed.

“That’s your shield module. It’s your best friend. Repeat that for me…”

“Ah, the shield module is my best mate...”

“Congratulations, you just passed training…”

“Ah, okay,” Kraber said. “Can it… Can I shoot while it’s on?”

“Yeah, it’s calibrated to let nothing in, but stuff can go out just fine,” the mare explained. “Thankfully, you’ve already got a few PHL guns that’d work with it…”

Oh, thank God, the MG2019 and that Fostech he stole! And Lovikov thought the former would kill him… Showed what that asshole knew!

“Can you ID my pistols so they work with it too?” Kraber asked, holding out his .45 and .50. “I know how it fokking looks, but these are old friends of mine.”

“Another time,” the mare said, as the sound of boots and hooves scrambling onto the canted deck made themselves apparent. “For now just shut up and let me do the talking… and for what its worth, thanks for getting us out of that madhouse. Good job soldier…”

Two figures appeared on the bridge wing, shining in torches. Both wore MG42 assault rifles, though one carried it in his hands and the other had a pair mounted to a saddle.

“Identify yourselves.”

“Combat Engineer Socket Wrench,” said the mare who had helped Kraber. “I’m in charge here…”

Mackworth Island, as it turned out, was a strange place. The Ponies for Human Life had apparently converted the former school into an administrative centre. Now, with the centre of Portland merrily ablaze, it had also become responsible for overseeing all local operations.

Some of the various workers that Kraber had saved (was that the word?) from the rig had relatives here, and there had been a few ecstatic reunions, and most everybody who had come ashore on the tug with him had thanked and congratulated him. For a single, solitary micromoment, Kraber’s spirits rose, as people bumped bellies with him, raised him up (that man was strong!) and thanked him for getting off the rig. He’d even learned that the local name for Socket Wrench was ‘Socks’, had a good bit of rum, gotten hugged by more than a few ponies (which was nice, he had to admit, the gluesticks were like living plushies!) and yet something of their joy put him off. But why shouldn’t they be joyful?! They’d gotten away from those lunatic…

HLF.

And, with that word, with the remembrance that the rig was still firing on the city, Kraber’s spirits sunk.

Get away! He wanted to say. I’m not worth it. This is my fokking fault! I helped everyone out, I shot your friends, I killed… I killed your ponies.

He was grateful for the inscrutable mask he wore, so nobody could see his face. He was also glad that, in the madness, nobody had noticed the cracks in the story or demanded he identify himself by name, rank and serial number...

“Ah appreciate this, ah really dae,” Kraber said at last, breaking away from another grateful group and slumping onto a bench that overlooked the harbor, “But ah’m fokkin beat. Ah need tae sit doon.”

“You don’t seem happy,” said a strange batwinged mare fluttering towards him.

On a normal day, Kraber would have pulled out his revolver and exploded the fokking vampire gluestick coming up to him. But this wasn’t a normal day. Oh, he couldn’t look at her or damn near any pony, any of those foals, without seeing Pinkie Pie turning his family, Kate, Peter, Anka, Cousin Richard, into those fokking zombies. And yet, the ponies had been a hell of a lot more heroic than the HLF were today.

They’d been trying to protect their friends, they’d defended against hostiles… without resorting to shooting everything apart and then blowing up all the boats in the vicinity ‘just to be sure’.

While Kraber had shot foals. Which… sure, they were ponies, but they were still children. Wee yins, he heard himself think in that Robert Carlyle imitation he’d used during that production of Trainspotting in Boston.

He sincerely hoped that he wasn’t going to end up getting a hallucination of Begbie. That would be terrifying. Silly at first, but then, well, it’d just turn into pure torment. More than usual, anyway.

“Those who talk to themselves keep poor company,” Anka said, in that odd accent caught somewhere between Germany, Roxbury in Boston, and Cape Town.

Kraber paused and facepalmed. Fok, she was right, wasn’t she? He briefly debated telling this batwinged pony to go away, to just fokking take his pistol and shoot himself so he didn’t have to feel like this anymore...

But sometimes, a little bit of company does a man a body of good. And honestly, after ‘grand theft tugboat’, killing people on the rig, and waking up early, Kraber was too tired to act on that anger. It was on something of a low burn at the moment.

“I’m not,” he said, watching as another slug impacted the curiously benevolent barrier above the island. “Shield generators?” Kraber asked, intrigued.

“You didn’t know?” the batwinged mare asked, genuinely surprised. “When the zeps-”

Kraber abruptly realized that HLF ‘contingency plans’ for dealing with zeps were utter kak, as were their anti-air

“-and potioneer ships come during Barrierfall, they’ll try to bombard Portland. At the worst possible time, quite likely,” the batwinged pony said. “Because why the hell should we expect anything different?”

“Well, looks like it’s working a treat…” he laughed sardonically, watching the city across the bay go up like a roman candle...

Again, the fear. The knowledge of Barrierfall, millions dying or being ponified on the first day alone, desperate stragglers trying to outrun the barrier-

“Alright, what the hell is with you? I can hear you drawing in breath whenever I say something, and your heart racing,” the batwinged pony said.

“I’m a useless fokking paranoid psychopath,” Kraber said. “Those are just symptoms of the condition.”

The batwinged mare looked up at him, her eyes wide. “Uh… huh. Well, that explains a bit, but you didn’t answer my question…”

“I have a… a close friend in the HLF,” Kraber said.

Lie. Not just a blatant untruth, no, but if the HLF found him, it’d be unlikely he’d have friends in there.

“It’s noat… that abnormal. We all know someone. He just goes oan and oan, getting radger and radger, and Ah cannae take it, but Ah’m worried for him around Barrierfall. Fok, Ah’m worried for all of us…” he sighed. “Ah’m from Scotland. Fokking Leith, actually. Ah saw one barrierfall, and eish, that was a fokkin nightmare. I saw a woman with broken legs, halfway ponified, headboatin’ a knife, bringin’ oat brains an blood each stab, cause her arms were burnt to a crisp. I cannae blame her - naebody wants tae be potioned.”

Actually, Kraber had seen that over in Africa. Fokking terrifying, it was, and he’d shot her as a mercy, then killed a whole fokking lot of royal guard and newfoals as well. Not… quite… to avenge her. He would have done that anyway.

“It’ll be a fokking nightmare again when it touches down,” Kraber finished. “An’ soon eftir, we’re fokked. Ah’m scared, ah really am… Nae man nor pony should see a second Barrierfall in their life.”

Never mind that he wouldn’t - by the time Equestria’s Barrier had gotten somewhere that people could flee to, he’d probably be dead, or one of the enthusiastic little mindless zombie-dolls trying to potion everyone.

Victory…

“I can understand that,” the bizarre batwinged pegasus said. “I remember seeing the Barrier during the first days of the expansion… we were terrified when Geneva was swallowed.”

“Actually, that’s nae what Ah’m afraid of,” Kraber said.

“You’re not afraid of the Barrier?” the pegasus asked.

“Well, mostly… it’s what we’ll dae,” Kraber said. “We’ve hud years in America fae old hatreds tae come up and simmer. And the PER will jist come oot the woodwork, and fok us all up. My friend would say the HLF would help us, but…” he shrugged. “Ah didnae believe it then, ah dinnae believe it now.”

Which reminded him once more. About the elephant in the room. Except elephants, for whatever reason, weren’t sentient in Equestria.

“What do you think they’ll do?” the pegasus asked, curious.

“I cannae quite guess,” Kraber said, half-lying to even himself.

“Well, they’re not exactly full of warm and fuzzy horseback riders,” the batwinged pegasus mare said.

“Ha! Nice!” Vinyl interrupts.

“Aye,” Kraber agrees, a smile on his face. “Ah think that was when-” he pauses, coughs, clears his throat, and switches from the affected Leith brogue back into the much less affected South African accent more familiar to all of you. “I think that’s when I thought Nebula - that’s the batpony - was alright. I mean, she had a sense of humor about humans… having…” he glances at you. “A kind and loving relationship with ponies,” he says quickly.

“Bit late for you to try and be responsible in front of colts and fillies,” says one PHL man. You’ve seen him around - he’s one of Kraber and Johnny C’s friends. Cept he’s an old roommate of Kraber’s from back in college, somebody named Bly Doyle. Though Bly’s quick to point out that Kraber never tried to eat him.

“Kraber tried to eat his old roommate?” Scootaloo asks.

“Well, yeah,” Kraber says.

“I thought you were joking!”

While Bly’s been trained with firearms, like pretty much everyone else (A short Kalashnikov hangs over one shoulder even now) he’s working at PHL medical, off the front lines. He’s been busy lately with some consultants over in Tribeca. Something about totem-proles, you think? You never liked those.

His family - who often let Kraber and Aegis stay over - are quite nice.

“Eh, a man’s gotta try,” Kraber says, shrugging. “Had to agree with Nebula on that because fok it,

yeah, that’s exactly it!” Kraber laughed, the epithet being far too silly for him not to laugh. It was like that time he’d been depressed back in college, and Erika had told him how to get shits and giggles - by making pot brownies with laxative. “Ah, fok, I gotta remember that one…”

Nebula looked at him a little insistently.

“Eish, well, Ah…” he paused, musing on the usual HLF M.O. “They’d kill all the ponies trying to escape,” he said with utter certainty. “And probably people trying to help them…” his voice trailed off into another tangent, seemingly independent of his brain. “So emergency workers, government soldiers… PHL relief workers… hospitals with pony doctors and nurses…”

Oh fok no

“And they’ll probably be desperate,” he realized, “So they’ll have to get medical supplies. And, if they do any evac, they’ll…” His face went white, though Nebula couldn’t see it. She could fokking well sense something about him, though.... “So many fokking people are going to die. Or… or get ponified, because some… some fokkin radges are going tae be more concerned with the HLF way than the safe way.”

And, at the end of that sentence, he hears a cacophony of voices, of his own, Victory’s the nameless newfoal, of Anka, Peter, Kate, Cousin Richard, Emil, countless others: “And it will be your fault.”

“The scary thing is how unsurprising that is,” the mare said. “I knew they’d be bad. But… I never heard it voiced so plainly. You know that feel?”

“I fokkin well know that feel,” Kraber agreed. “But… It just eats at me now,” he said, taking a drink. “I have HLF connections, even now. They don’t know I’m here. I could very well be like them-”

“Aren’t you already?” Victory asked.

“Yeah, and it scares me. The thought that in the future I could be - could have been - one of those bastards,” he said.

“Ah, there’s no reason to be guilty about what you might do,” Nebula said. “You gotta focus on now, and worry about that when you have time.”

They paused, Kraber thinking on that sentence.

“Mind if I ask a question? …What the fok are ye?” Kraber asked, looking over the batwinged, fanged (fanged?!) pony.

“Seriously?” the mare asked.

“Well, Ah’ve bare ever seen yuir like,” Kraber explained.

“We have a lot of names,” the strange indigo pony with the blue-black mane said. “Nightkin, the Nocturne, Thestrals… batponies…”

“Oh yeah, Ah haird o’ that,” Kraber said. “Thought it was just a story people told back at the refugee camp.”

The pony sighed. “Not surprised. There aren’t exactly many of us on Earth.”

In retrospect, Kraber shouldn’t have been surprised by her appearance. There’d been a lot of odd species of Equus that had come to earth in the chaos around the Three Weeks of Blood, even zebras (he’d never met one, though) and there were some HLF from down south that swore they’d seen a pony made of crystals, but he’d never been all that clear on it.

But the war hadn’t yet consumed America, so he hadn’t yet learned - he’d almost forgotten - to expect anything of the war, that making sense was a fool's dream. But

“What happened?”

“Lots of things,” the bizarre-looking pony said simply. “They helped Princess Luna escape, a long while back…

“Here’s the bit of the story I remember,” Kraber says, and clears his throat. “Back from when I met her awhile later.”

“What happened to her?” you ask. “Nebula?”

“Oh, she’s fine. Still over in Portland, still watching for Imperials or some ship that manages to make its way across the ocean.” Aegis says. “Wonderful mare. Bit irritable nowadays, but who isn’t?”

“Good point,” Vinyl agrees. “It gets hard sometimes.”

“Which is why I’m happy for the friends I still have. Like all of you,” Kraber says. “She’s not…” And Kraber looks downcast here, his shoulders slumping. He looks wizened, tired. “…another friend I’ve lost.” He takes a drink of the bourbon hidden under his chair. “I’ve lost more fokkin’ chommies than some of you kids’ve yet made…” he sighs.

Aegis, putting himself up on a large chair, puts a hoof behind Kraber’s head, over his shoulder.

“Ah, thanks for that,” Kraber says, and he smiles over at Aegis. “You’re a real china, Aegis.”

“You too, Viktor,” Aegis agrees.

“Ah, fok it. All of you - except maybe Verity, because you’re not going to be a paragon of sanity till we find a cure-”

“Nope.”

“Are great friends. Fok what Equestria says, this is real friendship. Helping each other, visiting them in the hospital… and listening to punk rock.”

“Damn right it is!” Vinyl agrees.

“Anyway,” Kraber says, looking quite comfortable against Aegis’ foreleg, “Here’s what Nebula-

Nebula’s Tail

“Yes, her name’s Nebula. Just go with it. Here’s what she told me…”

We were revered by a lot of ponies back in the day. Feared too, for obvious reasons that we’re kinda intimidating to look at. There were some ponies that came up with stories as to where we came from; that we were created through magic as Nightmare Moon’s loyal soldiers, or were the victims of curses….

The truth is though that some of us are just created through enchantments by Princess Luna…though I guess all the stories have some truth in them. You can be born a thestral, yes, but Luna favors the use of enchantments to temporarily transform us to look the part, since her first permanent corps of guards were naturally-born Nightkin. We’re a rare breed, after all. For example, my brother - well, sister, oddly enough - wasn’t born a thestral like me, so she doesn’t have the omnivorous digestive structure. Huh? Well, bro asked Luna to make his thestral disguise look like a mare. Always seemed happier on duty that way… or when flying the Night Guard’s colors when on civilian leave, and I get to have a sister and a brother, which is pretty cool. You might like Princess Luna, Mr. Bliss.

Ah, okay. I understand, Mr. Bliss. The Princess is… was… well she loved her illusions and theatrics. She did things with pomp and splendor, loved making an entrance, and her voice could blow you back. Ponies quickly grew to adore her, but then, well… HLF bastards always act like all ponies threw their weight behind the sun bitch.

But we didn’t. For all her anger, Princess Luna was never all that intent on the orders to exterminate the Changelings. Yes, Mr. Bliss - genocide. Queen Celestia had us exterminate all Changeling hives in Equestria, and it had been scary how easy she’d whipped everypony into a frenzy. As I remember, that was when we first heard about the mare they call ‘Celestia’s Sword’...

“Who’s she?” Kraber asked.

“We… don’t know. A mare that obeys the queen bitch without question, wears a flesh-colored mask like half a human face… and the nightmare of many a Changeling. And mine. I saw her in action, and she was surgical in the field. Like a scalpel to someone’s throat...

Luna, well, she’d wanted to capture Queen Chrysalis, punish her, impose sanctions, but not…. not kill her. Eventually, Celestia managed to convince her…. and we did so. I know we didn’t burn the majority of them, anyway, but the things we did during that campaign… We caught a lot of flak, so you humans say, for lagging behind on the campaign to protect the home and hearth of Equestria… once, it was more literal, though we could never prove that the fireworks launched by the Celestian Guards weren’t an accident.

From there, well, it went downhill. After the Great Equestrian exploded on Declaration Day - and that’s a long story, please ask somepony else, I’m trying to make a point - Luna begged her sister not to ‘spread harmony’, to do what she planned, based on what she’d witness on that ship. For a year or two, Luna sat by, afraid to act against Celestia again, desperately hoping that something could be salvaged from the war. Why? Well, she’d been Nightmare Moon - ancient enemy of the ponies, mad alicorn with great and terrible power, gone mad with jealousy for Celestia - earlier. Try and ask about it later, it’d take too long to explain. She’d only just recently been reintegrated into Equestria, and she was.... well, afraid. She would tell us she had confidence issues, and feared that even the slightest inkling of arguing with her sister meant that she could be on the way to becoming Nightmare Moon again. And I can’t prove anything, but I know in my heart of hearts, like up is up and bullets come from guns, that Celestia played on those fears-”

“She did what.” Kraber said, angered beyond inflecting even a question mark in his voice.

“You heard me,” Nebula said.

“It’s just… Look. I have three siblings,” Kraber explained. “Maybe we hit each other a bit, but that shit is too fokking far!” he paused. “She disnae care. She disnae care, so I don’t know if she can be hurt. Not that it really compares to what Celestia’s done in the past three years, but… her sister, man.”

“Yeah. She played on it to keep Luna from acting. Oh, she assuaged Luna’s fears by various reassurances, but there was always the veiled threat at the back of those words - “are you feeling quite yourself, Luna?” - “do you wish to speak to a doctor about these outbursts, ‘dear sister’?”...urgh! Heard them before. The words were like rancid honey. Before long, we had ponies saying Nightmare Moon had never really been ‘purified’ or what have you, that Luna was just biding her time… whispers and rumors among the Canterlot nobility, the practical dissolution of the Night Court for ‘reasons of national security’. Because Luna just… kept… asking…. questions.

There was only so long it could work, though. Luna was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but she knew something was wrong. She knew it in her bones. When her mane began losing its luster, fading back to the colour it had been at her birth, she became convinced something was rotten in Equestria. And do you know what the greatest, saddest honor was? It was she confided her fears in us, dammit. Not to her sister, nor her so-called friends, but in us...her guards, her forsworn defenders.

...most of those guys are dead now, I think. I’ve lost a lot of good friends. What? My bro? He... well, she’s over in New York right now. Spends as much time as possible a mare, until maintaining the transformation burns her out. If you’re ever there and you see her, tell her that Nebula says hello. And I think there are some of the old Nightguards back in the home country, leading resistance cells-

“Wait, resistance cells? In Equestria?” Kraber interrupted.

“Yeah,” Nebula said, surprised. “Course there’s an Equestrian resisty. Why wouldn’t there be? Even if you don’t like humans-”

“Gee, I wonder why…” the nameless newfoal muttered.

“Then you probably don’t like all the things Celestia’s done,” Nebula explained. “Ever hear of totem-proles?”

“Vaguely. Not until about last August, on the 17th,” Kraber said. What a great day that had been...

“That’s oddly specific. Anyway, they’re surveillance devices, and they’re up on every block. Say anything that Queen Celestia doesn’t like, and you get disappeared, or…. reintegrated.” The shivers that Nebula had when she said the word ‘reintegrated’ said more than any descriptor ever could. “And the war hasn’t done anything good for the economy, either.”

“Wait…” Kraber said. “Population boom… wartime economy… near medieval infrastructure, couple billion joining…” he winced. “Sounds downright fokking hellish.”

“Yeah,” Nebula sighed, “If anything, the war’s done more harm to Equestria than you ever could even with the Barrier up there.”

And, now, Kraber had to think. A resistance movement in Equestria… ponies that were truer to the partisan spirit that he once thought the HLF embodied… “Sorry,” he said. “Continue.”

“Anyway, all the other nightguards, I’m-”

”-not sure what happened to them. I can’t rightly say. I didn’t make many friends getting here, trying to save what they see as a doomed world. So many died just helping Princess Luna and Cadenza, the crystal princess, escape…”

“Wait?” asks Scootaloo. “Our Cadance? She’s a princess!?”

“Yeah...didn’t you know?” says Kraber. “She’s ‘rightful heir to the Crystal throne’ or something…”

“Awesome…” Scootaloo says, starry-eyed. “We have a princess on our side!”

“Yeah, I guess it is. But for Nebula, well, the night that Luna and Cadenza fled was a black one for the thestrals. Most of the few survivors had to part ways, smuggle themselves across the borders on their own initiative. But remember kids… if any ponies can be called heroes, the damn Thestrals are certain. Every single one of them had Luna’s back, foals and all - they were the only armed force not bound by that mindfok spell Celestia put on her own soldiers, thanks to Luna having her own charter, and they all used that freedom and made the choice to defy the Empire squatting without invite in their home. Loads still do. That’s why the Thestrals are heroes to the PHL, to any pony that looks up the sun and tells it to go fok itself.”

“Hey Kraber!” calls out a Night Guard mare walking by. “Heard you got beat up by our… what’s a word…”

“Not ‘new recruit’,” Kraber says thoughtfully. “Hmmm…”

“Go buck yourselves…” snarks Verity, before abruptly covering her mouth with her hooves and repeating the word ‘fuck’ repeatedly as if it was a warding spell.

You stifle a grin. It’s a weird and terrifying life you lead, but some things are just too funny not to laugh at.

“Unwilling charge?” Aegis suggests.

“Sounds good,” Kraber agrees. “Ah, don’t worry about it, Lunar Phase, I’m fine. Just telling these folks here a story.”

“Looks like all those writing classes you take on leave are paying off,” Aegis says.

“What’s the story about what?” ‘Lunar Phase’ asks, gracefully flicking a full mane of gunmetal-silver locks behind one ear. Despite the sleek muscle visible beneath her gleaming coat and the tempered steel in her eyes, she’s almost the perfect definition of pony femininity.

“Oh, just how I got into the PHL,” Kraber explains. “Just mentioned your sister.”

“Really!” Lunar Phase says. “I miss her so much…”

“So do you see?” Nebula asked. “See what the war means to me, and my clan? See what we’re fighting, and why?”

Kraber had never met Queen Celestia. Never had a sense of… of her, really. Absurd as it sounded. He’d just project some generic concept of her or Pinkie Pie upon every pony he met. True Quill, a PHL journalist, will later refer to HLF members as thinking of ponies as ‘one gestalt mass’. And hearing that, Kraber’ll agree. It won’t be far off the mark.

But from what he’d just heard, it was impossible not to hate her. What fokking kontgesig would… would do that to her sister? Whip the press into a frenzy, convince them an innocent mare was evil, consolidate power for herself… kill her guard… commit genocide… Though, granted, he’s seen the tapes of the two sisters final encounter at Reykjavik. They’re public to anyone, viewed billions of times on Youtube.

He can say it definitely though. This mare beside him now, Nebula, was a good pony. Irritable and blunt? Maybe a little, judging by how many details she’d skipped over in her story, but then, she was trying to get to the point. She was refreshingly honest, easily able to listen to him, and, most importantly, not Celestia or Pinkie. It was a shock just after the thought crossed his mind, that there could be good ponies. But… their foals could suffer just like him, just like his own children. Just like him. And, most importantly, the war had cost her a prominent position too. She’d gone from a royal guard to a watchmare on an island in Portland, and she couldn’t go home again.

Yeah, for a gluestick, Nebula seemed alright. Not as if she’d be a friend of his, but more like they could be civil.

It was a welcome discovery, Kraber reflected, looking up into the stars. Nebula, a mare who looked quite graceful, came across as far more human than his comrades in the Front.

He could have relaxed, maybe, just maybe finding peace for a second, if not for that glaring problem that, oh ja, Portland was on fokking fire.

Kraber’s blood ran cold. “Nebula?” he asked. “Why the fok doesn’t the rest of Portland have a shield like this island?”

“We’d gotten a response from a radiowoman over in Portland, near the business district,” Nebula explained. “She said… somebody sabotaged the shield generator.”

“Who?” Kraber asked, his blood running cold.

“PER, she hopes,” Nebula said. “But… There’s another possibility. That the HLF did it. Wouldn’t surprise m-”

Kraber ran, practically bolted for it.

“Where are you going?!” Nebula yelled.

“First, I’m getting these pistols encoded to work with my shield. Second, going out into the city!” Kraber yelled, dashing back to the boat. “I’m going to see what I can do to help!”

“You could die!”

“A hell of a lot more could if I don’t get out!”

Mackworth Island did, it seemed, actually have a dock, but it was a tiny thing only suited for small launches and yachts. The motor-pool however was more than enough to make up for it, and in his stolen armour and MG2019 in hand, Kraber looked more than official enough to requisition a vehicle.

V8 snarling, the battered old Ford Explorer he’d taken off of Socket Wrench’s hooves fishtailed down the steep road from the island’s summit and then accelerated out across the causeway. As soon as he hit the mainland, two left-hand turns put him onto the highway into the city-center. So… this was it, just a city full of scared bastards, and himself, trying to fix his mistake.

...plus his crazy of course. The newfoal was currently watching him from the back seats, a shadowy and indistinct reflection in the rear-view mirror.

Ah, fok it. He had to do something. Fok the hallucinations, especially that kontgesig Victory. That ridiculous bitch with the pullstring. If there was anyone hurt by the Sorghum’s shells, anyone out there… he’d do what he could.

Even if it killed hi-

A shell hit a stalled car right in front of him, sending a plume of smoke and shrapnel into the air, leaving him swerving to avoid it, the Ford squealing for one desperate moment as Kraber pleaded to God that his car didn’t flip over.

Well, that might not be very long.

“You could have stopped the shells!” the older new foal pleaded from the passenger seat, only visible in the flickering light cast by a passing streetlights, disappearing whenever their orange light segued into shadow. “This won’t-”

“If you’re my guilt, I expect you to make fokking sense,” Kraber said. “I’m not facing down that many people with guns. I’d get filled with more lead than Bly's plumbing.”

As he wondered what happened to people like his old roommate Bly, his college chommies - ‘Polo’ Polmont, Gray, Howie, Terry, Strychnine Jones, Helen, Zo, Stretcher Burt, Corinne, Frank, Eva, Heather, Zanna, Miranda (actually some friend of Bly's friend Johnny C in art school) all that crew that he’d trusted the year he spent in America as a lark-

“Who are they?” you ask.

“Ah, they’re old chinas from back in med school,” Kraber explains. “Specially Bly. He was the roommate I didn’t try to eat, by the way.”

“Why did you…” Scootaloo starts.

“It was in that flashback with Kraber meeting Kate,” Aegis says.

“Not sure you’ve got good judgment when it comes to friends,” Verity says.

Aegis glares at her.

“No, no, she’s got a point,” Kraber points out, “In that I considered the HLF to be chommies. Still though…. Crazy bastards, but these were good friends. Helped me out a lot when Kate was bout to give birth. Even gave me money! Would’ve starved without that….”

“Think I’d like to hear about that sometime,” you say.

“Nah. It’s not all that important, and I feel like you have enough stories to keep track of,” Aegis says.

“Ja,” agrees Kraber. “Anyway, right when I was thinking about them,

“Look, I am doing this!” Kraber roared, pounding a fist on the steering wheel and pushing the rev-counter into the red. The 4X4 transmission snarled as he forced the car up and over an abandoned barricade, using other vehicles as berms and ramps. “And you’re not going to tell me to do something fokking stupid. I’m doing the right thing, FOR ONCE IN THE PAST FOUR FOKKING YEARS!”

There was no reply. The newfoal had vanished.

Okay, that was… that felt invigorating. Making a decision, for himself. With that thought - that suddenly, he was the master of his mind, and king of the road as he powered into Downtown. Not because he wanted to - a fleeting desire to come back to the HLF, to drive the Warrior back out to the rig and… okay, fok it, that wouldn’t work. No. Fok that noise. He knew what he was getting into when he did this stupid fokking thing.

So, armed with the knowledge that he was suddenly back in control, that he’d met a good mare, and now had a lot of gun that’d work with a shield, Kraber screeched the Explorer to a halt at the lip of a crater blasted in the roadway, kicked open the drivers-side door, and strode into a city gone mad.

Dancing Day, Dancing Day...

You’ve heard of it, of course. When the Sorghum started firing on Portland, everything went nuts. HLF and PER came out of the woodwork, seeing it as an opportunity to assert themselves, along with all the poor looters who had just wanted something to eat.

The PHL, National Guard and local authorities had been responding to the situation as best it could, but a lot of the best troops were being diverted to consolidate strongholds and eventually take back the rig, Luna only knows how HLF members like Verity escaped…

“You gonna enlighten us on that?” you ask Verity. “When they retook the rig, how did you escape?”

“Come to think of it, I was wondering how you did that,” Kraber says. “I knocked you out-”

“Barely.”

“-And threw you overboard while the boat was still going!”

“You threw me onto the jetty, not into the water. This is your storytime, not mine, at least keep the facts straight!”

“Fair enough…so that’s another story. The troops that were actually left were mostly green volunteers or fresh recruits outta training, panicky and nervous.

It was a recipe for hell.

“The city was a mess,” Kraber continues. “HLF graffiti was sprayed everywhere, fires and looting were going on all over the place. The newbie troops were trying to contain things, but they were not putting much effort into distinguishing insurgents from looters. Lotta blood was shed pointlessly that night, a lotta lives ruined.”

He pauses to describe one pony nailed to a wall with a railroad spike, a grotesque visual that brings and unnerving smile to Verity’s face, one that makes you feel more than a little dirty when you see it. You trot back from her, unnerved.

“Don’t worry, Little Day, it’s fine,” Aegis reassures you.

“Trust me,” Kraber says with a glare aimed at Verity, “It’s fine. Shoulda realized it’d be too much to ask Verity to like this… or any pony here. Or zebra. Or people here in general, actually.”

Verity glares back at him.

“Oh, don’t jou fokking deny it,” Kraber practically snarls.

She looks as if she is about to argue, then practically ‘deflates’. That’s how Vinyl put it, whispering in your ear that it seems like what Pinkie Pie’s mane used to do when she got depressed. Though Kraber reassures her that Vinyl’s fine - even if he’s pissed as fok when Pinkie Pie’s name comes up, he’s not gonna hurt his friends unless Pinkie Pie’s in the room.

“The fokkin moer in? Ja!” Kraber says. “But not a threat to you. I’ve grown past that.”

And that, well, that puts a happy look in Aegis and Vinyl’s eyes, along with Amber Maple and Rivet, and they all smile… even Elena, that ex-HLF woman who’s been sitting around awkwardly, unsure of what to say, looks happy. So does Bly.

“I’m proud of you, old friend,” Bly says.

“You and me both,” Aegis agrees. “How about the three of us get a drink sometime?”

“Sure.”

“Ah, what the hell, why not, I’d like to go too,” Vinyl says. “It’s been another one of those days. Say, you should ask Lunar Phase about it.”

“She is a good friend,” Kraber says. “Sure. Why not?”

“I’d like it,” Lunar Phase says.

And so, their conversation trails off into people they’d like to invite, such as mommy, who’s doing a few last-minute touches on something important, Kraber’s few friends, including what few subordinates he has, Aegis’ various pony friends… It’s honestly a bit tiresome to listen to, and you find yourself lulling off a bit, using an ipad...

And once more, Verity breaks the ice.

“Look at you,” Verity says, and you’re not sure if she’s angry or just confused. “How the fuck did you… How the fuck are you so accepting?”

“Right, you weren’t in the room most of the story…” Kraber realizes. “…Eish. Well, I hit my limit.”

“No. No no no no. You do not grow a conscience overnight-”

“I’d been killing, murdering, and otherwise making mayhem three years,” Kraber says. “I just… One day, I just couldn’t take it.”

“You practically lived for that!”

“No, I didn’t have any other fokking thing to live for!” Kraber yells. “It’s really hard to have faith in the HLF when they’ve promised to kill you, then you see HLF members take advantage of the chaos to rop a fokking shoe store!”

“What?” you ask.

“I never told anyone about this?” Kraber asks, genuinely surprised.

“Well, you told us…” Rivet points out. “Then again, you were in disguise at the time, so I’m not sure how true it was.”

“I was telling the truth, though,” Kraber explains.

“Rivet, Kraber had a German porn star’s mustache-” Aegis starts.

Kraber raises an eyebrow at that, reminding them all that officially, he is a German citizen, whatever that means nowadays, right before Bly interrupts and says: “Hey. Kraber and I needed money back then! Honestly, it felt more like a prank than anything.”

“Ah, memories,” Kraber says, smiling.

Everyone turns to look at them both.

“...Let’s not go into that,” Vinyl says.

“Agreed,” you say, more than a little disturbed.

“Bly, this has nothing to do with that! I was just saying how he used a mustache and a Robert Carlyle imitation,” Aegis continues. “That was not a disguise.”

“Sorry about lying, by the way,” Kraber says, downcast. “I… I thought you’d kill me if I told the truth.”

“That… is probably a good point,” Aegis admits.

“Still. I’m gonna do my damnedest to make up for th-”

“Don’t,” Aegis says. “You already have. So - that thing about the shoe store was true?”

“It was,” Kraber says. “But, for those who didn’t hear this before, well, it’s really hard to have faith in the HLF when two-

-women, youngish bakvissies in ragged clothes and kevlar, along with HLF jackets covered in patches - are smashing open a window of a shoe store.

Practically giggling, one of them grabbed what few shoes she could, even holding a pair of high heels in her teeth. A dazed, fearful sky-blue unicorn pony with a slicked-back gray mane and blue aviator sunglasses ran by, and pulling out a cheap nine-mil, one of the bakvissies shot it in the legs. Twice, crippling it on one side.

Before Kraber’s eyes, they rushed at the pony, stopping only briefly to pick up their loot, and kicked him in the gut. Cheering.

Some part of him wanted to say the damn gluestick was in the wrong here. That he and his kind had brought nothing but suffering to earth. But that was kak and Kraber knew it. Who was the one that had helped fire on a city? Who had taken advantage of a crisis, something that should have been the defense of earth itself (oh, what a filthy fokking lie that was) to loot a goddamn shoe-store?! Who was beating the defenseless?!

HLF were.

So, tempting as it was to let that pony die - Kraber had no ability to guess if he was one of the good merry-go-round-toys like Nebula - Kraber couldn’t do it.

“This isn’t being a fokking partisan. Fok. This!” he roared, and punched the first girl across the face. The second got a wild shot off, and it splashed harmlessly across his armor before he landed another blow on her too, the sole of his boot in her face. The crunch of impact might have been her nose breaking, or her neck snapping.

He didn’t care.

Maybe they were good people, maybe not.

He didn’t care.

They were acting the same way he had until today…

He didn’t… he didn’t give a fok, but he knew what he had to do for the gluestick. He didn’t like it, but it was what had to be done.

“Hold on!” Kraber said as he knelt beside the wounded stallion, momentarily deepening his voice. People looked for a person, not a persona. Kagan had always said that. “I’m gonna help you out, boykie.”

“Please… no…” the pony whispered.

“Don’t worry! I’m a doctor. Vasbyt china, this kak will be over soon.”

“What?” the pony asked.

“Never mind that!” Kraber said. “Anyway… Where’s somewhere I can-”

He heard the sound of sporadic fire in the distance, and then-

There was the sound of something shattering. An unmistakable smell. A-

“It’s the fucking PER!” someone screamed off in the distance.

Well. Shit just got a whole lot more complicated. He could go for the PER. He could.

“Go to them, Viktor! They’ll welcome a new convert!” Victory suggested. “They’ll-”

“Save this pony!” the newfoal yelled. “Find him help-

Wait, Kraber thought. Won’t I save more lives if I kill those PER?

“EK BEHEER ME!” Kraber yelled.

“...Oh Luna, I’m being rescued by a madhuman,” the unicorn gasped fearfully.

“...No, no. That’s ah, that’s me psyching myself up. Means ‘I control me’ back where I’m from,” Kraber said. “Don’t worry,” he said, surprised to find that he meant it, “I’ll get you somewhere quiet that we can treat you.”

A quick check established no spinal or lumbar damage, so at least he could safely move the pony, so long as he didn’t handle or move the area around the gunshot wounds.

‘I need… I need antiseptic, and a pair of tweezers, bandages, thread… I need my fokking head examined!’

He didn’t like it. He… he couldn’t stand ponies, he admitted it. But this was a patient in pain, shot and kicked by two greedy bitches. Even if he was from a race of imperialistic, mass-murdering and mass-zombifying xenophobes, it was hard to say humanity was in the right here.

“Don’t worry, I can heal myself,” the unicorn said, his horn flickering. “It’ll… It’ll sting like a bitch in the morning but…” he wheezed. “Ah, sonova... it hurts!”

Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a group of ragged men and women… appeared. That was the only word for it.

“PHL!” one man yelled, pointing at Kraber. “And one of the damn gluesticks… let’s show that geldo and the newfoal-in-training what we do to people that come into our city!”

Oh, fok. At this point, he’d probably worn out any possible meaning, but… if the HLF found him, and he’d shot them, he’d be screwed.

He couldn’t run away either. He’d get filled with bullets and… the unicorn would die? Hm. He supposed that’d be bad.

Think, damn you, Viktor! Kagan always called you a slippery bastard! I managed to survive the HLF this long, keep my gun from getting stolen! I can think my fokking way out of this! Okay. I could sell this pony out, and join the H-

A shell from the Sorghum impacted a building about a mile down, a plume of fire shooting up into the air.

-ell no.

That would… that’d be betraying humanity. Betraying himself. Today, he’d had the first inklings of a conscience towards ponies, the first in close to three years. Now, he had in his custody a helpless pony that had been wounded by two HLF bakvissie bitches. Unless something was done, that pony would die, and so would a lot of other people in this city.

And Kraber realized, to his horror, this wasn’t a situation he could shoot his way out of.

There are some characters that have a tongue smooth as velvet, and voices like warm chocolate. People that could convince armed men to put their guns down through sheer intimidation. Kraber could manage the latter on a good day, even though his tongue was essentially covered in enough barbs that it came as a shock to others - especially Galt when he was deep into a discussion on the meaning of objectivism, and Kraber had refuted several of his points - that he could read the average China Mieville novel without a dictionary and knew the meaning of the word ‘Inveigle’.

This was not one of those good days. Especially as Kraber would realize within twelve hours that he’d essentially hit rock bottom...

“And that’s the first time I hit rock bottom,” Kraber says.

“Wait, are you considering what happened the day after this as rock bottom?” Aegis asks.

“Well, yes,” Kraber says. “I didn’t have friends, family, or money. All I had was my word and my balls.” He pauses. “And my guns… and a stuffed animal or three-“

“Which reminds me,” Verity says. “I actually talked to Lovikov. How did you manage to get away with carrying a stuffed horse around while in the HLF?”

“Wait,” Lunar Phase asks, looking over at Kraber. “You have a stuffed horse?!”

“Her name is Joanna,” Kraber says, holding up a stuffed mare proportioned like an earth horse with a strangely long face, because it would be weird if it looked like a pony native to Equus. It has been lying next to his heavily bandaged head. You can see that there’s a little bit of blood on it as well…

“It was my daughter’s,” Kraber explains, and Lunar Phase draws in a little gasp, a little ‘oh’.

“Whose blood is that?” you ask.

“Mine,” Kraber says. “Mostly. Anyway, I threatened to shoot off their balls and rearrange their organs when doing surgery. I… I don’t fokking know, I was gesuip when I told them what I’d do. And none of them bothered me afterwards, though even women kept putting their hands over their crotches when I came by...”

There’s an uncomfortable pause.

“Look, sometimes, violence really is the answer,” Kraber explains.

Aegis looks up at Kraber, then to his foals, to you, to Scootaloo, then to Babs Seed and Featherweight.

“I’m not sure to be conflicted about the fact that you’re right, or wonder whether or not that’s a good thing to say in front of foals,” Aegis says.

“Ah, don’t worry, I have some restraint,” Kraber says. “Who the fok do you think I am, Francis Begbie? It’s not like my idea of kind paternal advice is to say ‘beat the fok out of your brother with a baseball… bat…’”

His voice trails off as he remembers that he has, in fact, told foals how to beat up Newfoals with baseball bats. And, of course, that he had once played Begbie in a production of Trainspotting.

“I’m a terrible fokking person,” he groans, and his shoulders slump.

“Wow, he finally gets it…” murmurs Verity.

“The fok’s that make you?!” Kraber asks.

“Consistent.”

“Hey, fok you, haven’t you ever heard of character development?!”

“Look,” Amber Maple says, ignoring her. “It’s fine. It’s not like Imperial forces are in a talking mood.”

“Good point,” Kraber says.

Dodge, Viktor, the newfoal whispered in Kate’s voice. They’ll fire anyway. You can’t convince th-

And a split second before even one person’s finger could tighten on their trigger, Kraber was halfway across the street, half-dragging, half-carrying the unicorn pony behind a car.

He was dimly aware of something hitting his shoulder as he slid-fell into cover behind an old, battered van, breathing heavily. Dammit. He’d been shot. Wincing more in anticipation of what he’d feel on his armor, he placed a hand over his left shoulder to find a lump of…

A bullet or three…

….they had deformed against the shoulder of the PHL tac-vest. It stung like a woman with teeth in her beef portal, but he was alive and not bleeding everywhere! Damn, PHL stuff was awesome! Maybe there was something to being a horsefucker...

So. Good news! Behind a van with a unicorn, not dead.

Bad news: Yeah, that wouldn’t last long.

Kraber bent down, one ear to the ground, and caught a glimpse of the HLF mob between the undercarriage and the asphalt. Yep. Definitely advancing.

Maybe he could parlay or something. Maybe he could-

They’re not going to let me live, Kraber realized. The only thing they hate more than ponies is people that like them… they’ll go for me, fill me with bullets, and rip me apart.

Maybe they were his HLF ‘brothers and sisters’... maybe not. But right now, he wasn’t their china. They would torture him slow enough, use him as a banner and thrust him up on a pike… then go after the pony.

He poked his head out the other side, activating the shield like Socket Wrench had shown him, and squeezed off a quick burst.

Most of the HLF hadn’t been wearing body armor, so the .338 rounds punched through them, sometimes up to 7 at once. But…

And then Kraber realized. Proper soldiers - not HLF -wouldn’t be grouped that close together. Wasn’t like these people actually wanted to help during Barrierfall. They were just angry kontgesigs.

“Any suggestions for where I can take you?!” Kraber yelled over the roar of the bullets.

“Maine Medical might work!” the pony said. “But you’ll have to go by the Bureau!”

“What’s wrong with that?” Kraber asked. “Isn’t it unfinished?”

“I don’t know how, but… some sonovabitch managed to access one of the basement-level storerooms and located some potion stocks,” the pony said. “The PER have been dragging people in since. I was trying to warn everyone, but then those two assholes shot me…” He sucked in a breath between clenched teeth. “If I die, tell Sylvia Bray at Maine Medical that I love her.”

“Sure,” Kraber said.

“Get them before they ponify us!” one HLF woman screamed.

Well, that settled it...

“Oh. FOK!” Kraber yelled. “Excuse me.” Sliding out from cover, almost smoothly, he line up the sights his LMG, shield activated, and let loose on full auto. A rare pleasure for him.

Several quick spreads were enough to break the crowd, and that was enough of an opening for him to make a quick break down a side-street, the unicorn carried in his arms. He switched to the shotgun, the MG2019’s drum mag nearly dry.

And around him, Portland burned. Shells from the Sorghum were still shredding structures and streets, their screams overhead and the streaks of tracer lending everything a blitz aesthetic. People were panicking, civilians and combatants alike caught up in the hellstrom of carnage, violence and desperation.

Then, amidst the fire and fume, he saw the bureau, a blasted shell of a building, windows smashed and dimmed.

It wasn’t as bad as he remembered from Innsbruck.

It was worse.

There were people, armed PER guards armed with magic shields, rifles and smgs, the motley weapons of the average insurgent nowadays, herding people into the ruins of the Bureau. They grabbed random passers-by and shoved them towards the doors, forcing them down an access ramp into the basement loading bay.

This was Sheol, and there were the damned, descending.

And emerging, coming out the other way, faces full of smiles...

He paused.

“Newfoals.”

It was quite likely the first time a lot of these people had reason to be worried about newfoal attacks here in America. And if there were newfoals, and the HLF was fucking around, going for the PHL, then… Up to him, then. Fok.

But down below, he could see what looked like other ponies being herded into the ruins. If anything, they looked to be treated harsher than the humans being herded in, beaten by the new foals for no reason at all, if any. Some of them looked to be near fokking dead. Bleeding, even.

Half dead. One newfoal - a reddish-yellow one, was slamming a gray mare that looked like a mother into the pavement, something dark and wet crusted around his hoof. And at the same time, he was cooing to her colt. Kraber couldn’t hear the words, but the colt was covered in his mother’s blood, and he looked like he was too dry to burst into tears.

Ah, fok it. He had to do something.

So, sighting in the MG2019, finding just the right window that he could hit as many of the goddamn gluesticks as possible, Kraber sighted it in and fired the MG2019, punching through the legs of one new foal pegasus and splattering that bastard new foal’s face all over the colt.

Well, there’s a colt that’ll grow up with severe mental trauma… Kraber thought, before breaking from cover, his unicorn charge slung over one shoulder. ’But at least he will grow up’.

He fired again and again, MG2019 blazing, shredding through newfoals, through anyone that he’d decided he didn’t like.

Seemingly following his lead, or him following their lead, sporadic fire broke out all around, people and ponies with guns surrounding the PER.

It was essentially point-blank range, and the PER didn’t stand a chance.

“Get to Maine Medical!” he yelled, providing cover with long, sustained saturating bursts from his MG2019, as men, women, and unicorns with stolen guns also fired into the PER and newfoals chasing them.

Where the fok did this sudden counter-strike come from?! he thought for a second, before seeing the other attackers break their stand and pull back, creating an open channel down the center of the street…

A pathway to the main entrance of the Bureau.

And, barreling down that corridor was a delivery-truck that had been remade in the end of the world with a sharp bumper made for ramming, pushing on with manic determination, regardless of anything that got in its way, human or pony.

He hadn’t inspired a stand at all: he had blundered into somebody else’s attack.

To Kraber’s horror, he could see a youngish teenager with a white gas mask behind the truck’s wheel, screaming something unintelligible.

And then - not even a hundred feet from the mass of newfoals, she dropped and rolled out of the door, landing in a tumbling roll.

“I’m okay!” he heard her call out.

The Bureau - or rather its ruins - were not. The speeding van, momentum barely sapped from where it tore through the newfoals, reached the end of the street, jumped the curve, ploughed through the human wall of PER and captive civilians, and then threw itself down the Bureau’s loading ramp, colliding with the doorframe of the basement dock.

“Get down!” Kraber roared, throwing himself to the floor, just as a flash of light twinkled…

!!SS-CHOOM!”

The unfinished, ruined Bureau erupted into a massive glowing mushroom cloud lit from within by hundreds of shades of purple, and the sound of the conflagration sounded uncannily like a scream…

No, it was a scream. Dozens of screams, hundreds even.

And they were human. It was the death-cries of the unconverted within the bureau’s walls, burning alive as the potion stores cooked off.

Rainbow-colored lightning arced through the ascending mushroom-cloud. Viktor, aghast, could not reconcile his relief at the structure’s destruction, and his horror at the casual eradication of innocent bystanders.

“Everything I touch turns to kak, doesn’t it?” he sighed.

“I’m-” the teenager called out again, but as she stepped into the pool of light under a street lamp, the words died in her throat and Kraber’s as well…

...as she brought up an arm to wipe her brow, and found a hoof attached to her wrist.

Now she screamed too. She was transforming - somehow, either from landing in a puddle of the potion, or having been struck by contaminated debris when her truck-bomb blew the Bureau up.

“No...NO! MUMMY! MUMMY!”

Purplish-pink fur sprouted out her skin in irregular clumps, and her face looked as pliable as clay, practically bubbling in the orange light.

”Help me! Somepony help meeeeeheheeee!!!

She screamed again, left eye forced closed by her cheek and brow swelling to the point that they were almost as big as a basketball, leaving her listing to one side. And, as suddenly as the massive potion-induced thaumic tumors had appeared, they receded, leaving the left eye to open, and-

”Help them! Haha! I’ll help all of them, Majesty!”

No. That was not a human’s eye! It was dull and glassy, like a doll’s eye. One side, the potion-imbued left half, moved forward, one arm with its fingers fusing into a hoof stretched out towards Kraber. The right half, one with a desperate, pleading human eye, stubbornly stayed back.

“MAJESTY!”

Kraber shot her in the face with his revolver, realizing, too tired for even simple horror or revulsion, that he had never known her name. She’d been brave enough to try and destroy the Bureau, but… the price she’d paid.

Nobody deserved that.

“Here! I hotwired a truck!” cried a man with a baseball cap. “JUMP IN AND SHOOT THE FUCKING ZOMBIES!”

In the space of a second, Kraber rushed over to the truck and placed his unicorn charge into the bed, then following them, finding himself behind a heavy red-orange pegasus mare with two LMGs reminiscent of shorter MG42s (Vaguely reminiscent of a PPsH) mounted on her sides, with something that looked like a chewable cylinder with buttons hanging below her chin, wired up to the triggers of the LMGs.

“Look after this unicorn,” Kraber said, sighting in the MMG and opening up full-auto, slicing through the newfoals ahead like a buzzsaw.

“Shit, it’s Rime Ice!” the mare gasped.

So that was the unicorn’s name. There were a lot of things Kraber might have wanted to say to this earth pony - okay, maybe not - but it was lost in the roar of their rifles as they emptied them into the charging newfoal horde behind them.

“JOU FOKKIN KONTGESIGS!” Kraber screamed, letting loose a pipe-bomb, the pointy end embedding itself in a pegasus newfoal’s head, making her look like some strange alicorn...

Right up until it exploded, anyway, shrapnel shredding through the newfoals right next to her. But… he paused. Wait. They weren’t getting new numbers. THERE WOULDN’T BE ANY MORE NEWFOALS IF HE SLAUGHTERED THIS FOKKIN BATCH OF VARKNAAIERS!

That happy thought in mind, that for once he was overwhelming the newfoals, rather than the other way around, he forced a grim smile onto his face under the Eel-type mask, reloaded the MG2019, pipe-bomb and all, and let loose. “BLIKSEMS!” he screamed, the MG2019 ripping them apart like a buzzsaw. “I'm gonna kill you all, I'm gonna kill your chommies and your family, I'm gonna track down your grandparents and turn them inside-out, nobody can stop the blood train that will turn your loved ones into a red splatter across the tracks of humanity!”

So far, he was making good on that promise.

“Who the hell are you?!” the mare asked.

“Ivan Bliss, PHL,” Kraber said, quicker than the mare could react. “Ah’m a doaktir. Ah’m tryin tae git tae Maine Medical. That unicorn - Rime Ice - was hurt bad. But unfortunately, Ah went intae PER territory…”

“Glad we rescued you then,” the mare said.

“That wasnae a rescue, that wis backup,” Kraber said.

The mare paused, even as she kept firing. “What?!”

“Ye think Ah’d pass up the chance tae chib PER?” Kraber asked, as if the mere idea of leaving a PER member alive, with anything intact - be it arms, legs, brains, genitals, or dignity - was completely foreign to him.

“It really is, you know,” Aegis says.

You have to admit, it’s really not all that much of a surprise.

“Why thank you!” Kraber says, a smile on his face. “Not as much as

...Aaaaaaand neither is that.

“You’re welcome,” Aegis agrees, without missing a beat.

“...While we’re glad for the assist, that’s… that’s kinda fucked up,” the mare said.

“The kontgesigs killed my family,” Kraber explained. “It’s just a little-” his LMG jamming, right at the moment a pegasus newfoal landed on the back of the car, Kraber shoved a pipe-bomb into the newfoal’s throat. With a grunt, he rammed his fist into the newfoal, knocking them back into the mob of newfoals… where the newfoal exploded.

“Okay, a LOT AY FOKKING INTEREST!” Kraber called back.

The mare might have remained silent for the rest of the trip up to Maine Medical, if Kraber, of course, had not managed to characteristically fok everything over in less than five minutes, thanks to a very ill-worded expression of gratitude...

“...my kind?” she repeated back to him, voice numb, before her wings flared and she screamed. “MY FUCKING KIND?!”

Kraber simply stared at the red-orange pegasus for a moment. “I-”

“You’re PHL, I thought you’d understand it!” the pegasus said. “Don’t tell me - you’re some conscript, an HLF asshole that just joined for a bigger gun?!”

Well, that was better than the truth - that Kraber was one of said HLF assholes. And, at this point, he had to admit it - he was probably one of the biggest kontgesigs on the HLF. “Something like that, yes,” Kraber said, vague as he could make it.

“Well, let me give you a fucking reminder,” the pegasus hissed - practically growled, and Kraber never would have guessed a herbivore would be able to make such a predatory sound. “Here’s what my fucking kind have been through. Our precious ‘Elements of Harmony’ fucking failed, and because of that we had our first war in over a thousand years. I lost family there, dammit! There were goddamned crystal golems in the streets, and we had so many earth ponies refugees crowding into Cloudsdale because everypony thought they’d be safe in the sky. But no, Sombra’s battlecasters… they disrupted the cloudwalking magic, leaving HUNDREDS of ponies to fall to their deaths.”

The concept of war between pastel-colored ponies in a land that seemed like it was the archetypical sugar bowl before the war was a downright weird image, but Kraber decided he would just go with it.

“And after that, it just got worse and worse,” the mare said. “I don’t mean the war - that was bad enough! But when it was over, it was like… it was like we’d gotten drunk on national fervor or something! There were parades everywhere, it was turning into a fascist hellhole wherever we went, and then I lost two friends from Baltimare when the Great Equestrian, exploded thanks to that bitch-Queen Celestia.”

“...Ah heard ay that earlier from a china,” Kraber said.

“Oh, let me tell you about it,” the pegasus mare sneered. “Queen Celestia decided she didn’t like a statue about ‘harmony’-” (you could hear the air quotes in her voice) “-so she blew it the fuck up and killed some good friends of mine. She left the ship about to fall to the ground, and fucking ignored us for the victory celebrations of finding this world to spread more of that fucking desolation she called harmony, and we weren’t rescued for a day. She doesn’t want harmony, she just wants control. You think having fucking newfoals in Equestria benefits us? No! IT DOESN’T! Equestria has homeless bastards everywhere, workers killing themselves because they can’t think enough to take breaks, we are watched by fucking spy-systems just about everywhere we go, can be reported to the royal guard for damn near no reason, and are damn lucky to come back after arrest! You know what’s the worst?! IT’S THE NEWFOALS that report us in! Like they’re better ponies than us because they have no free will and work themselves to death if asked! Like they’re trying to replace us, or Celestia’s trying to replace us with them cause she’s decided she doesn’t like having free thinkers! Those fucking zombie abominations…”

It was the first time Kraber had heard a pony so disgusted with newfoals, with Equestria itself. Nebula’s rage had been reserved for Celestia, for the System. But this mare’s vitriol was pouring out across the entire nation.

And then, without warning, the mare punched Kraber in the knee. “That’s why we’re here, in spite of assholes like YOU! Or the HLF! Because even being around you apes is better than even a second in the sty my home’s turned into!”

“My… fokking leg…” Kraber hissed. “I’ll fokking ki-”

No. He wouldn’t.

“llllisssten. Just listen, okay? Ah’m sorry,” Kraber said.

“I…what?” the mare said, surprised, her eyes (Why were pony eyes so huge?) wide.

“What do you mean ‘what’? Never seen a human apologize before?” Kraber asked.

“Well, course I have. It just… you don’t seem like the type who ever admits they’re wrong,” the mare said. “HLF, ex or whatever…”

“Yeah, well, Ah’ve bin having one ay those days,” Kraber said quickly. “What’s the situation between here a Maine Medical?”

“We’ve got ponies that need treatment,” the mare said. “But… there’s PER in the middle of the hospital, screwing up any evac in the helicopters. Or so I’ve been told over the radio.”

“Wait. PER? People Ah can kill withoot concern fir thae nature ay the morality of man and nietzschean inner conflict?” Kraber asked, a smile on his face.

“...you’re a sick fucker, you know that?” the pegasus mare asked, smiling as the truck came to rest in front of the hospital. Patients - pony and human alike, even a few zebras and a pony that looked made of glass or crystal - were being shepherded out, into huge trucks, ambulances, whatever vehicle would take them. A lot of them looked to have been modified like the vehicles out of Mad Max - metal shielding over the windshields, spikes on the wheels, rams, gun turrets.

“What, you need me to turn you off your leash?” she asked.

Kraber vaulted out of the truck, and headed into the hospital.

“Ah understand ya have PER and newfoals infesting this building?” Kraber asked one PHL man guarding the entrance, holding a huge shotgun with a drum magazine.

“Well, yes, but-”

“Excuse me. Ah have some anger tae work oof,” Kraber said, pushing away anyone trying to stop him, a huge smile on his face under his mask as he headed for the hospital. “When the screaming stops, you’ll ken I’m done.”

Finally, some clarity!

Fine, then. Maybe ponies weren’t all bad. Maybe - okay, definitely - the HLF wasn’t a force for good and the protection of humanity. And if tonight was any judge, maybe the ponies had to be protected. Tomorrow, he could decide on all this shit.

But he didn’t need to make any decisions when killing PER. That was a public fokkin service.

“Done with what?” the red-orange pegasus called over.

“...Ah’m going tae go practice medicine,” Kraber said, sure that he had a ghoulish smile on his face. “Someone’s oan a burst mooth…”

Kraber knew they were looking at him in fear.

That was it. Finally - a good kind of fear for Kraber to enjoy. Let the PER fokking come, he’d paint the walls with them!

Author's Note

The next chapter will come in the next three days or so. Depending on whether I can get anyone to help with the quotes...
NOTE - this was going to be half of a larger chapter, but then.. well... the boss battle in the next chapter got out of hand, everything was on fire, then there was a grenade, and Caduceus got a character arc... long story short, a lot of stuff happens in the next chapter.

Episode 2: A Stranger I Remain / Kraber Alone

PART 2: A Stranger I Remain / Kraber Alone / World Gone Bosbefok

“What’s it about?”

“What do you mean, Jackie?”

“I mean… all this. We’ve all got our reasons for joining the HLF - the Rev was a damn softheart, I know that! But I’m beginning to think he has a point.”

“About…”

“About the HLF being psychopaths or whatever. I went to college, dammit, I know what a psychopath is, and I’m not that. But I have to wonder, though. What the hell did Portland accomplish? What are we doing?”

Conversation overheard between Jacqueline Worthing of the pro-HLF band ‘The Lost Children’ and one of her bandmates.

“Here’s what I say. We’re not taking it anymore! We can’t let this be the new normal. We came from hell, a nightmare that watches you at every turn, a land where what empathy our goddess had dies by the day. And we find people who decide we’re targets just because we happen to look like the enemy. Their rage? Understandable. Their acts? Not! They say they’re protecting humanity? No, they think it’s already ended! They scrabble over scraps, and if this is how they act when the Barrier hasn’t reached them, why, I shudder to think what they’ll do at Barrierfall! They’ve attacked a friend of mine who just wanted to help… I say, here and now, that they’ve gone beyond anything that could be called protection, by any stretch.”

Heliotrope, speaking to PHL and pony irregulars in Canada, kicking off the Canadian Great HLF Purge.

“Ma’am, the PHL are getting more vicious. They’ve even started recruiting former members of the Front into their ranks…”

“Damn them all to Tartarus… (groan) At this point, they’re really asking for it. If it were down to me, there’d be no more talk of ‘mind healing’. I fail to see why we don’t just send in Celestia’s Sword to deal with them…”

“Are… are you sure you’d want to work with her? She’s a bucking scary nutjob, that lady… They, they say she wears a mask, you know. A mask shaped like a human face. Just how messed up is that?”

“Yes, but she understands exactly how they think. And that’s why she’s good at what she does. After all, to deal with madmen... what better than our very own madmare?”

Communication between Flight Lieutenant Prism Flash of the Reserve Pegasus Air Force and Wing Commander Lightning of the Wonderbolts.

Sergeant Duststorm: “I thought we demoted you?”

Yael Ze’ev: “You did. But Heliotrope and I have been watching the news. We’ve seen Portland, and I’m worried about Sutra Cross. I know the HLF kidnapped her… dammit, she’s my friend!”

Duststorm: “There’s only so much more I can keep you and my sister safe. You’ve fucked up, Yael. Big time. You stole military hardware to assault a town in Quebec, for God’s sake! You could have killed hundreds!”

Yael Ze’ev: “Hundreds to save millions later! And that place was full of HLF!”

Heliotrope: “Besides, was an Enclave nearby. Full of ponies that just want out of the war, and Equestria. If I hadn’t done something, they would be crucified, de-hoofed, de-winged, and burned to death.”

Duststorm: “Really?”

Heliotrope: “Yeah. Small one - a family or three. Where do you think we got all those non-reg enchantments, Dusty?”

Duststorm: “Oh God dammit.”

Yael Ze’ev: “Look, that’s not important-”

Duststorm: “Says the woman that sees protocol or chain of command as a casual annoyance-”

Yael Ze’ev: “What’s important is that… if there was any chance the HLF had of working with PHL when push comes to shove, any fucking sliver of a chance - then there isn’t one anymore. It’s a fucking impossibility, and the top human brass need to understand that.

Heliotrope: “They bombed Portland. They’re doing god-knows-what to our friend! I don’t want them to be like this during Barrierfall. If they have their way, we’ll be pushed to New Zealand before we actually stop the Barrier!”

Duststorm: “For Luna’s sake… sis, you sound too much like Yael right now for comfort.”

Yael Ze’ev: “I’m standing right here.”

Duststorm: “Look, both of you… There’s a taskforce Marcus Renee is putting together to take down HLF up in New England. If you volunteer for it… you can make it look like you regret what you did, and maybe you can avoid getting court-martialed or thrown in prison. They’re looking for Sutra Cross, but somebody’s said that they’ll be trying to find Viktor Kraber. Apparently, he’s up there-”

Heliotrope: “Wait, the guy that shot me? One of the worst HLF in the world?”

Yael Ze’ev: “That might not be such a bad idea after all…”

Conversation overheard between Yael Ze’ev, Heliotrope, and Sergeant Duststorm. This occurred immediately after Ze’ev’s demotion for bombarding an HLF-held town with military hardware. Curiously, nobody that she convinced to go with her would bring charges against her.

“Carol? Please, you have to let me in! Emmie and I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“I thought you never wanted to talk to me again? Something about not liking Cinnamon Swirl-”

“I know! But… It’s not safe in the camp anymore. I don’t care about the pony that lives with you, I don’t care what it thinks of me, but I’m not safe with my husband anymore up there! It’s like it’s turned into a dictatorship… and…. and…

“And what?”

“I don’t know if they know about you, but I’ve heard the HLF talking about shooting up this whole town. Not just you and Cinnamon Swirl-”

“Why in Luna’s name would they do that?!”

“I don’t know! It’s like they’re going crazy!”

Conversation overheard between an HLF escapee and a pro-PHL woman in Colorado. PHL member Cinnamon Swirl was there as well.

To Upper Crust, Newfoal Catalog Bureau
Your proposal to research the Anomalous Newfoal ‘Reaper’, allegedly deployed in the ‘Battle of Portland’, Anno Harmonia 5, has been rejected. There simply isn’t enough data or concrete evidence of her existence for me to deem it as worthy of the resources of the Solar Empire. We are looking for empirical results, not myths and salt-lick projects.
Sincerely,
Archmage Twilight Sparkle

Personal Addendum: Seriously, Upper Crust, stop chasing these fantasy stories of super-newfoals. I know the composition of the potion and its spell matrix back-to-front, and trust me, a newfoal with the capabilities described of this ‘Reaper’ simply CANNOT happen...

Private Addendum: This marks the third unconfirmed case where something weird apparently happened when a newfoal was converted under exceptional circumstances. I’ve tried replicating this under lab conditions, but have had no luck so far. And, while I may have attempted to create improved potion strains and breed-models, anything with half the level of prowess this ‘Reaper’ was suggested to possess has proven counterproductive. There are too many undocumented anomalies and phenomena recorded on Earth to dismiss these rumors out-of-hoof, but until a ‘super newfoal’ comes into our hooves for a proper debrief, I’m inclined to believe that ‘Reaper’ is an exaggeration of the truth. That kind of power would imply a degree of mental flexibility that could prove dangerous in the long-run, and I specifically structured the Conversion Protocols to cut off such independence of thought. We need good willing slaves and competent soldiers, not free-thinking agents with access to all the untapped magic of the human soul… Furthermore, the reports from surviving PER in Portland claim her to have been slewn by one human and one traitor unicorn. I fail to see potential in something taken down so easily.

Twilight Sparkle, in a response to a memo submitted by the Newfoal Catalog Bureau. NOTE: ‘Salt-lick’ project is confirmed by PHL ponies to be analogous to the term ‘pork-barrel’ project.

“WHO is Ivan Bliss?!
This man saved PHL workers, pony and human alike, from the HLF attack on the Sorghum, stealing the very boat the HLF used to infiltrate it and making his way to Mackworth Island. On his way through the city, he killed countless PER, risked his life to save the unicorn Rime Ice, and cleared out Maine Medical almost singlehandedly. Rumors persist of some kind of super-newfoal on the roof that he killed, but the PHL have proven tight-lipped about the body they recovered from the hospital rooftop.

However - we do not know who Ivan Bliss is. I have talked to PHL, told them about him. There’s a lot of people that’d vouch for him - bit racist, abrasive, mentally unstable, but damn if he wasn’t effective. Everyone who talked to him agrees that he sounded Scottish, but it sounded to them like something else, australian, british, german, was pushing through. And nobody knows a man who fits his description. My good friend Nebula - a Nightguard mare of Mackworth Island - recalls him very fondly… though she has one thing to say: He seemed… broken.

Perhaps he was, in fact, running from something.

Whoever you are, Ivan - wherever you are, wherever you’re going to, we thank you. I very much wish I could see you in person… A great many friends of mine owe you their lives. I do wish I could find you...”

’Beachcomber’, the blog of a PHL-affiliated man in the Coast Guard. Dated July 25, 2022.

“Tonight, we attack Defiance. The largest HLF stronghold on the East Coast. The one where Sutra Cross - a mare that just wanted to help - was tortured and killed. May Luna, or what God the humans worship forgive us for the violence we’re about to commit - but Ze’ev’s right. She’s finally convinced the PHL that we have to do this… and much as I might have wanted to talk this out, the HLF wouldn’t listen to me. God, I don’t like listening to someone as frantic to shoot the HLF up as Ze’ev is, but they’re getting worse. This… this is the only way.

If… If Aegis and I see Kraber, I’ll try to get him nonlethally. Just so Aegis can ask those questions he’s been wanting to.”

Icebox, PHL medical unicorn attached to the Battle of Defiance.

“I’m telling you, I saw Kagan Burakgazi! He was in the docks, over in the Ferry Building Marketplace… I trailed him, but I lost him over when he tried to get to the BART.”

“Ms… Bloom, what did he… what’d he look like? Burakgazi’s a damn master of disguise.”

“He had the same build. He’d shaved his beard, but I was in the same train as that man in Hong Kong. I recognize him, dammit.”

“We’ve gotten plenty of calls about sightings of him. We think he’s heading east.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know. I have my suspicions, but… we’ll be contacting the Chinese government about his bounty. Raise attention to it - there should be more posters with his ugly mug on it printed very soon.”

Conversation between Blue Bloom (PHL pony stationed in San Francisco) and police.

“I don’t know how it does. But that newfoal... It knows us. It knows things it has no right to know.”

Mariesa Thomas, HLF woman stationed in Defiance.

“Perhaps it’s presumptuous to call it an ‘age’. But that period from late July to late August contained the last days of the first age of the HLF. Public support had been dropping, as the American public and all the various refugees allocated over the continent were wowed by PHL philanthropic work, such as explorations into alternative energy, forays into public transport, and their genuine desire to help.

Towns that had sworn never to accommodate a single pony had found themselves welcoming engineers and farmers from Equestria. One farmer from near Whitefield, New Hampshire, Robert Gray, was quoted as saying “I don’t like the gluesticks, but they’re damn fine workers that can bring in a hell of a yield.” The PHL had become peacekeepers, guardians… in short, all the things the HLF claimed to be.

And yet, at this point, the HLF were just sitting in their compounds, waiting for the end to come, or performing town-wide patrols that left the townsfolk feeling more paranoid than secure, demanding taxes or remuneration. Riots broke out in front of Camp Morrow in South Carolina, with angry citizens protesting at its gates, denouncing them for doing nothing. The anti-HLF sentiment that day had been so strong it even managed to get HLF and PHL supporters to agree - the town’s HLF supporters had called them cowards unable to face the presence of a single pony in town, while the PHL had denounced them for racism… and, surprisingly, found themselves joining in the pro-HLF chants calling them cowards afraid to do anything.

Aye, the HLF did something. Made jittery and paranoid, they lashed out where they could, gesuip on the propaganda they told themselves to make themselves feel like heroes, had resorted to taking over PHL rigs and bombarding the coast, and the execrable act of kidnapping Sutra Cross. Their act would have made a modicum of sense had they given the medicine, but no - they took it to preserve the revolution, to medicate their various fighters, who wouldn’t have been sick had they not sequestered themselves in HLF camps.

And with those events, the Raid of the Sorghum, the Kidnapping of Sutra Cross, the Week of Dust, lynchings down in the south, the HLF lost more and more momentum.

The first American anti-HLF riot of 2022 began in Philadelphia, after a PHL woman named Helen Zandt shot an HLF man who’d glassed a pony she was eating with…
A War In the Pocket: The Decline of the HLF. Written by Dayoung Tengku, Viktor M. Kraber, Claw Hammer (Aegis), and Yael Ze'ev.

Busy Earnin' / A Long Way Home

10: Busy Earnin’ / A Long Way Home

Editors/Co-Authors
TB3
Jed R (Thanks for the new cover!)
Kizuna Tallis
VoxAdam

“So you come a long way
But you'll never have me
Never have things for a normal life
It's time to busy earnin'
You can't get enough
Jungle, Busy Earnin’.

So desolate. And so impossibly, terrifyingly dark. And that day, you did not go home. You drove instead. You drove a long time, and eventually you ended up in Night Vale, and you stopped driving.
You have been haunted ever since by how easy it was to walk away from your life, and how few the repercussions were. You never heard from your fiancee or your job again. They never looked for you, which doesn’t seem likely, or maybe it’s that in Night Vale, you cannot be found.
The complete freedom.
The lack of consequence.
It terrifies you.
Welcome To Night Vale, Episode 13, A Story About You.
Co-Authors:
Jed R. Thanks for helping me believe in myself again.

This is dedicated to Drawdex. Whatever you’re doing, wherever you are, thanks for everything. I hope you’re happy and that you’re better now.

And this is also for Miranda. Thanks for helping get me into the pony fandom, (Okay, it’s my exes faults – which reminds me, thanks Eden and Kia! - but I’m thanking you cause reasons) being a good friend, being there for me, getting me into Night Vale, and being awesome in general. You’re probably better now, but I hope you’re alright, that you’re following your dreams, that you had a happy graduation, and that you take care of your hair. Which may sound weird to wish you, but seriously girl, you have some fiiiine hair.

In memory of Monty Oum. Rest in peace, Monty.

September 4, 2022(?)

Interviewer: “Mrs… Nebula?”

Nebula: “Yes?”

I: “I have documents from the Fillydelphia Incident.”

Nebula: “So you do. What’s this about?”

I: “I understand you were busy in Portland for awhile after Ivan Bliss-”

Nebula: “Viktor Kraber.”

I: “Right, him. You vouched for him when Colonel Renee could have executed him. Mind if I ask why?”

Nebula: “The man rammed a ship of refugees under fire onto a beach, went into Portland alone, saved my friend Rime Ice, and killed a newfoal that, from what I’ve been told, could have caused a disaster He saved a lot of people and ponies that day. A monster doesn't do that - a good man does. He enjoyed my company, too - far as I'm concerned, he was a hero that day."

Note 1: -I’m with Nebula on this one. Letting this ‘Reaper’ go unchallenged could have been catastrophic and resulted in a Mercer-Class quarantine. Especially if she tried potionshaping, or someone replicated the batch. By Luna’s Mane, I’m glad we have that corpse. And the thermite gun unless it tries to self-resurrect. Again.” --Nurse Redheart

I: “I see. However, claims of the powers of that so-called Reaper-”

Nebula: “What, you’ve ‘dismissed’ them? Faust, I wish I could do air-quotes. Cady managed to get some documents from the Newfoal Catalog Bur-”

I: “Hmmm?”

Nebula: “It’s a, uh… it’s a department of the Solar Empire’s vast, choking bureaucracy that catalogs newfoals for abnormalities. Apparently, the monster newfoal they turned poor Sylvie into isn’t gonna be mass-produced. Cady and Ivan - well, Viktor - beat her up enough that Twilight can’t see the potential.”

I: “Thank God for that. If the reports were anywhere near correct…. anyway, Caduceus and various hospital personnel have been a bit too... descriptive for me to be wholly dismissive. As have the various witnesses. And there was that incident, during the testing conducted by Miranda Severance, Redheart, Ernst Kasparek, and Pekka Salonen, that allegedly resulted in the corpse trying to self-resurrect. It gave some of my colleagues ideas. We’ve already started preliminary experimentation - medics that could utilize her unique magic, reanimating the dead. A colleague of mine, Dorde Zivkovic, volun-"

Nebula: "No."

I: "Excuse me?"

Nebula: "This war, that perversion of my home... They've only gotten far because of how they can deequinize, turning ponies and humans to tools, seeing flesh as building blocks. I was around for the first newfoals! I saw how far they can go. I'll be damned-"

I: "This war has pushed us-"

Nebula: “As I was saying, I'll be damned if we win because we can be bigger bastards than the other guy. Now why don't you ask me a question that's fucking well related to what you came here to ask?"

I: "I… alright. Besides, Dr. Kasparek vehemently refuses to work on it.”

Nebula: “If anyone would know if a project goes too far, it’s him.”

I “I suppose. Was there anything odd about the behavior of the HLF in the weeks following the Raid of the Sorghum?"

Nebula: "They got smart. They started being around for PER attacks that they could not have possibly seen coming. Trying to ingratiate themselves to humans."

I: "Saying it was a failure would be entirely too charitable."

Nebula: "Buck yes. Rime Ice, everypony and every human from the Sorghum, Patrick Saunders, Samson Caveney-"

I: "Who?"

Nebula: "Raya Caveney's dad. Metalworks artist - he’s making a statue of her at the moment in front of the wreckage of the barrier. She was that poor girl that rammed a car full of c4 into a Bureau. The one Rime Ice and Leaf Breeze saw Kraber... Euthanize."

I: "Damn."

Nebula: "After something like that, they weren't biting, as you humans say. Still, we were well and truly weirded out by their uncharacteristic prescience.

I: “Lieutenant Ze’ev has termed it ‘The Hotline’.

Nebula: Ah yes. The Hotline. That’s a good name for it, and I can understand the people that thought maybe they were trying to do something good. Then again…

I: ”The offers to murder every earth pony farmer that earned people an extra bit of cash and rations around here was a bit of a turnoff.”

Note 3: -New England actually does have a substantial amount of earth ponies that work on farms. This has proven lucrative for both parties. The ponies that do so get room, board, and pay, the farmers get increased yield and subsidies. It’s proven remarkably effective. --Cheerilee

Nebula: "Exactly. Meant that things got pretty dangerous for us..."

New York City. December 25, 2022.

The filly Dancing Day…

“It was… pretty strange after we got that news about the Sorghum being attacked,” Aegis says. “We were scared of everything, I was holding my foals tight…”

“You were pretty scared, Dad,” Rivet tells the huge stallion.

“Scared?” Aegis asks, looking down at a colt big enough to be almost mistaken for a child-faced stallion. Gigantism must run in the family. “Son, I wasn’t scared. I was terrified!”

“Wasn’t a good time,” Rivet says. “I remember what it was like just after the raid.”

“You too, huh?” you say. “I remember seeing you there. I thought I wouldn’t see you for months!”

“I missed you too,” Rivet says, and gives you a hug. You… you just know he’ll be big as his daddy soon.

How do they get so huge?

July 26, 2022
453 days until Barrierfall

Littleton, NH

As the bell rings, children trying to make up for months, if not years of missed learning, right in the middle of summer, pour out of the small community’s school. The student body is mostly bipedal, with a scattering of ponies.

Among the crowd were Rivet and Amber Maple, keeping their eyes peeled for whichever one of Blossomforth’s friends would be picking them up today, their studded hoof-boots clattering excitedly against the concrete.

It had been a bad day at school for the two pony children. Like virtually everything else in a world eaten up at the steady rate of two-to-four miles per hour, the place was overcrowded as all hell. But then, most days were bad now for anyone old enough to remember the time before. Save for the crystal ponies, who saw almost anything as an improvement over Sombra. Lucky them...

Factor in the difficulties of tackling all the languages, flooding in with every new refugee. At least some kids had made a name, and a mint, for themselves in helping their friends learn passable English, forming a small cadre of self-made interpreters. But others communicated in a rather less bookish, though perhaps still creative, fashion.

“Come and get them in the yarbles, if you have any yarbles, pansies!”

The little things are what conspired to make it a real ‘dog day’, especially for a child constantly moving from place to place. Take for example the garden-variety bully, your local Diamond Tiara or Cherry Treat, order now and get free dose of added speciesist hatred.

Today’s bully-de-jour was a young boy named Lionel. He’d promised to ‘get them’ after school, hence why they now ran for the safety of the parking lot. Everybody and everypony knew that Lionel’s daddy was pro-HLF, a ticking time bomb, in favor of ‘sending every pony bastard back where they came from’.

Never mind that, according to Valencia Orange, a distant cousin to the illustrious Apple clan, current policy within the Empire was that any Earth-bound pony unengaged in their ‘righteous calling’ stands in rebellion against the crown. And Johnny C said that deporting ponies back to Equestria would be like herding the Jews of Europe into boxcars, leaving the ‘shipment’ to the tender mercies of the Third Reich. No red carpet waiting for them at the end of the line, oh no.

Such ‘bullshit excuses’ mattered little to people like Lionel and his Daddy Dearest. However, unbeknownst to the two foals, Johnny C had punched Lionel’s daddy in the dick about an hour ago, round around the same time that Fiddlesticks beat him across the face with a baseball bat. Incidentally, the venue was a coffee-shop, albeit sadly devoid of both coffee and tea, given the atomisation of Turkey and the difficulty in exporting tea leaves from India and Ceylon.

With the threat of Lionel still looming upon them, the two foals were glad to spot someone waving in their direction. As they drew closer, Rivet’s expression fell flat.

“Dad?” he asked in disbelief, spying his father waving from the loadbed of a pickup truck driven by Philip Hauser’s little sister, Zanna. A zebra mare, named Nkiruka, was riding shotgun. Almost immediately, Rivet’s surprise gave way to joy. “Dad! But weren't you supposed to be in Quebec?"

“I was," Aegis replied, “But something came up. Big enough that I'm worried about you two…”

“What? What’s going on?” Amber Maple asked.

“Something big,” said Daddy. “And I can’t share more than that.”

As the pickup proceeded through town, its four equine passengers drew some attention. Littleton was not the worst town the pony foals have seen in America. In fact, it was one of the friendliest. Aegis’s sheer size, however, proved a magnet for curiosity.

“Ignore them, kids,” he laughed when Rivet pointed it out. “By the Golden Lyre, worst I’ve been called is what Umbrella Man called me; a mutated earth horse.”

“You are pretty huge, can’t blame him,” Nkiruka said.

“Aw, that’s nothing,” Daddy said. “You should see my cousin Troubleshoes. He’s actually big enough for an adult human to ride him.”

“...Luna’s Horn, you think he’s kidding, don’t you?” Amber Maple asked, seeing the look on Nkiruka’s face.

The PHL had taken up shop not too far away, in an abandoned warehouse beside a repurposed railroad siding. The war effort could be seen all around, in the sidearms carried in public, and the functional, boxy extensions growing like mushrooms on the surrounding buildings, sometimes extending over the street like bridges. One container, perching precariously over the street, sported a bright orange poster emblazoned with the words:

HAUSER MUNITIONS NATIONAL: We solve practical problems!
(We do not sell magic items to HLF. Blackpowder knows. Don’t lie to him. And if you hurt him, I will find you.)

A small, welcome touch of levity around here, as was the fact that Chutters, the longest candy counter in the world, was still going.

Their drive continued West and out of town, past hills crowned with windmills and solar panels, highway, railroad, and river threading between fields patrolled by gun-toting militiamen, an earthpony or two helping to tend the crops. Sometimes, there’d be an odd PHL machine in the fields, gently whirring.

The road below was cracked, and they received suspicious glares from cars passing by, including one with a homemade LMG bolted to the roof. All around, they could see symptoms of something… off. It was winding down, all of it. Patch by patch, inch by inch of rust. They passed a half-collapsed billboard with a picture of Reclaimed Beauty on it, a coffee-brown mare with a red-brown mane and vibrant green eyes that seemed to sparkle even on the picture. The neon lettering crackled and guttered in the afternoon light.

In a font that vaguely reminded Rivet of something art deco, it said: “Everyone must do their part - no scrap of material is useless to the PHL!” There was something like a comic strip below, showing her making a radio out of scrap metal. He’d done that before - it wasn’t exactly hard.

The picture had been defaced with layer upon layer of graffiti, and yet Reclaimed Beauty’s brilliant green eyes shone defiant, out into the day.

“S’all winding down, isn’t it?” Amber Maple sighed, staring out the window, and realizing it had been a long time since Zanna had repaired the truck.

And Aegis found himself nodding, right as he heard someone firing a rifle full-auto. “Eeyup,” he sighed. It was winding down, all of it. Sooner or later, people’d be lucky to have a pot to piss in. But at least it was free. At least there weren’t totem proles. At least you weren’t encouraged to wipe away your guilt with a mind healer.

At least it wasn’t…

At least it was some approximation of home before the Crystal War.

“That’s a BAR,” said Zanna, though Aegis recognized the sound. He’d heard plenty. Nobody was all too keen on guessing who or what was being shot. Or why.

White River Junction

The PHL building, an old warehouse that had been abandoned when the railroad left White River Junction, then taken over in 2019 as a refuge for ponies fleeing the Three Weeks of Blood, guarded by an early proto-PHL, was packed.

In fact, the building was something of a small town unto itself. There were the rickety yet still fortified constructions on the roof, improvised lofts made from whatever was on hand, a conference room made from partitions, a small lab, and living quarters. Amber Maple recognized a lot of people and ponies in there –

Johnny C, i.e. Daddy’s pub buddy, and Fiddlesticks Apple, Blossomforth, Astral Nectar, Brighthoof, Dancing Day, Big Philip Hauser, Blackpowder, Kiki Palmer, Erika Bright, Jack Weiss, Burt Gransvoort, the woman who ran the Barrier Evacuation Engineer Corps, Rachel Womack and, strangely enough, Colonel Ambrose Hex. There were even a few people from the Appalachia Security Force.

Yes, they were all out today.

“This…” said Rachel, pointing to the massive newspaper headline projected onto the screen, “This is a clusterfuck.”

“WHO IS IVAN BLISS?”

Underneath was a cell-phone photo of a man in a Crowe Eel-type mask and heavy body armor, tall, wearing at least four weapons. The lime-green eyes of the mask seemed to glow in the low light, and it was hard to see the PHL patch on his armor. But oddly enough, he was sprawled on the floor, blood everywhere. Above him stood a unicorn with an almost mustard-yellow coat of fur, and a green mane –

”Who is that?” Dinky asks.

“Oh, that’s Caduceus,” Rivet explains.

“Kraber, you idiot, you forgot to tell us what she looked like!” Verity yells.

“Well, fok,” Kraber says. “Now that’s some chop writing right there… how can I say I’m a writer if I forget to do that?!”

“... You’re a writer?”

“He’s trying to sell his life story as a script and have himself played by Sharlto Copley,” Aegis explains.

“How the hell would you ever get Sharlto Copley to play you?” asks Verity.

“Dancing Day, what was the first thing you said when you saw my wanted poster?” Kraber asks.

“Look mommy, Sharlto Copley’s ‘wanted’...”

And then, in a very slurred accent somewhere between British, Australian, and South African, Kraber says: “I'm sorry that we crashed the vehicle and ruined someone's lawn. But nobody is gonna hang us for treason. We do the hanging!” Then, he says in his normal accent: “You have a really good memory for this.”

“So do you!” you say. “What was that?”

“Old Copley flick, Elysium,” Kraber says. “Well, it’s actually Matt Damon that’s the protagonist, but who’ll remember a bald white guy? No, they’ll remember Copley for being the most gloriously bosbefok villain anyone’s seen in awhile! Personally, though, I think that since he’s 184 years old–”

“Wait, what?” Verity asks.

“Then he’s sorta like how when you’re high-enough-level in Borderlands, you get bored with the standard loadout, so you pick up any weapon you want and you can kill people with anything. Except the fokkin’ Evil Smasher. Fokkin piece ay kak.”

“I… yeah, that thing was terrible,” Verity says.

She was, impossibly, healing the person. That had drawn a gasp.

“Ah, not much I haven’t seen already,” Colonel Hex said dismissively.

Everyone (or everypony) had turned to stare. “What? Plenty of men in the field choose to get healed up instead of bleeding out or ending up paraplegic.”

“We can see here,” Blossomforth said, fluttering up to one picture, “That Caduceus is healing Mr. Bliss. The witnesses, the patients that took these photos, they confirm it. Whoever this Ivan Bliss is, he’s got extraordinary resilience to magic… And he has great pain resistance. I can’t guess what this may mean.”

Amber Maple could even see Dancing Day! But the other filly looked scared. She was trembling, though she did manage a weak wave and a smile.

“What’s wrong?” Amber asked, trotting up to her friend.

“Didn’t your daddy tell you?” said another foal, this one a crystal pony named Shimmereyes.

“I’ve got contacts with the HLF,” Burt Gransvoort said. “They’re a… more liberal camp out in the ruins of Detroit. Something’s got the HLF scared, and everyone’s claiming it wasn’t them that did the Sorghum. One radio show even claimed the HLF came aboard to stop the PHL from bombarding Portland – did an awful job, I can tell you that.”

“Accursed HLF,” Nkiruka said. “Shameless as they come.”

“Anyway, all we know about this Ivan Bliss, a man who’s thoroughly impressed Nebula and Caduceus, is that he claimed he was on the rig as one of the new guards. But there’s no-one by that name on the roster,” Blossomforth explained. “Or any roster. There is an Ivan Bliss in Portland, but his family swears up and down he was helping to evacuate… over by the outskirts of the city. Nowhere near the rig, I might add.”

That little tidbit came as something of a surprise.

“What’s clear is that our Mr Mystery wasn’t part of the PHL force from the mainland, or from any of the forces sent to board the rig – in fact, the timeline we’ve assembled has him leaving the rig on a stolen tugboat before our choppers arrived. The tug itself is still beached on Mackworth Island. We traced ownership and established it’s the same vessel that the HLF used to assault the rig. Beyond that, all we know is that ‘Wonderbliss’ was armed with a Fostech Origin, a .45, a magnum revolver, and an MG2019…”

“So, a walking arsenal…”

“More importantly, the revolver and Fostech aren’t standard,” Blossomforth hastily elaborated. “None of the survivors we interviewed could elaborate on him either. But Combat Engineer Socket Wrench said he was unfamiliar with shields, and he publicly admitted to stealing heavy PHL armor. But I think it's Caduceus' story that's the weirdest. As it happens, turns out Caduceus' friend Sylvia was PER.”

“Really?!" Nkiruka asked. She and Caduceus had never quite gotten along – in Nkiruka's eyes, Caduceus was eminently suspicious.

“Guess she went to join her old friends," Blossomforth said. “Strange thing, though. Sylvia was turned into some turbocrazy super-Newfoal. But Mr. Bliss killed the beast, and it's being sent off to PHL Biology, safely in the able hands and hooves of Miranda Severance, Dr. Salonen, and Scalpel."

“I did a checkup,” said Rachel. “As it happens, one man had a Fostech Origin on him on the Sorghum. He’d paid for it, and the mags, out of his own pocket. Said he liked the firepower more than a Benelli. He was named…” She paused, thinking over the unfamiliar French-Canadian name, “Imbeault.”

“... What are you getting at?” asked Jack.

“Imbeault was found stripped of his armor and stuffed into a closet, and one of the beachcombers found a set of HLF armor washed up on the coast,” Rachel continued, wheeling out a sopping wet tetanus-farm of a chest piece. “They also found an HLF shotgun in one of the closets. The man that found it says he’s giving it to his sister. So clearly, someone traded out their shotgun and armor for Imbeault’s. I want to know who this impostor is and–”

“Rachel,” Johnny C cut in, “Focus on that picture of Ivan. I need to look at his gun.”

Fiddlesticks sighed. “‘Nny…”

“I know, I know how it sounds. But indulge me, please.”

“Fine,” said Rachel, blowing the photo up.

Johnny gasped. “Fuckin’ knew it! I recognize those wires and the cooling system. That’s… that’s a prototype MG2019! Maybe purple-quality-”

“Huh?” Colonel Hex asked.

“He thinks of weapon quality in terms of color,” Fiddlesticks explained. “HLF stuff is white-quality, civilian stuff is usually green, PHL tech is blue or purple…”

“What I mean is that I know that damn gun! I used one during the Portsmouth Exodus. Tell them I’m right, Colonel Hex.”

Hex stepped up to the screen and scrutinised the weapon. “Yes… the MG2019 saw a limited use during operations against newfoal-infested refugee ships in Portsmouth, a limited production run intended for field testing. They turned back Newfoals like a lawnmower over grass, but the production demanded too many arcane materials to mass produce them to the original spec - we finally settled for a stripped-down version, and Sebastian Irving was right pissed off about it. The prototypes were dismantled so the parts could be circulated back into R&D…”

“All except one, right?” Johnny C added, and Hex frowned.

“Actually, several serial numbers were unaccounted for when we recalled the dismantled guns to Montreal. Enough to account for one gun and a stock of spare parts.”

“Well. That’s unnerving. And now one of em’s turned back up,” Johnny muttered, voice hollow, words carrying on seemingly independent of his thoughts, “and it was stolen by...OH that sonovaBITCH! It’s Kraber!”

“What!?” came several gasps, and Johnny pointed at the screen. “Only one person has made regular use of an MG2019 since the recall, and it belonged to Viktor ‘clusterfok’ Kraber! He was there, at Portland, right under our noses the whole time!”

“....shit” Rachel gasped. “Oh God, he could be doing anything right now! Anything at all!”

“Ah, we won’t have to worry about that,” Colonel Hex cautioned. He’d been more of a surprising addition to the team than anything. As an R&D-oriented man, with fingers in many pies, everyone had assumed he’d come to see his erstwhile friends Philip Hauser and Blackpowder, but he’d settled into something of an oddly commanding role. At the moment, he was allegedly here to help lay defenses for barrierfall. He was accompanied by a constant companion, a young-looking woman with thick blond hair, currently leaning against a wall. Nobody knew her name, but she seemed to follow Hex everywhere. She rarely spoke, and Hex referred to her as his ‘bodyguard’, though nobody believed that.

Her actual job seemed to be carting around whatever toys Hex’s workshops in Montreal were currently testing, all bound up in a backpack marked with the seals of Crowe Labs, Ogunleye Futuristics, and PHL R&D. Nobody knew what was in it at any one time, but with markings like the ones it bore (Including Ernst Kasparek! Incredible...) then it was probably high-quality PHL newtech. Johnny C assumed it was pearlescent-quality. Not Seraph, he’d add. Seraph stuff was always shite.

“What do you mean?” Astral Nectar asked.

“I mean that what with the past few days, what with the Sorghum Raid and Sutra Cross’s abduction, top brass finally got tired of having the HLF around. They finally,” Hex spat out that word like a curse or a disagreeable morsel of food, “decided Yael had a point about them being too much of a potential threat at Barrierfall to ignore. And so we’ll be working together for Operation Clean Sweep, so we can clear the way for a year from now.”

“It’s about time,” sighed Daddy.

“Tell me about it!” Kiki agreed, leaning back in her chair. “We could’ve died!”

It’s a story that has everyone confused and is close to making its way onto the news. Viktor Marius Kraber is in the area, and he’s not happy. And yet, he somehow spared two ponies and a PHL woman, for no discernible reason. Rivet would have liked to see it in the news, but–

“Actually,” you interrupt, “Ms. Palmer said she didn’t want to tell the news cause she said it’d be a….” you reach for one of those big words that adults always use, “clusterfuck.” Then, seeing the looks on everyone’s faces: “What? You all say that all the time.”

“She has a point,” Kraber admits. “And… It would have been a clusterfok because I don’t think there’s anyone it wouldn’t drive jags. HLF, PER, PHL…”

“Actually, that is why she didn’t tell any news outlets,” you say.

“Really? Tell her I said thanks! I have enough fokkin’ varknaaiers trying to bliksem me already,” he sighs.

“But,” Colonel Hex clarifies. “That’s not all the taskforce will be here for. Lieutenant Yael Ze’ev joined too, and she’ll be here tomorrow. If anything, I’ll be happy to see her.”

“Oh God,” Blossomforth sighed. “More collateral damage. Just what we needed from you, huh?”

“Kiki told me that the HLF shot up a car, belonging to one Darren Pines,” Aegis said. Which was surprising, since the large stallion wasn’t all that talkative.

“Who’s that?” Kiki asks, confused.

“A local guy. Unlike Kiki here, he wasn’t smuggling ponies. He didn’t even have any criminal connections, HLF or otherwise. No record, no thefts, no nothing. Hadn’t even been placed at a riot from before the Barrier started moving. All he had was a truck full of furniture for his shop up in Colebrook. She looked up the license number, and it turns out he was sponsoring some refugee kids from Colebrook. He left a wife behind.”

“What?” Blossomforth asked. “I don’t get it. Why’s this such a big deal?”

“He’s saying the HLF killed that guy just because they could,” said Johnny C. “Pulled a guy over at an illegal checkpoint, shot him dead and stripped his car. Which means that they’ve graduated from ‘psychos with a cause’ to ‘scum of the earth’.”

“Thanks, ” said Aegis. “It is a miracle that Dancing and her mother lived through that. Never been sure I had religion in me like Johnny, but stuff like that makes me wonder. So, if it takes burning the entire rats nest with a thermite gun to make my foals safe, I won’t mind.”

“We can sit here and wait… or we can pave the way for a better evac with people,” Johnny C said.

“I don’t care what horrible, unspeakable things people like Kraber are doing,” Aegis said, visibly agreeing, “But Yael and all of them are going to stop them good.”

December 25, 2022
301 days till Barrierfall

“What were you doing, anyway?” you ask.

“I don’t know,” replies Kraber. What day was this?”

“The twenty-sixth,” Aegis supplies. “It was sometime in the morning.”

“... Were you setting up for a cutaway gag or something?”

“No, no, no...” says Aegis, hooves up in the air in a placating gesture.

Kraber looks at him, and raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah…” Aegis admits.

“I was suffering from a babbelas, then recuperating by eating two orders of pancakes and then getting some french toast ice cream,” Kraber explains. “I really needed to get out of that hotel room…”

“You did kind of have a horrible nightmare in there,” you say.

“It was fokking terrible,” Kraber sighs. “Found myself dreaming repeatedly, saw myself as a monster… too many bad memories.”

“I have to wonder, though,” you say. “Mom keeps mentioning that Equestria’s screwing with dreams – trying to make you have nightmares. Torture you.”

“The fokking kontgesig won’t even leave me alone in my sleep?!” Kraber yells. “THAT’S why I thought I had schizophrenia?! Or why I kept seeing horrible alternates of myself?! I’m going to enjoy shooting her.”

“You’re not going to shoot Celestia,” Verity says dismissively. “How would someone like you–”

“Verity, I’ve crossed the Mediterranean,” Kraber says. “I’ve bombed metric foktons of bureaus. I’ve destroyed the HLF, I’ve been at battle after battle… I’ve been enough places that I’ve just stopped being surprised about things,” he pauses. “Course, I’ll need an anti-materiel rifle. Maybe an NTW-20?”

“Nah, I saw that thing in District 9, that’s too big,” says Aegis, with the tone of a stallion who has had this argument before and expects to say the same things over and over.

“Still, it’s 20mm! It’s like a fokkin’ sniper cannon!” Kraber says. “I’d love to use that thing on an alicorn…”

“Look, I googled it. You’re a little over six feet tall, the NTW is 5.8 feet. You could try a .50 BMG rifle, though. It’d be more mobile.”

“That’s… Huh. Good idea,” Kraber says. “Dankie, Aegis! Wait, what if I give you the NTW-20? I think you’d be better with the recoil.”

Aegis looked to consider this, a contemplative look on his face. “Maybe. But we’ve got more important things to do at the moment.”

“Don’t you need this?” the little girl asked.

“Eh, ya need it more’n me,” Kraber shrugged as he passed her some of the blood money he’d gotten in Portland. Though the money in his wallet was a considerably more literal case, as the previous owners had gotten caught in the three-way-melee between PER, HLF, and PHL in Portland. Last time he’d been here was back in his college days, bunking with a friend for a few days while attending Portcon, cosplayed as Sweet JP just like at Anime Boston, been skiing – on two different occasions, mind – so he hadn’t seen much.

The town had changed since then. Now there were shanties on the roofs of any building flat enough, shipping containers too battered to carry cargo turned into improvised houses. A new railyard at the back of town, bulldozed through the Whitaker Woods and just behind the elementary school, rang day and night with the sound of the supply chain that fed the war effort. Almost every conceivable surface was lined with posters and graffiti, and flags of atomized nations hung on the lines between buildings. There were small, pathetic little shops built into the alcoves, and now-deactivated lights of every description lining the street.

The town had become uncomfortably similar to a favela, overtaken by radical outgrowths of parasitic architecture. Small, disposable shanties and constructions, built by PHL or otherwise, jutted out from windows over the street. There were buildings over streets and what few alleyways could be found, creating random corridors and bridges.

Kraber didn't see it as anything out of the ordinary. Most towns were like that nowadays. Thankfully, the park across the street was still open space, albeit taken over for growing food. All that remained of the former public space was a sickly-looking baseball diamond, and the town was making every use of it as a limited area in which to unwind

‘Course, it’ll all be gone in a little over a year…’

Someone’s car radio was blaring out a story about the HLF attacking the Sorghum. About how this is so out of character, how they–

‘Hou jou fokkin bek, jou fokkin kontgesig. Jou don’t know the HLF. You don’t know what it means. You don’t know what that’s supporting.’ Or worse… what if they did know? They knew about Portland, about how they hurt little colts and fillies… and saw it as acceptable. He wasn’t sure what was worse.

There was a surprising amount of ponies in the swollen town. Most of them were earth ponies, probably come to work on the nearby farms. Still, Kraber could see a few unicorns and pegasi around, even a few zebras. Every visible surface was covered in posters, advertising evacuation, infrastructure repair, and various charitable causes. Heh, charitable? Not quite. More like “we’re fokked, and we need as many people as we can to hold this country together.”

… And eventually, when Barrierfall came, it’d all collapse. The HLF would come out of boltholes in the Rising that various soldiers had talked about. As would the PER. Of fokking course they would.

Kraber groaned. The people here had suffered, all of them. And he’d done nothing but make them far worse off, he’d made everyone scared… and he couldn’t even appreciate their fear. He’d just made them suffer. But he couldn’t do anything about that, could he? No, the truth was that he was a kontgesig that deserved the potion, that deserved to die horribly...

‘There’s good in you, Kraber. Deep enough, there’s good.’

Ja. Pretty fokkin deep, he thought, practically shoveling in his ice cream. Caduceus might be right, maybe nobody deserves the potion. Even with the kak I’ve done.

‘... Close enough,’ Anka whispered.

Peter sighed. ‘He won’t get it for awhile, will he?’

‘I married a stubborn man,’ said Kate. ‘So, no. Come on, Viktor, that’s so defeatist!’

He’d said it himself. He’d never fokkin’ be Victory, or those two alternates of him, whatever they were. The first hadn’t been bad, but the second… he shivered. Something had just been horribly wrong with the second one, and that was saying something. In retrospect, he probably should have questioned Princess Luna’s existence in his dreams a bit more. But then, that was dreams. Of course you’d been to this train station before, a dream would tell you. And you wouldn’t question it, cause who were you to disagree with your own m-

White River Junction was burning. It flickered, from orange to gray. Tarry scraps of paper flittered through the air, and embers floated up all around him. The bridge across the Connecticut river had collapsed.

Cars, burnt-out abandoned hulks stripped for parts and increasingly rare rubber, lay strewn all over the road. A lamppost had a dead pony hanging from it, and a pair of traffic lights had collapsed on a car, crushing a human driver under their weight. He was twitching. Wheezing.

Viktor stepped around the potholes, around the craters from airstrike after airstrike. Somehow, he knew the Barrier was coming, but he had to fight, he had to-

BOOM

“We’re heeeere!” someone called out, like a little girl looking for mama. He knew that call, as he waited behind the ruins of an abandoned building - he heard them. Those strange newfoal mares, the ones that called themselves the Pretty Privates.

Oh fok oh fok oh fok fok fok fok fok fok

He fired in what sounded like their direction with his battered MG2019, long-obsolete by PHL standards. He’d killed one of these before, hadn’t he?! Except he never had in Portland. Portland was gone by now. The city was a potioned-out wasteland, kept quarantined and routinely bombed by PHL.

A mare named Reaper still hid in its ruins.

Would have been great if someone could have killed her.

“THEY’RE GETTING CLOSER!” he heard someone else yell. Maybe HLF. Maybe PHL.

“I’ll come out!” Kraber called over, “Make sure everyone’s safe!” he shot out the street, MG2019 ready, aiming at the-

...PHL.

And so Kraber stared at the trembling PHL man in front of him, a thin man with a cross around his neck and a shock of wild black hair. His legs were pinned under rubble, and blood ran down his chin.

“Please…” he whispered. “Don’t… don’t do it.”

‘What was he so afraid of?’ Kraber wondered.

“Hello, Private Victory!” chirped their leader, a peach-colored mare holding a pair of short swords. “It’s wonderful to finally meet you…”

And Kraber looked down to realize…

He wasn’t holding the MG2019. He was lifting it in blood-red TK, and at the end of his forearms, he…. no, she had hooves.

“THIS ISN’T ME!” she screamed. “No! Please! ANYTHING BUT THIS!”

“If there’s anything left of whoever you were, shoot me!” the human with the pinned, broken legs yelled.

I’m not a mare I’m not a newfoal I’m not I’m not I’m fokking not

“But you are, Victory,” said their leader, Nepenthe. “This is what you should be! A cutesy killer in service to Queen Celestia…”

“I’M NOT!” she cried. “ANYONE, please!” she looked at the man. “Dradin, please, she can’t love you! She… we… they’re only automatons! TIN… B… bu… FOKKIN SOLDIERS! Kill me and I’ll-”

Ponify you, kill you, JUST LET ME DIE

“Do you feel like a hero yet, VICTORY?!” Kate asked, her shape fuzzy and indistinct, blurred between pony and human-

You always destroy yourself, don’t you?

He looked down at his foreleg...

...and the hand was encased in armour, black as the night, and he was strong now. He looked up, and with a swift motion brought his gun up, firing the weapon at the first pony and blasting it apart. The second and third fell in quick succession.

He grinned beneath the mask. The Paladin XV armour was among the most advanced ever, built with magic and technologies from twenty worlds, and the Mayhem LMG, made with his choice of mods taken as tribute was a killing machine beyond compare. With them, and with the blessings of his lord, he was revenge, justice and merciless death for the enemies of mankind. With them, he was vengeance incarnate.

"Vengeance!" he heard someone yell. "Vengeance is ours! Justice is our gift! Let death be your reward for your transgressions!"

No. No... not this, either, not this, not this life...

"Kraber!" he heard someone yell. He turned to see another armoured figure nearby, swinging a flaming blade through six ponies at once as he spoke. "Found another one of these."

He grabbed a battered, bloody pony from the ground and tossed the thing at Kraber's feet.

She was a mare, forest green. The armour was different - the armour was always different - but he always found her in worlds assailed by a Puppet of Tirek. He took especial pleasure on this one's death.

"Hello again, Victory," he said, grinning beneath the helmet.

She looked up, eyes wide, but she was smiling too.

"Hello Viktor," she said. "We're here again?"

"You're the fifth," he said, kneeling to be at eye level with her. "I always ask that they leave you for me. They always do. Fitting, don't you think?"

"Very," she said. "Tell me - have you realised how futile your journey is yet?"

"Futile?" he asked, still grinning. "Tell me - which one of us is going to kill the other?"

"Tell me," she said in reply, almost mocking, “What would the point be? What’s left of you to kill?”

He chuckled. "Left of me? Vengeance. Vengeance unfettered by remorse, justice untainted by morality or conscience."

"And after that?" she asked. "You'd have been so much happier as me."

"False happiness is worse than true despair, for it is false," he said with a shrug, rising to his feet. "You have made these arguments before. Perhaps next time you will make them differently. I doubt it though."

He raised the gun and aimed it at her face.

"You'll never be rid of the shadow of me," she said in a low, almost menacing tone.

"Then I will be privileged to keep killing you," he replied. He squeezed the trigger and Victory's head disappeared in a cloud of red, pink, and gray mist, alicornal tissue sizzling in midair. He looked around, feeling almost rejuvenated by the cloud of magic flowing into him. "Now then..."

He caught sight of himself in the mirror...

Vengeance is mine. Beyond that, there can be nothing else - there should be nothing else. But I remember a time when I thought there could be.

And I remember you.

You were the voice that told me to become horsefucker. That made me suggest some level of innocence. Called me a chopkont.

You are young, and you are naive. I have stood where you are now. I lost what you have lost. And I have seen and created horrors that make the worst deeds you've done seem like nothing - you know this.

You're wrong, Viktor Kraber. You're wrong to doubt the path you walked before now. Your purest purpose was vengeance. You are the slayer of the Reaper. In time, you could be more - you could be the man who kills Pinkie Pie. You could be a slayer of God-Tyrants.

Do not fool yourself into thinking you can find atonement. Forgiveness is a lie. No matter what you do, you will find no forgiveness. You will find tolerance at best, and they will treat you as a tame attack dog. Is that what you want? Is that what you think you deserve?

You could be a God-killer. You could be more than you are. Do not turn away from rage. Embrace it! Use it! You know who your enemies are. DESTROY THEM! There is nothing else, Viktor. For what we have lost, let there be no forgiveness, no pity, no mercy - only death, only death! Only death! ONLY DEATH!

Only death? Well, the health plan doesn’t look too good.

... so be it. Enjoy the illusion of peace Viktor. Enjoy the illusion of forgiveness and the judging stares of those who know what you really are. Enjoy knowing what you could be.

But I will watch, Viktor. There will come times when you know the truth, when the mare-abomination will speak of one path - and you will find me there, too, speaking of another. You are a killer of demons already Viktor. The path is before you, and always will be. It is destiny.

You cannot escape what you always were...

Maybe you’re right. But I can get better.

You impotent liar…

A wise man once said ‘Just don't be distracted by the what-ifs, should-haves, and if-onlys. The one thing you choose yourself - that is the truth of your universe.’ You’re not me. You never chose that kak I did. So hou jou fokkin bek, I’m choosing life, the fokkin’ big television and all.

We shall see.

“Hey!” someone yelled, shaking him. “You… you alright? You don’t look too good!”

And Kraber was back, breathing heavily, leaning against a wall, hand against his chest. He felt sick inside, and it was as if his head was about to split open, with his mind exploding out...

“No,” he said, desperately wishing that there was some booze he could drink, or some drugs he could take to deal with the pain. “Ah git these panic attacks every so ooften, ever since Scotland…”

“I see,” said that odd Good Samaritan that had helped him. “Anything I can do?”

“Nah, Ah’m…. Ah’m fine,” Kraber said. “Ah’m good now.”

And then Kraber saw it. On one telephone pole, a poster that said there was a service at the Bethlehem Hebrew Congregation tomorrow, to pray for everyone fighting the Barrier and those who had been corrupted by Celestia. Coincidentally, it was going to be the same day as the local art walk. Both of which sounded kwaai.

“I think I’ve a good idea,” Kraber said to nobody in particular. “Think I’ll head up to Bethlehem.”

What the hell. It’d be nice to visit a synagogue. An actual synagogue, not the watered-down, hate-filled thing the HLF had set up. Besides, the poster said there was going to be free food! Probably just bagels and cream cheese, but still, he hadn’t had those in awhile.

So, with some trepidation, he headed back to his hotel and the money he'd scavenged from Portland. There wasn't a single item of clothing that wasn't shot through or partly burnt. Methodically, he stuffed his MMG, Sylvia’s assault rifle, and the Steiner-Bisley 10mm in the duffel bag, along with clothes, ammunition, and whatever other junk he had lying around.

He then made his way to the station, walking down past Schouler Park, near the old plaza of shops made of brick. There, Kraber saw something odd and stifled a short laugh – the locomotive pulling his train would be a steam locomotive! It was, interestingly, marked ‘501’.

Steam locomotives were in common usage now for simple want of fuel and rationing, but it was still weird to see one out here in 2022, over a hundred years after it was built. With people fiddling around on smartphones, taking pictures of it. And some hipster earthpony playing an electric guitar on a crate outside, and a pegasus hovering on guard above, and a man with some sleek range-toy kalashnikov and a peaked cap guarding the train. For a moment, Kraber looked at that pony with the guitar, wondering if was worth it to kill the damn gluestick. But he just sighed. Nah.

‘Too many people out and about for me to do that. Much as I’d like to think humanity would join in with me, I’d be shot in a second,’ he thought. Or at least, he was trying to think that. In all probability, it was some remnant of what little HLF sentiment he had left.

Maybe Kraber wanted simplicity in life. The ease of knowing what targets to shoot or bliksem. But he couldn’t deny anymore that the ponies suffered just like him. In fact, the earthpony just looked so haggard. His ribs stood out against his barrel. He looked particularly pleading. There were bruises on his face.

‘Your… fault…’ something seemed to whisper.

‘I didn’t even do a fokkin thing to him! I’ve never seen this earth pony in my life!’

Sure. Perhaps this gluestick’s suffering wasn’t directly his fault. But nor had people like him shown the poor bastard enough kindness.

‘Ah, what the hell.’

Kraber gave him four dollars.

“Bless you, man,” the earthpony said. “Bless you.”

“... Ah really fokkin hope ye dinnae mean Celestia as yir goad,” Kraber said.

“Buck no!” the pony spat back. “I hope someone shoves a bottle of potion down her throat so that she can spend the rest of her miserable life shitting broken glass!”

“Ah was gonnae suggest ‘rip off her head and piss in her skull’, but that’s even better!” Kraber said, impressed. Now, here was a pony with creativity! A pony he could respect. This… did not quite feel right. It was so weird talking to one of the aliens he had recently been trying to kill.

But... Nebula and Caduceus were alright. Who’s to say there weren’t a few more like them?

“You taking the train anywhere?” asked the pony.

“Headin’ up near Bethlehem,” Kraber said neutrally.

“Nice,” grinned the pony, “I have friends up there.”

Kraber involuntarily raised an eyebrow at that. “They ponies?”

“A lot of em are,” the stallion replied, suddenly eyeing him with a degree of suspicion. “But plenty more are human. That a problem, bub?”

So, he was almost certainly PHL then. America didn’t leave much room for unaffiliated ponies. Sure, there were a couple in hiding somewhere, probably grazing out on fields in the ass end of nowhere, but the unaffiliated tended not to last long in public. There was usually someone, usually in the PER, who felt they were better off back in the home country.

… Or, there could be someone like him, the kind who killed gluesticks that just wanted to live their lives away from everything. In retrospect, it was hard not to feel sorry for them. Fokked every which way.

“Nah,” Kraber said. “Jist wonderin’.”

“I’m Sixstring, by the way,” the earthpony introduced himself. “Thanks for the dough. Some HLF pigfuckers beat me up and stole my cash. So I’m playing for more, to save up for a ticket. Doesn’t matter, though. Long as this guitar makes someone smile...”

‘Hmmm. What would a PHL man say here?’

“Fokkin’ bawbags!” Kraber growled, surprised at the venom he managed to inject into his own voice. Ah, made sense – he’d been thinking of what the HLF had done in Portland. Made sense. “Still… I’m pissed at them for a lot more than that.”

“You saw Portland, I take it.”

“Ja,” said Kraber, sitting down next to him. "Lost a lot ay chommies up there. Bastards, that whole fokkin lot of HLF! There's nothing to gain, the poor bastards that did something that stupid would probably get arrested anyway, and they didn't even come close to hurting the fokking Solar Empire! They're fokkin’ useless, pigfucking, mail-order-prostiting, child-killing, mass-murdering sociopaths that do more harm to survivors than they ever could to Celestia!"

‘To you, it goes without saying just who that tirade was mostly aimed at.’

He sat down, tired, somewhat worn down by it all.

“Francis Strang, by the way,” Kraber said, sighing, and wishing he could do nothing more than get too drunk to see straight. It was the first name that came to mind. Seemed real enough he could use it when trying to move across the country, and he’d had experience with this sort of thing. The invented identity just mashed together through his ideas of Francis Begbie and Roy Strang. Violence? Migraines? Schizophrenia? South Africa? Hallucinations? Felt real enough.

“Luna's Mane, what'd they do to you?” the earthpony asked.

“You don't want to know," Kraber said.

“I've had plenty of bad experiences with them myself,” the earthpony said. "Believe me, I've no loyalty to PER or Imperials. Look, they claim to represent me... but fuck them right in the keyhole.”

Kraber sniggered. Now, while this wasn’t the first gluestick he’d seen express contempt for their homeland, that didn't make Sixstring's admission any less refreshing.

“Look, Celestia claims that her empire's for all ponies, but it's really for her. Maker only knows what made her this way–”

“She's evil,” Kraber said dismissively. “Or a convincing actor, or she just doesn't–”

“Bullshit,” Sixstring said. “My family have been Canterlot musicians for generations. I met Celestia as a colt, and my pop, my grandpop, my great-grandpop all said... She was almost motherly, that's what they said. She wouldn't act like that for a thousand years, then spur-of-the-moment start re-educating us and driving her home into the ground. Mark my words, something forced her to be evil long before she met humanity. In the grand scheme of her lifespan, this is pretty sudden.”

‘Hmm. A possibility. Could this very same thing have happened to Pinkie?’

“Wouldn't have thought of it that way," said Kraber. “Think that might’ve happened to Pinkie Pie?”

“Why her?”

“Just curious.”

“Well… if it happened to her, maybe,” Sixstring said. “I kinda doubt that they’d all suddenly agree that humans didn’t apply to standards of morality.”

“The HLF decide that pretty well,” Kraber said.

“Well, they had ponies do something to them to piss them off,” Sixstring said. “Something happened to them. Mark my words. I mean...” he sighed. “We were the aggressors. Fuck what they say about the Three Weeks being the point when they decided humanity was evil… It’s not enough to decide to exterminate you.”

There was a pause.

It was at that moment that the radio above them broke into a scattered mess of squeals and pops. A shame, too, it was broadcasting good news for once. Something about some victory in the Pacific. Kraber had been eager to hear of the heroic exploits of Captain Rebecca Kleiner.

Apparently, half of an entire island had been nearly ponified, and the Stampede Fleet had managed to drive them back. Plans to resettle the island had begun, and he wondered about the potential of becoming a settler there.

It sounded nice. Make your way across a country going mad, then live out the war on an island, with comparatively little risk for a y-

“jag kan inte sova nej nej nej nej kan jy my help wie ek is vem ar jag HJALP MIG ben kim oldu sonra soğuk sonra soğuk sonra sıcak sonra soğuk sıcak laissez-moi mourir-”

Whatever it was over the radio sounded like hundreds of voices spilling over each other.

“What the fok was that?!” Kraber yelled.

“ -lo? He-hello?” a voice whispered over the radio. “This is Gestalt. My slave number is P-404. Crystal Empire aviator. I… I thiiiiink-” the words dissolved into squealing and popping. “I don’t know where I am. This is Gestalt, Crystal Empire aviator, and I do not know where I am! The walls here are dark and yet they shine. It is crowded, I can hear so many voices around, but I can’t see anyone…”

She sounded almost like a little girl, yet her voice reverberated.

“The voices never stop. Sombra told us rumors of experimentation in Equestria, and I am certain that they’re other ponies like me. He called those that served under Celestia and Luna barbarians, but I’m not sure I believe that. They’re so much more advanced than us, and-”

and then there was a terrible sound. Someone laughing, and then these horrible, meaty snaps. It sounded to Kraber like bones breaking, blood dripping on the ground. There was a musical box, even as the poor stallion begged for help that would not come.

Sixstring shivered as he heard it.

“They got him! Whoever you are, whoever’s listening, please help! They can’t be allowed to wi-"

A pause.

"Prisoner Nine Three One! What are you doing?!"

"She has a talisman!"

"No!" Gestalt screamed. "I don’t know if anyone’s listening, but we can’t let them win! They’re killing us in here, and-”

There was a scream that abruptly terminated.

“The fok is this?!” Kraber yelled.

“Nobody knows,” Sixstring said, shivering a little. “It started up awhile ago. We don’t know where the signal’s coming from, but it’s disturbing as hell. Still, I don’t think we’ll accept it’s help-”

“...That didn’t fokkin’ say ‘my help’,” Kraber said. “I know a bit of Afrikaans. ‘Kan Jy...’ means ‘Can you’. So, ‘Can you help me’. ‘Wie Ek Is’ means ‘Who Am I?’”

“How do you know Afrikaans?” Sixstring asked, visibly suspicious.

“I was a big fan of District 9,” Kraber admitted. “Damned if I know what the rest was. Can’t speak Swedish. I… I think the Swedish part said ‘Help me’ at some point, though.”

“I thought you didn’t speak Swedish?” Sixstring asked.

“Well, what else could ‘hjalp mig’ mean?” Kraber shrugged. He didn’t let Sixstring know that he understood the Turkish portions of it, though. Made no sense, for one thing. ‘Let me die…’ ‘hot then cold then hot again...’

And he couldn’t speak French, anyway.

“Well, Francis, why’re you heading to Bethlehem?”

“Ah naided some religion in my life,” Kraber answered. “There’s questions I needed answerin’, so I figured, ‘why not come over tae Bethlehem?’”

“I’m still not really clear on how human religion works, though,” Sixstring admitted. “I’m not used to having a God that I can’t take a train up to and talk to.”

“... Hey, she’s pretty fokking unapproachable now,” Kraber said jokingly.

“Something tells me that’s not quite the same thing,” the earthpony replied drily, before grabbing his guitar case. “Still, might as well take a look. You don’t get a more honest look at folk’s religion until they’re down on their luck, and there’s a human comic I’ve been reading that’s gotten me curious. Mind if I tag along?‘

“Sure, why not? You seem like a fokking solid gluestick. Besides, well… you’re right. I’m down on my luck. People haven’t helped, so I might as well go. See what happens.”

On the ride up to Bethlehem, down that railroad a century and a half old, Kraber decided that he liked the locomotive pulling the train. At the curve near one river, he snapped a picture of it from his place in the car. The 501 was… not a bare, stripped-down loco. While hardly a giant, it was neither slender or sleek. In some way that he could not easily quantify, it just seemed solid, as if it was built for hard work. Though he would later learn that he’d been right, and speculate on its possible use come barrierfall.

Seeing as Sixstring, the pony next to him, was bought on Kraber’s tab from stolen money, Kraber felt like he should make some kind of small talk, instead of taking a drink and getting bloutrein from rotgut on a train that was, oddly enough, mostly red.

“It weird to see a loco that big?”

“Kind of, yeah,” said Sixstring. “I know it’s small as far as Earth trains go, but Equestrian engines are just so… they’re so small. That thing is the size of a decent-sized house back home.”

“… Ah thought ye’d have smaller houses,” Kraber said, confused.

“Ah, it’s old tradition. To let pegasi have room to fly, cause they get anxious with low ceilings. But it’s also in case Princess Celestia visited,” Sixstring said. “Though I have to admit, I feel a lot safer with this loco than the ones back home.”

Kraber asked him why.

“Well, like I said, they’re just so tiny. But this thing’s enormous, and it looks like it could outdo a hundred ponies–”

“Oh, that’s nothing, just take a look at a Big Boy loco–”

The train whistled, and slowly but surely made its way down the old Boston and Maine line, heading for Bethlehem. Even as Sixstring and Kraber debated about the size of Earth locos, they took this as an opportunity to look out the window and enjoy the scenery.

And what scenery there was!

Once they got past the new railyard, the trees in Whitaker Woods were lush and green, but the forest was patchy and thin – someone had been logging them. Not clear-cut, thankfully. He’d learned in the various ecological groups he’d patronised in college thanks to Erika and Corinne that clear-cutting was a bad idea. In the forest, he could see crews of earthponies with their hooves on the ground, brows furrowed in concentration as they did... something to the trees. Before Kraber’s eyes, he could see a sapling poking itself out of the ground, millimeter by millimeter.

‘They’re trying to grow more,’ he realized. ‘Make more lumber.’

“Ain’t that something,” said his companion.

Internally, Kraber took back what he said about North Conway being unrecognizable.

Everything was. As the train headed North, up through Intervale and past the scenic vista, houses crowded the tracks, so much in some places that the train appeared to be going through a tunnel. Once, the train passed by a spur, on which Kraber could see a small logging train, piloted by diminutive locomotives. One appeared to be another steam engine, probably found in a warehouse or resurrected from a display. There were even two doubleheader boxy diesel locos that they passed on one siding near the post office, each with old railcars from who-knew-where full of loads of logs. All wonderful industry, so many people working in harmony – he even saw an earthpony behind the controls of one small double-ended yellow diesel locomotive.

Wait…

‘Harmony?’

That kak the ponies always spouted. The word that apparently gave them the right to destroy an entire species. He hated it so much that even hearing it made his fingers dance over the grip of his magnum – which, luckily, was safely holstered at his hip. But the word, the word ‘harmony’ worked here. They were working together. Doing things to help all refugees, even the ponies.

“It is at this moment that Sixstring said words that would destroy my HLF membership forever,” Kraber says. “I’d questioned this before, but this time, it really hit. He had said… let me see… ‘We’ll escape Equestria on these things. Good people used them to build things we evacuated to, and good people and ponies will use them to get out of the way till the PHL stops that damn Barrier. Yep. Everypony, or everyone, I guess… they’re gonna play their part.’ And I…

‘Yes, you, Viktor,’

The thought hit him like a sledgehammer to the skull. Him, the bearded man looking out at the bizarrely peaceful sight from his train window, accompanied by a stranger. A stranger to him, to his world, and even to his better self.

If he looked at it the right angle, aligning himself with the window so he could see the window on the other side of the car, he could almost see… himself.

He could see a younger version of himself in the window. On this train, with an old, battered medical bag that he’d taken for what seemed more like a prank than anything. Eager for college in America, not yet beaten down by a kontgesig of a roommate, yet to fall in love, fiddling with a smartphone even as he read some China Mieville book. Ah, his uneven, dog-eared copy of Perdido Street Station. He didn’t suppose it meant anything. It was just a good book, and reading it was just what he’d do.

He could see himself, another reflection, in a train car that looked decidedly more… British? He didn’t know how he knew. Maybe from those books on trains that he’d had as a kid. There was a streak of white hair in his beard, and, for whatever reason, he was wearing a pickelhaube. An old Bren gun sat at his side, and his book, his old stuffed animals, all were so much more worn. But there was a white mare trotting up to him, a mare with a red mane with pink-purple tips and green eyes. Three foals. This other Kraber looked down at them, and smiled.

There was another one of him, further away, so far he had to squint. Clad in heavy armor so covered in tubes that he had to wonder how, or even if, he managed to take it off. It was heavy plate-armor like something a knight might wear, but it was covered in pelts, and glowing ever so slightly. It looked mashed together though, made from hundreds of designs with trophy-taking being part of the design process. It also looked dirty, somehow. As if it had been beaten to hell a long time ago. There were bloodstains and the scratches of what might have been a bombing.

‘Possibilities,’ he thought. ‘I’m seeing possibilities..’

But out of all of them, what was he? What had he done? He’d killed… killed so many! Probably ponies like Caduceus or Nebula, ponies that hadn’t done anything wrong…

He’d killed PER. Okay, perhaps that wasn’t so bad, and it was pretty fokkin fun, he thought. Eh. Nobody would complain about that. Still, Sylvia had been hard not to pity. The war had broken her too, he realized. It’d broken everyone in their own ways...

But, though he hated to admit it, killing PER… not to mention the PHL, including that poor unicorn with the MG2019 on their assault saddle in Portsmouth, the countless ponies he’d attacked, the PHL perdnaaiers he’d killed, even the ponies that he’d killed in that mine, and FOK!

… It just felt hollow.

Boston. 2013

Before the war, before he’d had kids, before he’d met Kate, before he’d met any of his college chommies, before he tried to eat his roommate, even. Gently sketching out a script for a medical drama, he’d been hoping for a good time in college that year.

He’d even been looking forward to whatever happened later. He wanted to help people, he thought. He wanted to save lives. He was going to help.

A nice-looking girl had said hello. “I’m Corinne. I saw you in the airport, you heading to…”

And the rest – the introduction to some native Bostonians and Boston-Irish like Ferdinand “Strychnine” Jones and Stretcher Burt, well, that was history. They’d all appreciated him patching them up, including that time ‘Strychnine’ Jones broke his collarbone on a washboard in Machete, some backcountry trail at Wildcat. And, since the trail wasn’t officially part of the mountain and it was illegally cut, there weren’t ski patrollers nearby.

‘This is what I was meant to do’, Kraber had thought back then, keeping Strychnine safe between the birches and pine trees as Zo rushed onto Catnap to get a ski patroller. The girl could probably outdo a pegasus in terms of speed if she was on skis, and she spent a lot of time waiting for her friends at the bottom of a trail or at an intersection, so she was the best person to get help.

‘I’m meant to help,’ he remembered thinking.

Were he a pony, it likely would have been the moment he got his cutie mark.

December 2022

“In that case, it’s for the best that you weren’t born one,” Lunar Phase says. “When you were in the HLF, you might have gotten a bunch of neurological problems by doing something that was close to the antithesis of your mark. Mark Fracture, Failure Instability Syndrome...”

“That sounds fokking terrible,” Kraber says.

“Why do you think the Royal Guard are so crazy? Or so clinical and detached as they test new variants of potion on people?” Lunar Phase asks.

Kraber looks pale. “Son of a fok. That’s… The Geis is breaking them that bad?”

“Yup,” Lunar Phase says, in the far-too-clinical tone that is clearly masking some poorly hidden hurt. You know it well. Your mother uses it, most PHL do, and so have you. But somepony needs to be happy at a bad time, otherwise nobody will be.

“...Damn,” Vinyl whispered. “The Empire’s a giant nightmare factory that never ends, isn’t it? My cousin in the guard-”

It’s Shining Armor, isn’t it? She doesn’t like to talk about this connection to the Empire, this possible weakness, and you can’t blame her. She’s hurting like crazy on the inside, you can see it in her eyes whenever she takes off her glasses.

“-had a Mark for making shielding spells, for protecting people. Not for destroying things. But since the war, he’s probably getting more and more unhinged cause of what he’s not allowed to think,” Vinyl breathes. “She doesn’t have any regard for anypony besides her, does she? We’re just tools to her, disposable and easily replaced…” she stops. “How do you know all this, anyway? You know psychiatry, you know about cutie mark disorders...“

“Being a Night Guard got me free tuition to Canterlot University,” Lunar Phase explains. “Studied this stuff alongside Lyra’s cousin Mint Jewelup. Poor Minty, she went PETN. She’s probably not well-liked there...”

“Why not?” you ask.

“Well, I’d think it’s universal that nobody likes the bureaucrazy hanging over their shoulders, telling them what to do,” Aegis says.

“Well, there’s that,” Lunar Phase concedes, “And she was Lyra’s cousin. Looked just like her but purple and blue. Trade Secret says she applied to Forward Operations just to get away from all the hate-”

“Fokkin’ PETN kontgesigs,” Kraber says.

“She’s not a bad mare,” Lunar Phase protests. “She just… isn’t on the right side, I guess.”

“Sorry,” Kraber says, “But I can’t find any sympathy for a PETN mare that thinks zombifying my family is for the best and still claims to be a correct ou towards the fokking zombiperds. Maybe it’s as good as you can get if you’re a fokkin Imperial, but it’s so fokking condescending.”

“True,” Lunar Phase says. “But even so, a ‘fokkin Imperial’ doesn’t deserve what she’ll find in Forward Operations.”

“She’ll find out her Empire isn’t the righteous fokkin’ liberator she thought it’d be, huh?” Kraber smirks.

“I guess so,” Lunar Phase says. “But Kraber… it usually isn’t fun for me to watch a mare’s mind and sensibilities get snapped like twigs. She’ll get broken either way by this war like all of us. Just… don’t take so much joy in it, alright?”

Kraber looks argumentative for a second, almost angry, but then his face softens ever so slightly. “...I’ll try. Can’t promise it’ll work. But I’ll try.”

‘Where the fok did that mindset go?’

When was the last time – before last night, anyway – that he dropped everything to save people? He’d said as much to Caduceus. Was the truth about Kraber that he was a sociopath so horrible that he deserved no compassion and was only good for causing misery?

But… he’d loved helping people out. Could a sociopath do such a thing? Oh, God! He could not understand these feelings! Did that mean he was going to be emotionally deadened, forever unable to connect–

And then he knew.

He’d broken it, twisted it. Thought that murdering his way into the general direction of Pinkie Pie – oh, how angry he was when he found out she was in France, and he just that close to her – was the same thing as helping people. But when he thought on it, no matter how much fun it had been splattering their blood from floor to ceiling to wall, there…. there hadn’t been many humans that were happy about him, happy about his existence, when he’d just been out for blood.

“You okay?” Sixstring asked. “You look thoughtful, all of a sudden.”

“It’s just… this,” Kraber sighed. “Ah’ve been hair. Before the war. An it was so beautiful, but now… We practically have to destroy the fokkin place. Ah just wish Ah couldae done more.”

“What could you have done, though?”

“Ah don’t know! It’s just…” Kraber felt weary. “Ah lost my family to Pinkie Pie, all cause Ah invited hir to plan a birthdee party. Ah’ve been so fokking angry, too much tae trust any of ya… and Ah’ve done fokking nothing. Ah’ve accomplished nothing. I’m noat one ay those good people you mentioned, Ah’ve barely helped any refugees at all, and Ah don’t know if Ah evir will!”

The train passed through Bartlett, by the school – there were kids on the field, including a couple of foals, galloping around, chased by laughing, screaming children. Some of them looked to be zebras, too. But on the other end of the field, he could see a secluded group of human children, refusing to go near the ponies.

“Those poor kids and gluesticks. They’ve had so much shit happen to ‘em. Stuff that would’ve scared the piss oot any adult. And I’ve done nothing. I’ve made it worse for them, ah’m probably part ay the reason they hate ponies so much.”

On the other side of the tracks, he could see that the Y-spur had been refurbished, and even now another train was heading east into Bear Notch, looking to pick up a new load of lumber for refugee housing.

“Come on, you can’t be that bad off,” Sixstring said, a hoof on Kraber’s shoulder, and for once, Kraber didn’t feel like pushing it away. It occurred to him he hadn’t had much intimacy, not since Emil. But even then, it had been tempered by mutual hate, and this was different.

This was a stallion reassuring a poor old man (‘For heaven’s sake, you’re twenty-eight, not that thirty-six-year-old from that horrible dream! Wait, thirty-six is old? Bloody awful.’) who didn’t have anything left to lose.

“Look, Ah’ve spent the last four ye… ah, fok it,” Kraber took a deep breath. “There’s naw other way tae say it. Ah wis HLF. But from what I can see, that isnae worth kak or spit. And I don’t know if ah cannae ever leave. I can get out… but I dinnae ken if it can git outtae me.”

Sixstring paused, clearly taken aback. “Well… you seem nice enough for an ex-HLF man.”

“But here’s the thing. I’m not a correct ou... Nice, I mean. Ah mean, Ah’ve done awful shite. Ah’ve heid people pat me oan the back fir it all. But Ah’ve bin daein awful things lately. Ah think Ah’ve hit muh limit, and Ah’m just… Ah have tae ask mahself. Whit’s thae point? Ah wanted tae save humanity. Ah wanted tae protect people. Ah wanted tae do the right thing. And I havenae done any ay that.”

“Well, how bad could you have been?” Sixstring asked cautiously.

“Ah’ve said tae much,” Kraber said. “But… I’ll never be able to–”

“Your ticket to the future,” Sixstring said, “Is always blank.”

Kraber blinked. “You read Trigun too?!”

“Love that comic,” Sixstring said. “Classic! But… look. Are you in the HLF, right now?”

“Well, no,” Kraber said. “You do NOT want to know what I’ll do to them if they try to unretire me.”

“I’m assuming it’ll be better than what they’d do to you.”

Kraber shivered, ever so slightly. The HLF had little tolerance for traitors. He remembered a man named Garrison who had left for the PHL, awhile back. They’d found him, Kraber being among the ones to take him back, and they’d worked him over down in the dugout for hours, pulling out his teeth and fingernails, flaying him alive, stabbing him, using a cordless drill, sawing off his legs bit by bit with a rusty hacksaw–

Anyway.

Oh, poor Garrison… Kraber would never wash the blood off his hands, would he?

“It won’t, but I’ll at least be quick. May God have mercy on me if they find me, cause the HLF sure won’t.”

Wasn’t that a bit like what Granny Liz of England had said to the PER, right before she blew them all to kingdom come? Trust an old lady to go out with more of a bang, and do better deeds for the world, than he had.

“Not on me either,” Sixstring said nervously. “But… look, there was a speech I was planning. With the thing about the ticket to the future.”

“You had a speech?”

“Well, your description kind of threw me off,” Sixstring sighed. “Look. What I’m getting at is, you’re not in the HLF right now. And not many other people need to know what you were. You don’t have to keep letting being HLF define you, you can just be someone new.”

“I think I’d like to be someone new,” Kraber said, smiling tentatively.
“Say… you have any ID?”
“I… huh.” Kraber realized his medical license was gone and he’d forgotten his HLF badge. Nothing to say who he was or where he was from.
In a strange way, he found this bizarrely appropriate. Hm, what was that quote from Night Vale regarding consequences? Something about how terrifying the complete freedom and lack of consequences are...
And it’s true, it is a bit scary, having no tethers to the outside world, only stolen money and a couple guns. There was nothing he could turn to. But on the other hand, there was nothing that’d hold him back to anything. He was free. Terrifying? Yes. But, ah, well. A bit of challenge is good for the soul.
In times past, back in the twentieth century, there was a railroad spur leading to Bethlehem.
Yet as they approached the town, they saw it wasn’t the vacation destination it once was, and despite wartime needs, little industry had taken up shop in the town, meaning the spur wasn’t a priority for refurbishment.

Stepping off the train, and taking a look at the huge locomotive, Kraber looked down on Littleton and wondered just how he would make this work.

Perhaps it was a really, really stupid idea.

December 2022

“Well, it was!” says Scootaloo.

“Scoots!” you hiss.

“Well, he went to a town with the PHL!”

“Of course it was a fokking stupid idea. But… It was the closest synagogue that I knew of,” Kraber says sheepishly. “I didn’t have the tom to go to Concord or Manchester, the khakis’d probably be looking for me in Portland – well, I wanted to be away from there – and I didn’t know if I had the money. Plus, I’d been thinking I’d just stop by and drift like the usual bergie.”

“Just googled it,” Elena says, staring down at her smartphone. “Turns out there’s one near Laconia.”

“Well, I didn’t know that,” Kraber shrugs. “Besides, how would I get there?”

July 2022

The service would be tomorrow, so he had time to spare. If he remembered correctly from the maps all over Defiance’s predictably grandiosely named ‘command center’, the chain hotels were near the current site of a PHL office. Which, frankly, seemed like tempting fate. But it would be a hell of a long walk next morning if he stayed in Littleton.

If he could find anywhere to stay. Nah. He had to save his hard-earned cash, after all. So he’d probably find somewhere to eat. Thankfully, he wasn’t hungry after eating all those pancakes and that ice cream back in North Conway, but he’d be hungry soon enough.

‘Well, Viktor,’ he told himself, ‘This is rock bottom. No friends, talking to that bloody merry-go-round toy, running out of cash, and probably not going to eat dinner today because I had a huge breakfast. I am a fokking idiot.’

When he’d stepped out of the train car, he’d been bewildered by the population of Equus natives. Now, Berlin and North Conway he could understand – Berlin was a refugee camp and an industrial center, manufacturing paper, weaponry, and providing power to the North country. North Conway was near several farms, and had a lot of logging. It was kind of a surprise, really, just how many ponies were here. And zebras, oh my!

Over on the other side of the river, the mills were running. From what Kraber tell, they were gristmills. He wondered if he’d be able to buy some cheese and make some cheese grits here. The shrimp would be hard to come by, as would meat in general, but he could probably make something filling with a bit of sausage, an egg, peppers, and mushrooms.

This might not be a bad place to hunker down till Barrierfall, he thought. Bein’ a bergie’s fokkin’ awful. I could wait here, keep myself safe, buy ammo, get a decent amount of tom...

And find someone to be chommies with? Somepony even? Sixstring seemed like a correct ou, one that wouldn’t blow up a city…

Heh, maybe. I could work in a mill, get grits. I could be… Sixstring had been right. Anyone. Maybe I could even work as a back-alley doctor. There’s probably a lot of people and ponies with injuries that they don’t like explaining. I could go into radio like I’d wanted to, he thought, as he heard a PHL radio station blaring from the speakers overhead. Be a counterpoint to those fokkin’ kontgesigs that say the HLF tried to save the Sorghum… I could even work as an interpreter! Not many people that can speak Turkish, Swahili, English, German, Afrikaans, Hebrew, Polish, and Portuguese…. and a little yiddish and hindu.

The mill thing would probably pan out. Littleton looked to have rebuilt a lot of its mills… it was nigh on impossible to find a town that didn’t have some kind of industry running. Then, after working up the cash, he’d move on, get across the country, make his way into the pacific. Maybe to New Zealand - what with that being the last place the barrier would collapse, he’d be able to relax, away from all the crazies...

“Where are you going?” Sixstring asked.

Kraber checked the map of Littleton that someone had posted to a board, searching for cheap enough hotels or places that looked good enough to stay. The map mentioned plenty of squatter camps and new hotels, often added in with red ink, but he wasn’t sure how he’d get to Bethlehem from there. Plus, maps like these were unreliable – you never truly found everything on them. There was always some camp left off the map.

“Ah naid somewhere tae stay,” Kraber said. “Ah was going tae the synagogue tomorrow, but…” he shrugged, both hands out. “Ah’m kindae homeless. I was thinking Ah’d find my way to one of the squatter camps. Know any where they won’t steal my gun?” he asked, holding up the duffel bag that housed his MG2019.

“Well, yeah. Been to most of em,” Sixstring said, and shivered. For the first time, Kraber noticed a huge scar under his companion’s mane.

“What happened?” Kraber asked quietly.

“The Miller Pond camp is a bad place, my friend.”

‘Friend? Friends with a gluestick now? Well, doesn’t that beat all.’

“Got stabbed there one night,” Sixstring explained casually. “They tried to skin me, sew my Mark into a jacket. Heck, they were gonna eat me.”

As low as he’d sunk, Kraber had never eaten pony meat before. Admittedly, the opportunity had rarely come along, but something about eating them had… just never felt right. Probably something to do with that time he’d tried to eat his college roommate. After attempting to try the ‘other white meat’, he’d no desire to consume the ‘other red meat’. He’d been called a pussy for it in the HLF, but the thought of eating something once sentient enough to call him a bastard or scream at him from inside an oven put him on edge.

So that, that was at least one standard he held himself to. Besides, you occasionally heard these horror stories from other parts of the world. And sometimes he wondered if such a world was worth saving.

“No, no… I don’t deserve–”

‘There’s good in you, Kraber,’ he remembered someone telling him. A pony, maybe?

“You don’t deserve Miller Pond,” Sixstring said, shuddering again. “Eeeugh. Besides, he’s a right stand-up pony.”

Kraber froze at that. “You sure you don’t have any human friends that’d be willing?”

“Come on,” groaned Sixstring, “there’s no need to be that racist.”

“No, no, it’s just–” Kraber started. “Okay. Yeah, it’s racist, it’s not yuir friend’s fault his entry into the world’s brought nothing but suffering–”

“HEY!” Sixstring yelled. “My friend – my cousin is one of the best stallions I’ve ever known. I know you’ve lost a lot, but–”

“Most of my family,” Kraber interrupted. “Was ponified. My cousin Richard’s a Newfoal. He took the potion cause he had something wrong in his spine, and I had to watch him deteriorate into a drooling idiot over facebook. His mind held out awhile, but when the war started, he practically degenerated into a baby. And, on my kids birthday, I lost my faimly. I’d been through hell for my wife, and her parents hated me at first… now she’s probably some goddamn fokking Royal Guard radgin’ bastard’s foktoy. I lost my son and daughter on their birthday, and a good kid was nearly paralyzed. He’s probably ponified by now. All in the same fokking day.”

“... Damn,” Sixstring breathed. “I’d be surprised if you weren’t HLF after that.”

There was an awkward pause.

“Ah apologize fir insulting your cousin. He’s probably better than most I knew back there. It’s just… Look. Ah told ye Ah was HLF–”

‘That’s one way of putting it. You’re Viktor Marius Kraber, the closest thing to a disguise that you did was giving yourself a mustache, some sideburns, a slouch, a hat, and an accent!’

“–and I donae want him tae, ye ken... freak out.”

“Just don’t freak him out, and you’ll be fine,” Sixstring insisted. “I know this stallion pretty well – who, by the way, is also gonna go to synagogue.”

“... A Jewish pony. Really,” Kraber said, flat as possible, too caught in his own disbelief to actually make that a question.

“Actually, just a friend of a Jew. That stallion just goes out of curiosity, right up with a friend,” Sixstring explained. “He was gonna be in Quebec, but something about the HLF forced him back here. I gotta ask him later…”

Kraber froze again. ‘You just gotta keep cool,’ he told himself. ‘You’re disguised simply enough. Remember what Kagan said. Kerels recognize a person, not a persona. Persona. Not a person. Keep the act up, you’ll be fine. It’ll be just like playing Begbie eight years ago. Except you’ll die or get ponified – no you won’t! – if you drop it. Just don’t think about it too hard. Don’t think about it at all.’

“Besides, I owe you,” Sixstring said. “You already paid for a train ticket for both of us, and gave me more grocery money. Come on then, just give my friend a chance.”

“Well… I dinnae like it. But I like being homeless even less. Ye sure this’ll work oot?” Kraber asked, uneasy. The time he and Kagan had been bergies had been awful. Plenty of people had tried to rop the two of them, even fellow HLF.

“Sure,” Sixstring said, as the two of them headed off to Jackson Street. “He lives on the edge of town. Well, what was the edge of town.”

The ‘edge of town’, as Sixstring put it, was a sorry-looking collection of buildings awkwardly shoved between trees. Shipping containers, prefab houses of every quick, mobile design that could be made at this point and time, and ramshackle shanties built from whatever was on hand jutted out from between the trees alongside dirt roads. They’d been painted with so many layers of graffiti and murals that they were almost furry.

One house, a construction built of two shipping containers attached to a cherry-red prefab, caught Kraber’s eye. One of the containers was painted a bright, eye-searing pink, emblazoned with a smiling sun, its grin made to look like it was held open with meathooks in one corner. In the other corner, and spilling onto the neighbouring container, Kraber could see a painted white earth pony so massive he looked like a small horse. But it was a caricature, they didn’t make ponies that big, surely. The artist had drawn him with two massive saddle-mounted LMGs that looked straight out of some bad apocalyptic or futuristic ‘90s comic drawn by Rob Liefeld. That said, he vaguely remembered somepony that huge from Agua Caliente...

Beneath the mural was written: “Buck Celestia up the plot!” in a font that reminded Kraber of Sunset Overdrive. Below that, a snarky addition, possibly written by a unicorn: “Who’d go near that?”

Then, below that, a recent addition, written in jagged, dripping uncertain script by somebody else, clearly unused to writing with paint: “Let me do it, I have flaming gonorrhea.”

‘Ah, now that was lekker!’ Kraber broke into a smile, which then practically shattered into a loud, thunderous guffaw. It wasn’t quite uproariously funny, but it was more one of those ‘I’ve been having a bad fokking day, and even if this is humor of the chicken-crossing-a-road type, this is just funny enough I can let all those frustrations go’ things.

“Ag, man… that’s hilarious!”

‘Shit. Used South African slang. Better tone it down. For now, you’re being Francis.’

“You think so?” Sixstring asked.

“Well, yeah,” Kraber said, still chuckling a little at that, watching as someone’s chicken ran across a dirt driveway full with ancient cars that had been bound for the scrap heap or taken from Europe a long while ago. A moment later, a tiny lime-green earth pony with a panicked look on her face and a young child that, judging by the lack of patches on his clothes, was probably not from one of the refugee houses, ran by.

Kraber sighed deeply. “Ah needed that.”

“Eh, we all need a time to laugh nowadays,” Sixstring said. “That’s what party ponies were for.”

“... Party ponies?” Kraber asked. That was a new one. That fokking kontgesig Pinkie Pie had referred to herself as one, but he’d never been too clear on learning. More about shooting.

“A special kind of pony, usually an earthpony, dedicated to bringing laughter and joy to all. But the party ponies have given up – Cheese Sandwich has been pissed off a long time about how his father got screwed over by Celestia, and Pinkie’s–”

“FUCK THAT BAWBAG!” Kraber yelled after a brief pause, irritated that he had to resort to insults that weren’t in Afrikaans.

“...Yeah,” Sixstring said. “Laughter has left Equestria, Mr. Strang.”

“Wait, ah, who the hell is Cheese Sandwich?” Kraber asked. “Nivir heard ay him.”

“Oh he’s a PHL assassin nowadays,” Sixstring said. “They say he’s second cousin to Celestia and twice as wicked…”

He saw the surprised look on Kraber’s face and laughed. “Or so people say. But yeah, Cheese has a lot of secrets even by today’s standards. More than you, I’d bet.”

“I plead the fifth,” Kraber said neutrally.

“Anyway, I ran with Cheese awhile ago as one of his backup guitarists,” Sixstring explained. “But then I got stranded here when I hid in some cargo and ended up in Portsmouth. And it’s too hard to go back. There’s reeducation centers, there’s barely anypony willing to smuggle ponies back into Equus, not like it was in the early days when the PHL, HTF and the Resistance had the Underground Railroad running to an express timetable. Now, it’s more unreliable than the New York subway, and Faust alone knows what happens to you if they catch you...”

“I can’t imagine she’s happy to know,” Kraber added, as he thought back on it. The amount of encounters the HLF could have in a year with Resistance ponies was, putting it lightly, barely sufficient to be measured on one hand, and even then that was possibly overstating it. All HLF intelligence boiled down to ‘they…. exist? I guess?’

And yes, the ellipses and question marks were included there. Resistance ponies and HLF weren’t likely to meet - ever - so info was scarce. That, and Kraber was growing increasingly conscious of the fact that the HLF’s intelligence gathering could usually be comparable to a flying chainsaw… unfavorably.

“I sure as hell wouldn’t be. Hey, cousin!” Sixstring yelled, rapping on the oddly wide screen door that had been awkwardly crowbarred into place in a hole in the multilevel mass of shipping containers. One of which, Kraber noted, was the one with the graffiti he’d liked.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming. What is it?” someone rumbled. Ja. ‘Rumbled’ was the word, this voice was crazy deep. Its owner threw the door open, and Kraber stared in disbelief for a moment. The earth pony stallion walking out was simply huge, almost certainly the model for the graffiti. And fok it, that couldn’t have been a caricature, this pony was large enough he was the spitting image of the graffiti! He was so huge, he–

Author's Note

TB3 came back after awhile, just to help me with this! :pinkiehappy: I should point out that there's about three more chapters of this that're finished. That said, Team Spectrum's real strength is the team effort that can be put behind editing, and only me and Vox have really looked at the other two docs I have open. Well, Red looked at the doc after this, but this is a chapter away.
Also, expect even MOAR Last Train!
Thanks for the new cover, Jed. It looks bitchin good :)

Golden Light

11: Golden Light

Editors/Co-Authors
TB3
Jed R
Kizuna-Tallis
VoxAdam
Sledge115 (Special thanks for working on Lyra’s journals. You know what parts he did.)

“Equestria has fallen tonight
And I'm going to take it back
This golden light..”
Golden Light, a song by Vylet Pony. By the way, he was kind enough to let me title this chapter after this song after I asked. Listen to Golden Light because Vylet is awesome. And also because I linked to him later in here.

“I am not lost, I am found!”
Tamika Flynn, Welcome To Night Vale

September 8, 2022(?)

Interviewer: (I) “What do you know about the totem-proles?”

Blossomforth: (B) “Not my expertise. I’m not a totem-prole engineer. And Heliotrope won’t be much help, she’s better with defenses and human electronics. Not those damned things.”

I “I need the opinion of a pony that isn’t technical. Where’d they come from?”

B] “Twilight Sparkle. Said she’d… ‘used’… Crystal Empire magic.

I “I think we can all guess what that implies.”

B “I know. She wasn’t always like this, though… At this point, I’d think that she’s more interested in dissecting things to see how they tick. But she used to be kind, you know? The village librarian, squeeing at the thought of learning something new… she just bounced around at the thought of learning anything new. I miss that. Heh, we even had the same manestyle, with a stripe in the same place! Had a good laugh about that when we had to get all that water to Cloudsdale...”

I “So people keep telling me.”

B “I understand. This… the murder, the dissection, the experiments, the unbearable shit that Gestalt transmitted over the radio, that’s all you know of her. I remember when she used to be more, when she wasn’t whittled into a caricature of herself.”

I “We can agree to disagree. I know her as Dr. Mengele, you knew her as the town librarian, we could spend days debating it. It’s not important at the moment.“

B: “And a lot of ponies cheerfully have… You’re decently important here, I’m assuming that’s you didn’t come to talk about her.”

I: “You assume correctly. What was your first impression of the totem-proles?”

B “I thought they were convenient. I liked the music, the information you could get from them. We were so proud of Twilight for making them, especially during the war, and Pinkie threw a ‘You’re-good-at-making-things!’ party for her! Maud even-”

I: “Maud? Maud Pie?”

B “The very same. I remember, though, Pinkie said she had a weird feeling about them at the time, but she liked being so connected. And Maud said she had a weird feeling from the rock, then she told Pinkie there was something with it, and she agreed. I could see them off to one corner. Well, Pinkie told Twilight, and Twilight apparently told Celestia, and then…” (sigh) “Celly was picking them off. One by one. Funny thing, though, apparently Maud got a letter-”

I: “This one?” (sounds of rustling paper)

B (Subject is clearly reading from paper, judging by intonation) “Better Now. Everything Better. Everypony Better, yes!.... Yeah, that’s the one. How did you get this?

I “We had the Blue Spy check some books out from the Canterlot archives. Continue on about the totem proles, though.”

B I didn’t quite trust em. They kind of remind me of your internet, but they were surveillance measures from the beginning. Made me a bit uneasy, though - I mean, we’d won the war, hadn’t we? And we never quite stopped producing military materiel.”

I “Now, here’s a question. There was Richard, that one new foal kept by Beatrice Hatch…”

B: “By the Golden Lyre… why. That… that monstrous, broken, abominable thing… some newfoals can maybe be called sentient. Like Stalwart Heart. Colonel Renee's said as much. But that thing was a level below the average Newfoal!"

December 25, 2022

Kraber bursts into laughter. “How the fok did I get away with that?!” he guffaws.

Aegis gives him a sour glare. “You do realize that you’re laughing about being a notorious criminal in the same house as my foals, right?”

Kraber stops laughing and looks sickened for a second. “Oh, fok,” he whispers, and even though he says that just about every sentence, this time he actually means it. “I… I’m so sorry. I promise, I wouldn’t have then, and… Ah, shit.”

“Bru,” says Aegis comfortingly. “you’re fine. Don’t worry about it,”

“Is it at least kind of funny how far a Leith brogue and a mustache got me, though?”

“Now that you mention it.... It is kinda funny that you did so much with so little,” Aegis agrees. “You could be a damn actor…”

“Except for my accent problems.”

“Don’t worry about it. Even if it slipped, you can do a damn good Robert Carlyle imitation. And Sha-”

A flat stare from Kraber. “Who chooses the fokkin’ hair on these things!”

"Mind if I tell this part of the story?”

“Sure,” says Kraber. “But... Can I cut in when it seems like a good time? I fokking promise this won’t be like that interview I showed up for drunk.”

“Don’t worry about that, you apologized,” says Aegis. “Seriously, bru. Trust me… we’re… we’re ‘chommies’, right? I said we’d be friends.”

“Sorry,” Kraber admits, looking a little downcast. “It’s just… I’ve been in the PHL awhile, and I still feel out of place. I trust all of you a lot more than the HLF, now, but it’s… it’s hard to get used to, having so many good ponies be my friends.”

“Seriously, don’t worry!” Aegis says, giving Kraber a quick hug. “Till the end of the line, bru.”

“Right. Till the end of the line, bru,” Kraber agrees, hugging back. Aegis coughs, then wheezes – Kraber is known for having huge, bonecrushing hugs. “Go ahead.”

“It had been a long time since the evacuation of England,” Aegis starts, “watching those two planes crash…”

… And it'd be nice to tell you about walking into an airport in Portland, but this is a terrible time for life stories. I’m surprised I didn’t get shot or end up resisting arrest. A bunch of my friends, like Aspis did. She got better, though. Aspis could survive just about anything.

I think the looks I got in Portland will stick with me till the day I die. Faust knows how long that’ll be. Maybe a year, if I’m lucky. Don’t want to be around for things to get really bad.

I had a lot of people that wanted me dead right then and there. Humans just staring at me with such hate in their eyes, as if I’d directly caused the Barrier. Someone actually tried to beat one of us up, but a police officer stopped him. Others welcomed us - we’d come on a PHL flight. It had been small back then, enough that it hadn’t grown into its own. But the worst were the people that looked dead, numbed by the catastrophe and never truly recovering. They’d seen a country and thousands of years of civilization get wiped off the earth with no sign of stopping.

That was about when I met Johnny C and Fiddlesticks. They let me stay at their house in Berlin for awhile, then I got a job down in Littleton helping keep all the farms together. Earth ponies - we’re in high demand, for once. The war brought out far too much anti-Earth Pony sentiment. Got shot more than once, saw friends die in pointless skirmishes, cut down, disappearing in the middle of the night, or worse.

Still, I think that life was good back then. Pocked by loss, poor, but most importantly, free. Most people and ponies pre-war would call it horrible, but it’s the best I could have found. Sure, I’m not among ponies. Sure, there’s HLF. Sure, there’s PER, bandits, the hazards of Earth’s modern life, which I never truly understood cos’ I came into it at what might well be its end. But… there’s no totem-proles, I can speak my mind, I can live without having the government encourage me to just wipe away my guilt with some bucking mind healer without taking any damn responsibility. Or I could just get dragged there in the middle of the night. If I'm lucky.

“Doesn’t that give you brain damage?”

That would not surprise me, Amber.

Anyhoo, there’s ponies nowadays, so young they barely remember Equestria as it once was. Born within a few years of the return of Nightmare Moon, too young to comprehend anything other than what Laconic and Shriek refer to as the Shift. Stuck at a time where all they can remember about their home is being the bad guys, growing up in the war...

Now, I've no race loyalty... Verity. No Equestrian consciousness, and they'd have to make a Newfoal of me to have any loyalty to Celestia. But ain't that sad? Foals that can't remember home as anything other than a hellhole to be cursed and feared...

And because I could live better on Earth. Sure, Equestria and Earth are both overpopulated in their own ways, but Earth is much better at supporting its overpopulation. Equestria, if the reports I hear from those Equestrian Resistance members I hear are right, is drowning under exactly what they asked for. And on Earth, we had TV! The Internet! Destiny! Borderlands 4! Cars! Planes that could outdo a pegasus or a zep by orders of magnitude! Microwave popcorn, instant food, and– stop laughing, Kraber.

“Seriously? Instant food?”

“You have food that can be prepared within a minute, and that’s awesome.”

“I know, it’s just… instant food.”

Equestria simply wasn’t what it used to be. When I braved Equestria to get my foals back and make my way to North America, that was driven home. See, one of our spies, Trade Secret, was on the Great Equestrian when the statue Kith and Kin exploded.

He had tried to talk to Celestia before, to tell her to slow down. She brushed him off and made veiled threats. So… he did what he could, helping anyone to stop her madness.

And I wasn’t actually making instant food – actually, I was making my lunch, a mushroom sandwich with peppers, cheese, and this delicious sauce. And haybacon. I’ve eaten meat before, but… I’d just rather not. My stomach’s not evolved for it. Ain't no Thestral–

December 25, 2022

“It’s actually really good,” says Lunar Phase.

“Says the thestral that can digest it,” Aegis replies sardonically.

“Ah, I remember going out for burgers around here,” says Kraber. “There was this one fokkin’ kwaai place Zo loved, The Restaurant.”

“What was it called?” you ask.

“The Restaurant?” Kraber answers. “Yeah, that’s what it was called.”

“It was called ‘Yeah, that’s what it was called?’” you start.

“Oh for the love of all that’s holy,” Verity sighs. “It was just called The Restaurant.”

Kraber nods. “They had these huge onion rings the size of one of Aegis’ hooves, and this burger with candied bacon…”

“Wish I’d been around for that,” Lunar Phase says, wistful for something she can only imagine.

So yeah, the kids were in the living room, playing Destiny on a plasma TV someone had sold on the cheap from one of the Last Ships. I know, I know, we need the circuit components, but come on, we need some way to enjoy ourselves in what little we have left. It isn’t like they’ve even been able to regularly update the damn game for years now...

And then I heard Cousin Sixstring knocking on the door. Last I’d heard, he was up in North Conway, near Johnny C. Good friend of mine. Said he had a guest.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming. What is it?” I sighed, pushing open the door. Then I saw the man standing next to Sixstring. “... Who’s he?” I asked.

“Name’s Francis Strang,” the man said, with a thick Scottish brogue. He sounded kind of like he was from Leith. He looked… well, he looked beaten more than anything. I think that’s why I didn’t think he was Kraber. I mean, when I saw a picture of Kraber, I expected someone kill-crazy, ready to smear me against the floor.

Francis, though? Broken. Like nobody had hugged him for awhile, and like the only things he had left to lose in the war were the clothes on his back and that huge guitar case, and his mind. He was stooped over, practically a hunchback.

“He’s homeless,” Cousin Sixstring said. “Said he wanted to go to synagogue tomorrow, and I figured you could help him out for the night.”

“Ah’ll sleep oan the couch if ya need,” Francis said.

“Long as you promise me one thing,” I’d said. “You make sure my foals are safe, alright? They’ve been through a lot, and I can’t be everywhere.”

“Aye, I’ll gie ye my word,” Francis said. “Muh word and muh balls are all Ah have left in this wairld.”

I looked at him for a second, a little confused by the metaphor.

“You still have eyes and your spectacles aren’t yet broken,” Sixstring said. Old saying he’d picked up somewhere.

“Okay, fine. Ah have a couplae stuffed animals, a couple China Mieville, Jeff Vandermeer, and Irvine Welsh novels, a laptop, a phone, a flash drive fir my Xbox Live account, a lot ay guns, and the clothes oan my back. And guns in this duffel bag. But that’s it,” Francis said. He sighed, and scratched his head. “I cannae think ay anything else. All my spare clathes’ve probably been stolen by now.”

“... Damn,” I said, my ears lying flat. “Alright. You can stay here for the night, on one condition.”

“‘N that is?”

“If you plan to be here awhile, make sure to go out and get a job,” I said. It probably sounded a little callous, but every bit… or, well, cent counted then, same as nowadays. “Life’s expensive.”

Francis nodded sagely. “Ah ken that. For now, though… I’m fokkin beat. Ken ah go tae a bookstore till dinner time?”

“Go ahead,” I said. “Dinner’s at six thirty.”

“Well…” Sixstring sighed, “I’ll be off to my house.”

“How far away is it?” Francis - or at least, the man I would know as Francis - asked.

“You kidding? I live right above him,” Sixstring said. “Aegis helped build this prefab stack, so he gets the pick of a room.”

Francis nodded. “I see. So, shood Ah be sleeping in your room or-”

“Nah,” I said. “I’ll make up a bed near the couch. We got a spare mattress-”

“Daddy’s keeping it in case Aspis comes back,” Rivet stage whispered.

I sighed. “Son…”

What I didn’t tell him was that if Aspis was coming by, especially to stay at my house, we were fucked.

Really fucked. Even by the standards of a world that was about two thirds of the way dead.

“Who’s Aspis?” Francis asked.

“Friend from the PHL,” I explained, keeping myself neutral. A friend of Cousin Sixstring was probably a friend of mine. Say what you would about him - the stallion knew a real friend almost instinctively.

He wouldn’t want me to say it, but he’d gotten me in with the Equestrian Resistance. With Cheese Sandwich, Bittersweet Harshwhinny, Coco Pommel, and their lot. There were plenty of bad ‘honeypots’, or so ponies like me called the opportunist pigfuckers that’d sell you to a gulag and throw your children out into the grinder of the Solar Empire as laborers, if they were lucky.

Now that I think about it, about all the experiments, about all the ways - how’d Heliotrope say it? Yeah. Using flesh as building blocks. Now that I think about all the ways Equestria’s done that, I’m happy that cousin Sixstring helped me get them out. He could spot them a mile away.

Still. I didn’t want to tell this odd, melancholy Scotsman about Aspis, or Yael, or Heliotrope. There’s honest, and there’s not being a buckmothering moron.

“Be back by then,” Francis said. “Maybe I’ll find something good to read.”

He walked - practically staggered, more like, out the door.

”But before I got there, though…” Kraber says. “I was halfway down Elm street, when I heard somepony galloping after me. Nearly shot him, but, well, figured it was just somepony form the neighborhood. And honestly, I was just tired. So I did nothing. What would the point be? At the time, it sure as fok felt like rock bottom. It wasn’t accepting help from ponies, no - it was that I was at their mercy. That I had nowhere to go, and the only reason I wasn’t in a shithole refugee camp was because a pony had been kind. I was happy, I guess, but… it was like I’d cut off a lot of myself.”

Kraber heard the galloping behind him as he staggered down the street to the bookstore. It wouldn’t be long until he got there. Tomorrow was the synagogue, when he’d be around for the incomprehensibility of a seemingly jewish pony (Well, two seemingly Jewish ponies) and whoever this probably PHL friend was.

‘Why the fok is this my life?’ he sighed, walking down an old paved road between prefabs just a few steps above the average umkhuku and various trees. ‘Not a fokking thing makes sense anymore. But remember, this is just temporary. I stay the night. Then… I work up the money for a train ticket. I get to White River Junction, and I get as far from the Barrier as I can. I forget the name Kraber, I buy myself time… Maybe get to the Last Resort.

The Last Resort was a rumored paradise to most of the refugees of the world. Since New Zealand was the last place the Barrier would hit, the richest in the world had made their homes there. Thus, the Last Resort - the last place the Barrier would destroy, a paradisiacal enclave where you could live as if the War was still just in mainland Europe. People would - and had - killed for spots there. Never mind that they were more likely to be cleaning up after the parties there rather than participating.

It’d still be an improvement.

He didn’t believe it. ‘I’ll still have to stay and fight,’ he told himself. ‘I couldn’t do that. I… I have to fight. I have to do something.’

He almost would have wished for the voices in his head that had pissed him off so much lately. Victory, Kate, that other newfoal, that other version of him - for fok’s sake, couldn’t he just hallucinate a vision of his conscience?

But there was nothing. Just the peaceful silence in his own head, the sounds of children and foals alike playing in the street with whatever they could find, and that galloping behind him. He idly wondered if it was real.

There’s just no limit to how pathetic I can get at this point, he thought. Fok.I need some benou.

“Where’re you going, anyway?” Sixstring called over to him.

“I told your cousin,” Kraber said, turning around. “The bookstore.”

”Fair enough,” Sixstring said, tossing an old bag down to Kraber. “You might need this tonight.”

“What’s this?” Kraber asked, giving it a quick once-over. It looked to be filled with small flowers.

“Luna’s Boon,” Sixstring said. “You’re meant to chew the petals. One of Luna’s Night Guard I know-”

’And just how the fok does he know a Night Guard?’ Kraber wondered. But then, he was beginning to get the feeling that it was hard for ponies not to have contacts of some kind. Otherwise, you fell victim to kontgesigs like him.

‘Come on, Viktor,’ he thought, ‘No fokkin’ need to hate yourself for everything.’ He thought on that for a second. ‘Okay. Just some things - probably no need to be specific.’

“Okay,” Sixstring said. “Fuck it. You need this way more than me.”

“Hmmm?” Kraber asked.

“See, Luna’s Boon can grant good dreams when you go to sleep,” Sixstring said. “I just use it in small doses so I can keep myself apathetic enough from totally freaking the fuck out. But you? You’re…” he paused. “Something else.”

“The fok does that mean?” Kraber asked.

“Long story short, you’re hurting like crazy on the inside,” Sixstring said.

“You’re telling me,” Kraber said. “I’m literally afraid to go to sleep nowadays. The nightmares are fokkin’ horrifying. Like ‘Fok sleep, I’m gonna stay up all night just so I don’t have to deal with this.’”

“I figured as much,” Sixstring said. “Look. Don’t worry about the thaumic-”

“I don’t believe in that,” Kraber said. “I know, I know, I’m a fokkin’ radge-”

“Actually, I was going to say that’s smart,” Sixstring said.

“Ya cannae imagine how much that means tae me,” Kraber said. “I mean, seriously! We don’t actually know what lethal amounts are, I’ve been exposed to more magic than most people, and I haven’t started melting. Ah think ay it scientifically, and all the stuff aboot thaum contamination makes nae. Fokking. Sense.”

“Heh,” Sixstring said. Then he paused. “Oohhhh shit.”

“What?” Kraber asked.

“The PHL and a lot of militaries use magic equipment now,” Sixstring said. “Anyone that works with the PHL, really. But from what I’ve heard, research has been slow cause everyone’s scared of melting humans…”

“Celestia could be just trying to hobble us. She could be making sure the most kwaai projects get cancelled, just to make us more desperate and give up and drink the fokkin potion and turn ourselves into fokkin’ zombies because the radge, the fokkin bawbag, that shit...” Kraber realized, suddenly conscious of just how fucked they all were. And-

-A snowy city. Montreal, Quebec. It had been awhile since some of these HLF had fought anything but mild PHL security details for infrastructure, PER cells, or newfoal infestations. Some of them hadn’t fought anything but that, or anything at all.

They knew nothing of Imperial forces, or the PHL when they got serious, or the new tech unveiled just in time for Barrierfall.

The PHL of this city were armed with enchanted assault rifles, energy weapons, and there were unicorns at their sides

Ja, I fokkin well know the HLF would be obsolete, I had this nightmare before! It was of Defiance burning! Eish… but the energy weapons are a nice touch. Always liked Moxxi’s Vibra-Pulse, wonder if I can get something like that…

There were bizarre newfoals rushing at the PHL, along with Royal Guards, even goddamn potioneer ships bombarding the city. Zeno’s Paradox had never accounted for what happened to what was caught between an unstoppable force and an immovable object. The HLF were, at that point, an annoyance caught between two juggernauts of force.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a scared woman… no, barely more than a woman, a twentysomething that’d lost everything, eyes wide at the destruction around her.

‘I want out,’ her every expression was practically screaming. ‘I’m outgunned, outclassed, out-everything…’

Damn right she was.

-Eish. He’d been way too on the money when he’d said the HLF would be obsolete. If that hallucination was anything to go by, and his MG2019 was a good enough barometer of quality, he’d be keeping the gun for a loooong time. “Fok. Weren’t you trying to help me sleep well?”

It’s really sick that I’m getting used to this, Kraber thought.

“Yyyyyyeahh, that got a bit dark,” Sixstring realized, one hoof running along his mane in what should have been an anatomically impossible gesture. “Anyway. You’re gonna need those Boons. Otherwise, well… can’t imagine you getting a good night’s sleep.”

“Thanks,” Kraber said. “So how much do I take?”

“Usually three petals works,” Sixstring said, “But four… might help you a bit more.”

“I’ll remember that,” Kraber said. “Anyway, be seeing you.”

December 25, 2022.

“I think I just needed some time away, honestly,” Kraber says. “Time to think. But when I got back to dinner with Aegis’ family, the-” he paused. “Wait. How do I say your surname? Ponies are kinda vague about that.”

“Hammer? I… I guess,” Aegis says. “That’s my family crest.”

“Wait, you have a crest?” you ask.

“Course I do! I’m from a pretty old family,” Aegis says proudly. “…That, and great-great-grandaddy Tercio got tired of naming schemes mixing it up, so he shelled out money for a crest. So now, according to his crest, I’m Aegis Hammer.”

Kraber says “Kwaai,” at the same time that Scootaloo says “Awesome,” and the two of them find themselves taken aback at agreeing like this.

“Anyway, Francis was a bit odd at – wait. do we go with Francis or Viktor?”

“I was Francis at the time, so we’ll go with that,” Kraber says.

“Okay. Francis was damned jittery at dinner…”

…And he hadn’t seemed to react well to being in my presence. Sixstring had told me he was ex-HLF, and he looked pretty familiar.

I told him so.

“Maybe Ah jist look like Abe fae Evolve?” Francis had suggested. He was thumbing through that book Johnny C had written about his adventure in Alaska, ‘Snowbound’.

It was true. Francis did have the hat, he did look familiar, but I was pretty sure there was something I was missing. I’m not dumb, I admit that. I studied forestry at the same college as my friend Verdant Tract, dammit. I did think he looked like Kraber well through the next day or so, but we’ll go into that later.

I did not, however, know that Kraber had been an experienced cosplayer before the war. Shows what I know…

Dinner… well, it wasn’t all that abnormal. “Who’s he?” my son Rivet had said, drinking down a huge bowl of soup.

“His name’s Francis Strang,” I said. “Cousin Sixstring said he was homeless, and he’ll be staying with us awhile.”

“According to him,” Francis said, “it was either this or Miller Pond. Is it really that ba-”

“Yes,” Amber Maple said bluntly.

My daughter’s right, by the way. It totally was.

Cuz would never admit it, the stallion prided himself on being able to work out a situation on his own, but Miller Pond was the reason he lived above my house. There’s fucked up people out there, and you can find most of them in the refugee camps. I actually helped build their housing, even made a suite for Sixstring, used some of that zebra magic I learned to make it comfortable.

And what do the bastards do as thanks? Run my cousin out, and have some dodgy fucking hack doctor take over the suite I made.

"'Til Ah git ae joab,” Francis said. “Or till ah find a new place. Really appreciate you daein this though.”

“Why thank you,” I said. “It’s just… Sixstring’s always had a talent for finding strays.”

“Excuse me?” Francis asked, vaguely offended.

“He’s brought in animals, orphans, a wolf pup–”

“Really? Can I see?” Francis interrupted. He sounded pretty enthusiastic at that.

“If the owner – some Finn that lives downtown named Simo – lets you, yes,” I said. “ It really likes the smell of coffee though.”

“Well, that’s another thing I’ll have to see later,” said Francis, smiling a little.

“Oh, it’s adorable!” Amber giggled. “He’s so fluffy! Back home they teach us that wolves are boogeymonsters, but I never expected they were so cute! I bet they didn’t have anything like him where you were from.”

Francis thought about it. “Naw, we dinnae.”

There was an odd look in his eyes. At the time, I figured he just didn’t want to talk about it - something really terrible had happened back wherever, so he just refused to mention it. I was pretty sure he was being deliberately vague.

“Where are you from, anyway?” Amber asked.

“Ah’m Scottish,” Francis had said. “Ah’m from fokkin’ Leith, in a housing scheme, but mah family…” he sighed. “It wisnae a family so much ay a genetic disaster.”

“You don’t sound all that Scottish,” Amber Maple said, suspicious in that know-it-all way that only foals, and children, can be.

“Ah, will ah spent some ay muh childhood in other places,” was what he said to that.

“Like that HLF guy they warned us about? What was his name… Viktor Kraber? He moved around a lot...”

I swear he jumped out of his seat right there.

”And at that point, my jaw fokking dropped. I was trying to work out something to come up with, something to do, hoping I didn’t have to shoot you. I’d been afraid I’d have to turn myself in, get beaten up by police–”

“Nah, not like him,” Rivet said. “Nobody would be that stupid.”

“Ja,” Francis said, a little too quickly.

“Anyway,” I said, “We were also planning to watch a movie later. Wolf Children Ame and Yuki.”

“I love that movie!” Francis said, a huge smile on his face. “I used to cry at that so much…”

“You? Cry?” Amber asked. “You look like a pretty strong human, I’m sure you can handle it-”

“But… I still haven’t done a single thing for you”

“Yes! YES!” Kraber cheered. “You love those little kids with all your heart, Hana!” Without warning, he buried his face in his hands, almost on the verge of tears. “IT’S JUST LIKE MY LIFE!”

Seeing that the three ponies he was in the room with were all staring at him, he added sheepishly: “In a way…”

But when he pulled his hands from his eyes, they were stained with tears.

December 25, 2022.

“He totally couldn’t,” Aegis interrupts.

“You cried at wolf children Ame and Yuki?” Verity asks, smirking a little.

“Who doesn’t?” you ask.

Nobody in the room raises their hands or hooves.

“Besides, uh, at the time it reminded me of Peter and Anka,” Kraber says. “I’d been through a lot, so…” he sighed. “It’s fokkin’ hard to raise a kid, y’know? Dealing with college, a second job, having to leave them with your friends, trusting a high schooler to look after them, wondering if your own kids spend enough time with you or your mother when they’re so busy, trying to cram in lots of work…”

He slumps over a little.

“But that’s the great thing about the movie,” Kraber says. “It’s maybe the hardest thing in the world… but the most wonderful thing in the world to do.”

“I’m sorry,” Verity says.

“Moving on….” Aegis says.

So, long after the movie was over, I’d gotten to making Francis a bed. The couch wasn’t quite big enough, and we had a mattress and some blankets lying around. It was only what seemed fair. It was sandwiched between the couch, a window, and a bookcase. I’d put down the shades, and made a makeshift tent.

“Here’s a mattress,” I said. “My friend Popover had it lying around, so he gave it to me. A couple other friends, like the Svec Brothers, left some blankets just in case, so you can have that. And I have a spare pillow too…”

And at that, Francis’ face lit right up.

“Thanks again for making that bed, though,” Kraber says.

“That was months ago,” Aegis says, not quite protesting, but still flattered by the praise.

“It was the greatest fokkin’ kindness any pony had shown me,” Kraber says. “So…” and he hugs Aegis ‘round the neck, “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome,” Aegis says. “Anyway, Francis...

… had set about to making the area next to the wall, near the old radiator, into a sort of nest.

He unzipped his duffel bag, leaning a black, decently high-quality military assault rifle with a grenade launcher against the wall, then three pistols, one of which was this huge revolver. There was a lot in that bag that he didn’t want me to see. I could tell.

This was not the average homeless man. And it really is a shame that we can’t play this up for mystery, reveal anything like that…

“I think we all would’ve guessed it was Kraber if you told it that way,” you say.

“Really?” Aegis asks.

You, Elena, Lunar Phase, Amber and Rivet, Vinyl, even Verity all look at each other and nod.

“You’d have to work really hard for me not to figure it out,” says Lunar Phase.

“Amber and Kraber probably would have ruined the surprise,” Rivet adds.

“No, I–” the two of them start together.

Rivet looks at them both.

“Fiiiine….” sighs Amber.

“Oh, ja,” Kraber admits. “I think I like the attention.”

“You totally do,” Aegis says.

Kraber shrugs. “Ja.”

“I would have. That was the same accent and mustache he used when he played Francis Begbie,” Bly says. “His wife actually went right into labor right after Begbie was supposed to say he wasn’t gay.”

“That was a fokkin’ weird performance,” Kraber says.

“I know, right, Vic?” Bly laughs. “You kept trying to sound Scottish while you were helping her deliver, and she was trying to sound Scottish too, so she’d put on a brave face while she gave birth...”

“That’s just the way Kate was,” Kraber says, a smile on his face. “Nobody fokkin’ knew if it was part of the play or not! Even the guy playing Renton! And then he throws a fokkin’ mattress at us!”

The two of them laugh together, while Aegis stands there mystified at first as he tries to imagine the confusion of that night, then begins to laugh along with them.

“So there I am, right, trying to keep my girlfriend calm, everyone’s all confused, and I’m just so weirded out but I’m still playing Begbie, I yell ‘It isnae part ay the play, ya doss kontgesigs!’ which just makes them all more confused, specially cos’ nobody in there knows what ‘kontgesig’ means…”

“Then, when I rushed over to help, the guy playing Rent Boy finally got it through everyone’s heads it wasn’t part of the play, and suddenly the theater was chaos! But then… then everyone came to help,” Bly says. “Wasn’t an old prof there? Ter Voorde?”

“Yeah, he gave us both a free A and a day off in his class for how we handled that…” Kraber sighs, smiling wistfully. “Heh, remember how I bliksemed Ed’s head into that desk?”

“The man was a…” Bly starts, and looks down at you. “Right. He was a jerk. Said that Vik was a rapist.”

“And Ter Voorde, he just goes ‘Ed fell down the stairs,’ completely deadpan, and everyone goes along with it!” Kraber laughs.

“Wish I’d been around to see it,” Lunar Phase says, again wishing for a past that she could never have possibly seen.

“What, the thing with Ed?” Kraber asked. “Really, it’s nothing special, I give people head injuries all the time.”

“No, I wish I was around to see you on stage,” Lunar Phase giggles. “It just… something about that seems funny.”

“It’d be fun to have seen you there,” Kraber says, and everyone’s surprised at that – for Viktor Kraber to genuinely wish for the presence of anypony save for Vinyl, Heliotrope, or Aegis and his foals. “You would have loved it, and Boston at its height. Before the HLF, before the war, before the evacuations, before the refugees, before everyone in there carried weapons, when we could just sit back and have fun. And the smells of good seafood. Clam chowder, salmon, lobster… and Irish pubs, even this one Scottish place called the Port Moonrise. It’d be nice if Aegis and those foals...” He ruffles the manes of Rivet and Amber. “Could have been there. Oh, what a wonderful world Celestia fokked over…”

Aegis smiles at him sadly. “I just wish I’d known your family.”

“Ja, they would’ve liked you and the foals. Peter and Anka loved ponies before all this…”

What with all the guns Francis had, and his unopened, rattling duffel bag, I was suspicious. And… I didn’t know much about guns back then. I don’t have Johnny C’s eye for a prototype, and I can’t for the life of me tell which AK is which. But they didn’t look like things the average Dispossessed homeless man could afford. Not to mention, homeless people usually buy just one gun and save the rest of the money on necessities, or if not, booze or drugs. If they can afford a gun. Or the ammo. Usually it’s a cheap pistol as liable to fall apart as fire a round.

… Not that he didn’t seem like the guy that would, given how much of my whiskey he drank. I’ve known sea serpents that drank less than this man.

Case in point, he’d been drinking some stolen booze from a relabeled bottle as he organized the guns against the wall.

“Who are you, really?” I asked.

“Francis Strang,” he said, suspicious.

“No, I mean… how did you afford all that?”

“Ah didnae,” he explained, pulling something out of his bag and placing it next to his bed. “Ah stole all ay it after the Europe Exodus. ‘Cept the .45. That wis a gift.”

“Am I going to have to worry about who you took that from?” I asked.

“Nah. They’re all dead,” Francis said, reaching back into his bag. “Or ponified…. or I killed them eftir.” He paused. “Besides, Ah’m probably gaun sell the rifle an the ten-mil. Keeping the grenade launcher, though.”

“Alright. I just want you to know one thing,” I said. “Keep those away from my foals… and if you use them on the two of them, I will fucking paint the road with you.. and is that a stuffed horse?”

“Yeah,” Francis said, placing it next to his pillow. “Wis mah wee bairns horse Joanna.”

“... What’s a wee bairn?”

“My little daughter,” Francis explained. “This one here...” He held up a stuffed wolf pup that looked just like the one Erika owned. “... wis my son Peter’s. And this one, Spitz…” he held up another wolf pup. “Actually, it’s mine. Helps with the nightmares. I would take something for them, but I dinnae have the cash.... and I’ve been immune to antidepressants since college.”

“What happened to your foals?” I asked.

“Kids,” Francis corrected me. “And… they got ponified on their birthday.”

We stood for a moment, looking at each other.

“I promise,” Francis said. “I’ll never hurt a foal in this house, and I fokkin’ well know by now that naebody deserves that. This stuff here? That’s how you know.”

He lay back against the bed and started reading some book by China Mieville. I was convinced, right then and there, that he was not a bad man.

“Hope your nightmares aren’t too awful,” he said.

“... you too,” I said, a little surprised.

And then things really got interesting. In my opinion, anyway.

“Huh,” Francis said, sitting up and picking something out of the bookcase. “You have a book from Lyra? Can I... can I take a look?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Wha…” Francis said. “This is her journal.”

“More ‘n that, it’s an original,” I explained. “She made a copy of it for me, and gave it to me right before the Thunderchild. I remember what she said then… ‘I may reach the mountaintop, but I fear I shall never visit the valley below.’ I sighed. “Course, we know how that went.”

It had been a terrible night. I had been helping evacuate Iceland… look, you don’t want tok now about that. It was a terrible time.

“That’s not how the Martin Luther King quote went,” Francis said distractedly, already thumbing through the pages.

“Eh, well she paraphrased it. Hope you like it,” I said. I could see he was in one of the earliest parts – the one mentioning the Changeling invasions.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Scootaloo says, “You have a journal.. from Lyra Heartstrings… and you never told anyone?”

“Well, nopony asked,” Aegis says.

“Can I… can I see it?” Scootaloo asks, almost reverently.

“Well, it’s locked in a safe in my room, and it’d take awhile,” Aegis explains. “Not exactly something you like to keep around.”

“Go ahead, we can wait,” Vinyl shrugs.

You all wait for a moment, as Aegis trots out of the improvised hospital room, and comes back with a thick, dog-eared, messy volume in his mouth.

“What’d you expect?” he asks, before anyone can question how it looks so beaten-up. “It’s just a copy. And I’ve had to move it a lot..”

“Can I start telling the story here?” Amber asks.

“Sure,” her father tells her.

The filly, Amber Maple...

It was about 3 AM and for whatever reason, Daddy hadn’t been woken up. And, oddly enough, the stranger downstairs, sprawled on a mattress under an old blanket with stuffed animals, a .45 under the pillow, and weapons lined up against the wall in a little nest, hadn’t been able to sleep.

A couple hours ago, I’d peeked a little while after daddy had gone to bed. Mr. Francis had a lot of guns! But that wasn’t the most interesting thing. His eyes had been wide open, and I could see dark bags under his eyes in the moonlight filtering down. He looked like he couldn’t put down that diary of Lyra’s. He was on the verge of some great discovery, I could tell! He looked like he was gonna have some profound realization–

(“Does ‘the fokkin fok was I doing?! Oh dear Lord, I’ve wasted four years of my life!’ count as a profound realization?”

“I guess…”)

He’d arranged those stuffed animals nearby so it looked like they were reading it along with him. Even the stuffed horse. That thing looks so weird! It was just brown and white, and its nose was so long, and it didn’t even have a cutie mark!

And honestly, it was just bizarre watching Mr. Francis down below, sometimes moving stuffed animals. What kind of grown man played with stuffed horses? Sometimes, he’d even put words in its mouth–

(”Why would you do this, Kraber?” Verity says, trying not to laugh.

“I was bored, alright?” Kraber says. “Besides, it’s a nice horse.”)

–and make it seem like it was reading the book along with him. Guess it was a good book, then.

He was definitely interested in it, even that late into the night. There was even a fragment of poetry in there, but judging by some musical notes above… it looked to be an unfinished song?

(”Golden Light,” Kraber says, opening the book and flipping to the relevant page. “It’s Golden Light.”

You peer up at the two pages, and read the lyrics:

Everypony seems so perfect in this world
Do you even know where I have gone
And the world is crumbling
And I don't know where the fuck I've gone.

I'm the king of the world that you never saw
And the love you had given me guided me before
This golden light..

Equestria has fallen tonight
And I'm going to take it back
This golden light…

“Unfinished?” Kraber had asked back then, looking towards the bottom. “Note from Vinyl - Lyra never finished this, being captured and sent back to Equestria before it could be done… So I did what I could.”

She’d been put in front of ponies that were once her friends, turned into public enemy number one, he realized. Maybe there were ponies that were once her friends in that crowd… she always said she knew the elements before all this kak…

It was hard for Kraber not to feel sorry for someone like that. So, invigorated, he kept reading-

December 2022

“I was afraid to fall asleep, actually,” Kraber says.

“I know the feeling,” you say. “It’s so hard for me to get to bed sometimes…”

“The nightmares are bad with you too, I take it,” Kraber says.

You nod.

“Well, fok,” Kraber says, and his hand runs through your mane. “No kid, pony or human, deserves to see some of the kak you have.”

“Considering the dreams you said you had, I can’t blame you,” Vinyl says. “Didn’t you once explode a Newfoal that way?”

“It was fokkin’ hilarious, but we’ll go into that later.”

“You better,” Scootaloo says.

I’d been having a real terror of a nightmare. Rivet was deep, deep asleep, lying on his bed, and I.. I was dreaming of Mom.

Horrible, horrible bitch of a mare– but Daaaaaaaad, you and uncle Kraber swear all the time! In front of me, Day, and Rivet!

(Aegis and Kraber facepalmed and facehoofed, respectively.)

It was back in Britain. I was talking to my friends, human and pony. It was early morning, right before sunrise, and we were all laughing together. You know how dreams are, right? You can’t really tell where you are, the buildings just sorta get mashed together?

It was like that.

So, the sun rose, and the sky turned purple… but the purple just kept advancing, and I tried to scream. But I couldn’t! The Barrier was coming, and I felt myself smiling, and playing, even though I was trying, practically begging myself to flee. I wanted to make my forelegs move, but I couldn’t!

And my friends, the ponies, the humans, they were just laughing, but their movements were too jerky to feel real, their voices just sounded hollow, like recordings on gramophones, crackling and breaking up.

And suddenly, the fur, the skin on them…. it sloughed off. I saw the humans get ponified – Oh Luna, you never get used to that! Their hands fused into hooves, and slick blood-covered fur grew from under their skin. I could see them trying to scream, trying to move, but they couldn’t. The ponies, the ones I’d been friends with, were holding them back.

“Come on, we’re still the same ponies,” said... Sam Williams, this poor kid that I saw get ponified in Whitechapel. Except he wasn’t Sam, he was this… this horrible green copy with a grin so wide it was splitting his face in half, blood dripping from his chin and all. His face was literally breaking apart, cos’ being a pony was just destroying him.

“NO!” I screamed. “You’re… you’re Sam!”

“That sounds horrible,” Sam said. “That’s a stupid, ugly human name. I think I like Gleaming Shield more.”

“You’ll be happier with us!” a Newfoal that had been my friend Tom yelled.

“No, she’ll be happier if she’s one of us!” said Cobbler, an earthpony I’d liked.

“Come on, Cobbler, you weren’t ponified!” I begged. “You… please!”

“Yes, but they’re better ponies than you or me! Celestia loves having zombies, after all...”

“I don’t think Celestia will like you running away like that,” Sam said, blood dripping from his chin. “You’ll probably be better as one of them…”

“NO!” I screamed, galloping away. There were buildings collapsing, turning to dust as the Barrier vaporized them. I could see two planes smashing together and falling out of the sky, crashing into the buildings below and exploding. There were people screaming as they walked out onto the water that was not water, it was a sea of that goddamned purple potion. Their skin sloughed off into the hungry water, as they collapsed onto their knees, crawling, screaming in agony. “I’m… NO! PLEASE NO!”

“Heh,” said a human with a bullpup rifle that I bumped into. “It’s one of them little zombifyin’ invaders. Want to have some fun with her, friends?”

“NO!” I screamed, as they held me down. “For the love of Luna, please, no!”

And then Mommy punched them, her hooves shattering their jaws. She broke their legs, headbutted one and smashed open his skull. I could see brains leaking out of one’s skull, and he was screaming, his mouth so open it looked like his lower jaw would fall off. I could even see Mr. Francis off in the distance, screaming as the potion made blue fur sprout from under his skin...

“Mommy!” I laughed in relief. Oh, thank Luna, she was back! But then I stopped. I knew how this would go. Mommy would simply turn to me, and I would go cold, my fur standing on end. And the men would become ponified, of course, one trying to saw off his arm with a hacksaw before accidentally getting some on his hacksaw hand, and screaming, trying to beat his hands against the cobblestone so they’d break and, I don’t know, fall off just so he wouldn’t get potioned.

“Now now, I made them better,” Mommy said, her horn glowing as she lifted me in her TK. “Don’t worry, Amber Maple, the scary part is over, we’re going back to Equestria…”

“I don’t want to be there! I want to be with Daddy!” I screamed. “Take me back to him! TAKE ME BACK!”

“Oh, you won’t be scared when we get back,” Mommy laughed, an ugly high-pitched titter that made me think of a corpse. “You’ll have a new brother and sister to love–”

“Hello, Amber!” the two foals at Mommy’s side chirped.

“And sooner or later, you’ll be just like them!”

I was sobbing. Crying, bawling my eyes out, terrified.

“Oh, don’t worry, you’ll be happy soon!” Mommy said.

“I don’t want to be happy!” I screamed. “I don’t want to be with Newfoals! I don’t want to go back home! I want my Daddy! I want my Daddy!”

“But if you come home with me,” Mommy said. “You’ll be a happy, pretty filly, and we’ll be safe,” she said, her voice emphasizing that word like it was some kind of talisman. “From humans, from everything else!”

“They didn’t do anything to us!” I cried. “I talked to Lyra with Daddy! We’re attacking them!”

“We’re not attacking them, we’re liberating them,” Mommy said, and she looked back at me to reveal the sightless eyes and rictus of a Newfoal. “Sure, they can’t go through the portal, so they can never hurt you, little Amber, but they’re too much of a danger to themselves to carry on.”

There was another voice underlying Mommy’s voice.

“Search your feelings. You know it to be true.”

I looked around. And I saw her… she was a pale silhouette, shaped like a mare’s figure, but there was something odd about her face. She was looking away from me, yet somehow, I felt like she could see me all the same.

“They will burn,” said the mare. “Such is their fate. Our minds are not our own, little one. From cradle to grave, you are, each of you, merely the result of an endless series of electrochemical reactions, to which you do nought but bear impotent witness. The universes, vast interlocking machines, set in motion long ago by some uncaring force, where what you see is just a comforting illusion, assumed by your mind’s eye to keep you from going insane… though it is a flawed, inefficient system, I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

Her voice… I… still don’t know how I feel about her voice. Listening to her, I just thought she sounded sad. Oh, that gave me the chills... Don’t ask me why, but I felt it would have been better, somehow, if she hated me.

“Phantasms, spectres, boogeymen… you’ve all created so many monsters upon which to put a name for the terrors that haunt you in the night,” she sighed. “All this, when you fail to see a simple truth. That the true darkness, is in your hearts.”

The mare turned, and I saw. She was wearing a mask shaped like a human face.

“What burns in the fires of the Sun is that last, little part of you that won't let go of your memories. It burns them all away. But this is no punishment. It’s the release of your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and you are... holding on, you'll see demons tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, raising you from the Earth.”

From behind her, he emerged. I’m sure my heart froze, the first time I dreamt of it.

“Hi, sis!” Rivet said, giggling, his voice too high pitched, as he turned to me, and he just looked through me. His eyes, they were wrong! They weren’t my brother’s, someone had just scooped him out, and replaced them with something horrible. They were… I could see what Newfoals were looking at. There was something behind his eyes, something staring through him into me, almost hungrily. Something tall, with black-scleraed eyes with yellow pupils…

“It’s great being a Newfoal!” Rivet laughed, as that thing behind his eyes stared into me. “Come on!” and Mommy forced a vial down my throat. Oh, Luna, I just kept screaming, as my cutie mark vanished, as I just turned dull and I could feel that thing staring into me, talking to me, and I could hear so many people screaming

and then

I woke

Up.

Woke up.

”...Mother of Luna,” gasps Aegis, “It was that bad?”

His daughter nods.

Aegis and Rivet simply hug her right then and there. Neither of them look like they’re set to let go of her for a long time. And in the end, Kraber joins in hugging her.

He takes over here.

“I hadn’t realized I’d been asleep till she started crying. I’d been on a good entry too…”

“You’re going to read it, aren’t you,” Verity sighs.

“...Of course I am!” Kraber says, holding out the journal.

“Goddamn…”

“Verity? Let me ask you something. What do you hate about Lyra? Besides her being a pony.”

‘She made you,” Verity hisses. “All of you bastards.”

You trot over, as Rivet gives you a lift, to look down at his book.

Day 400
May 12

First off! I’m alive! Yay! Second… that poor huge stallion that took the brunt of the blast. The doctors say he has cast-iron in the head. He could even have brain damage.

I shouldn’t be alive right now. It’s got me and Bonnie scared, and she’s fretting over every little thing. Well, I’m not scared for the same reason as Bonnie… that’s just how she is. I’m scared cause I don’t think anywhere is safe. Sure, I’ve been attacked today, and I’m somehow unharmed. I survived a bucking car-bomb and what should’ve been the epicenter. I should be running back to Equestria. I should be panicking.

What scares me is that I am not scared by the bombing. I can barely make myself feel anything in reference to the bombing. I wonder if I’m in shock. I bucking well should be. There’s probably ponies that would say I am. I never wanted to deal with a bombing again, not since I saw Crystal Golems and captured zeps bombarding Manehatten while I was home on vacation.

But here I am, and I’m not scared. I feel like I would any day that I got breakfast. I am just… I’m just in my luxurious hotel room, provided by a British official who’s been kind enough to answer some questions and help me with some… concerns about the bureaus. He has a keen eye for any plan, makes the best observations, and Faust help anyone who tries to match wits with him. Bon-Bon says he’s a bad influence, and maybe she’s right. Well, he does carry an umbrella everywhere.

He has privately told me that his brother - some sort of private investigator, I guess - is investigating a series of kidnappings dating back to 2016, and he suspects a connection between all of them. This puts said brother in the same league as John Birch, but rest assured, his brother is smart enough to keep his distance. The man is smart; from what the official told me, he’s just like a real life Sherclop Pones! Though the official called him an idiot compared to himself. Smug, but who can we trust these days? Beggars can’t be choosers… and right now, I’ll take any ally I can get.

The official said we’ll be seeing each other very soon; I guess he’s interested in my ‘PHL’ project. Bonnie says that we shouldn’t keep this under wraps, but it’s a bit halfhearted. We’ve both seen news of the various strikes in Equestria, and we know that it probably wouldn’t respond well. I’m glad to know we still have allies. I’m going to need a lot of help, I feel it in my hooves.

I’d even work with a Changeling if need be, because much as I hate to admit it, for all the ambassadorial duties, all the pay I get, all the ponies and humans that I know, I’m putting myself in a bad position. Queen (Why isn’t she a Princess anymore? I’m worried about that) Celestia supports ponification, turning humans to ponies, but I don’t. So does Twilight. So do a lot of old friends…

Even Bon-Bon had to admit he had a point when this official said that wasn’t a good sign that I hold a minority opinion in a government that authorized genocide. There’s not much I can do to contradict his opinion; the man pretty much guessed my entire day before the bombing with a single look.

He may be smug, but William told me later that this man is our best shot at making this ‘PHL’ an honestly effective thing. I hope he’s right.

I do still want it to be peaceful, to encourage cooperation between human and pony! But somehow… I know it’s unlikely. Home doesn’t feel like home anymore.

Day 402
May 14. London

Bon-Bon keeps saying we should go home. But I don’t feel welcome there anymore. I know I said nowhere feels safe, I just keep making up excuses, and she seems to believe them, so I’m not sure she really means what she says. I don’t know why, but I just feel like some of my neighbors, especially Twilight - I keep hearing that failing to nip King Sombra in the bud must have damaged her somehow. Fine… a lot happened cause of that. I knew Twilight in school, and she was neurotic enough for that. But it’s like she’s a different pony now, her, Rarity, all the Elements. Whatever it is, Pinkie doesn’t seem very affected, but you can never tell with her. Oh, right, terrible syntax. The thing is that a lot of my neighbors and friends don’t feel like the same ponies they were before the Great War. From what I’ve heard in some of the letters I’ve been sending, Berry Punch is going through what looks like the worst detox ever.

And… weirdest of all, we haven’t stopped making military materiel. There’s some places in Equestria that haven’t rebuilt from the War yet, and there we are, still making mil-spec skyliners. We don’t have a military economy anymore, right?

I heard that there was a lot of striking and rioting back home in the past four days. Somepony, or someone from those weird PER (Giving me the creeps) managed to get photos into Equestria of the May Day Riots, of all the humans fighting. I actually thought one was that guy from District 9 and Powers, but I’m informed he’s a new HLF (Not HTF, oh, the poor Reverend!) man named Viktor Kraber-

“It is disturbing as hell seeing yourself mentioned like that in someone’s diary,” Kraber says, seeing you point at it with one hoof.

“Am I in there too?” Verity asks.

“Actually, yes. Not sure you’d like it, though.”

-and I should be worried about him. Yes, that Viktor Kraber, son of Dr. Erika Kraber, who I’d been in contact with about the potion. Oh, she must be so torn up, not just cause of what happened to her grandchildren and daughter-in-law, but cause she doesn’t know what he’s going to do, and his temper gets pretty bad. Something about eating a college roommate, but that can’t be right...

Kraber smiles at the memory. That had been a good day. He’d rampaged through the city leaving the city red with PER blood. And pony blood, fokkin kwaai… but not really. No.

“I hurt people that didn’t deserve it,” Kraber said, looking down at the stuffed horse. Kerels, civvies, and I’m betting most of those ponies I bliksemed weren’t PER. Is it too late to change? Can I even do that?

“No,” the Dark Kraber said. “You’ll just fall into the same trap, do the same fokkin’ thing. Do you really think that killing PER and Imperials with people that can barely tolerate you will be anything different?”

I’m not just a killer! Kraber thought. I’m a fokkin’ doctor. I can write, I can make shrimp and grits, I can…. I can do something other than this, can’t I?

“Do you believe that?” Victory asked. “If you really want to change, I’m your only option. You’re broken beyond repair, Vicky. You’re beyond redemption! Maybe some humans can be good, but there’s no way that going pony wouldn’t be an improvement!”

“You vile whore.”

Kraber tried to concentrate on the book once more, trying to drown out the annoying fokkin kontgesigs in his head.

Anyway, the riots back home are getting worse. So’s the strikebreaking. Bonnie read the papers from there (The newsman on the corner called it the horseyland times) and she was horrified about it! The prohuman ponies were called violent agitators, there was massive violence, the ponies sympathetic to humans and critical of Celestia were painted as the worst criminals, and the pro-Celestia ones were called violent agitators.

But the weird thing is, I heard from this one pegasus named Blizzard Flurry, she was speaking from Riga on a podcast about the pony experience, and what she said is that the Battleship Strike ponies were underpaid, that a number of grievances since the Great Equestrian Disaster were unsolved and unaddressed, and they just wanted answers on the Great Equestrian Disaster and a reason why they were still building military skyliners.

So, in response, the Royal Guard in Cloudsdale beat the strikebreakers. I’ve also checked the PHL website that I founded (I think some filly got her cutie mark setting it up?) and another mare said that she nearly lost a wing in the Hand-In-Hoof riots, and that there was no escalation… that some ponies saw the photos… which were made from paper in Equestria, oddly enough, which just doesn’t feel right. Especially considering how many look like they were taken by the HLF themselves.

Anyway, all the angry ponies just started smashing storefronts! Then, since this mare pointed out that humans were scared and she couldn’t understand why there were so many bureaus, a gaggle of Newfoal immigrants had dogpiled her and stomped on her spine to the point that they nearly paralyzed her so badly even magic couldn’t fix it.

Princess Luna had sent in the Night Guard to dispel the riots (And only Luna had, oddly enough, Celestia’s guards were curiously absent. Like she wanted this?) and this mare had been rescued by somepony named Nebula, who’d flown her out of harm’s way. No charges are being pressed against newfoals, or anyone anti-human. It’s like Celestia favors newfoals after us. Or rather, what they represent… unquestioning, obedient, loyal to a fault.

That sets a terrifying precedent.

All around, I keep getting the strangest stories. And while Earth may not be safe, I feel like the new HLF are the lesser of two evils. Still… I think I can do better.

You realize that, fundamentally, this story is about Kraber. That on some level he needs to explain this. You realize that on some level he needs to tell this for some kind of self-actualization, that he needs to reassure both himself and the people of this room that he is a good person. He… does need to worry. Still, he’ll probably do right. The man’s trying to be better, and Aegis is good for him.

“-remember before falling asleep,” Kraber continues as you look up from a particularly interesting entry about the radio silence with Equestria. “I sound like a kontgesig for saying it, but I was kinda happy when she woke me up. Cause, again, my dreams are fokking siff. I… Back then, I could’ve done plenty of fokking terrible things. Hell, I’d shot…” Kraber looks downcast here, “I’d shot foals. Already told you that. It’s one thing to turn ponies into objects, de… deequinize?” he stumbles over the words, and sighs the words ‘Fokkin’ anthropocentrism.’ “But,” he continues, “I couldn’t fokking well let a child upstairs cry.”

Kraber pauses. “That, and she said that ‘they’ were coming to get her. I assumed the worst, so I picked up the revolver and rushed up there.”

“Why did you have the stuffed animal when you went up there?” Amber Maple asks.

“Kids love stuffed animals,” Kraber says simply.

“What does that say about you?” Verity asks.

“... I am very immature.”

“Ssssshhhh…” Francis said, walking into my room. I noticed the.45 at his hip. “What happened?”

“I was… I was having a nightmare,” I said.

“There’s nobody here trying tae get you? PER trying to ‘rescue’ you or HLF trying to–”

“No!” I said. “Just a nightmare…”

He seemed almost disappointed.

”Honestly, I was just… not sure how to react. It had been a long time since I’d done anything fatherly, and I fokkin hate myself for that. I hate being out of practice at stuff. Except torture. I’m really happy that I forgot what to do with needlenose pliers.”

“Too much information,” Aegis sighs, as if they’ve been through this time and time again.

“How could you possibly forget?!” Verity asks. “It’s pretty simple, really–”

“You’re ruining his character development!” you protest, and Kraber stifles a laugh at the wording. “Just… just let him be.”

“Can we finish?!” Amber Maple asks.

“We?” Kraber asks.

“Well, I can’t very well say what you were thinking…”

“Well, what did happen?” Francis said, carefully placing the gun on a table far away from where I could get it. Not that I could – I’m an earthpony – but it was a good idea.

“I had a nightmare!” I said. “It was… mom was coming after us, my friends were getting ponified… I even saw you get ponified!”

“Did I get turned into a green mare named Victory?”

“No…?” I said, confused.

“That’s a relief. I’ll explain later,” he said, with the tone that implied he was just thinking of a better way to dodge the question.

--I totally was.

“It’s not important,” Francis continued. “Are you alright?!”

“No!” I said. “I saw someone get ponified! It was horrible, and I… I…”

So Francis, looking confused, like one of those potion-amputees not sure what to do with their prosthetic arms or how to reform the combat models into weaponry, bent down and gave me a hug.

“You’re afraid of it too?” Francis asked, a little confused.

“Yes!” I sobbed. “We were in England… during the Three Weeks of Blood, and I saw someone get ponified! It was horrible!”

Francis still looked confused, and kept hugging me. “There, there. It’s gonna be okay, nobody will be ponifying you–”

“It’s not about getting ponified, it’s about seeing it happening to other people! They’re… they just turned into zombies!” I said. “I was… I saw a kid get ponified by PER in the street, and he went along with this mare like she was his mommy! And then, and then our mother said that… that she wished she could have children like that, and she thought it was harmless, and–”

“Your mother sounds like a bitch,” Francis said, hand in my fur.

It was hard not to laugh at how dry his voice was. “Oh, Daddy always goes on and on about it…”

“Trust me, as long as he’s aroond, you’ll be fine,” Francis said. “Yuir dad’s fokkin massive! And Ah’ll shoot anyone with vials. Ah promise ya thit. I’ll make sure you or ya bru nivir see anyone git ponified, I promise!”

“You mean it?” I asked.

“Yes,” Francis said, absolutely certain. “Look, ah, I’ll give you something to help.”

“Is it that gun?” I asked.

“F…. God no!” Francis said. “Even if you can’t fire it, I’m not doing that.”

(“I was actually trying not to swear. Didn’t last long, or at all, but I thought it was a good effort.”

“Eh, not really.”)

“No,” he said, holding out a stuffed animal. “This… this is a stuffed wolf. His name is Ambassador Nikai the Second. If you feel sad, or terrified, anything – just hold him, it’ll be fine.”

“Wuzz going on?” Daddy muttered sleepily, walking up to us. Rivet was next to him, looking incredibly tired.

“Your daughter was having a nightmare,” Francis said. “Ah told her tae hold oantae this stuffed wolf pup if things goat bad.”

“It’s so fluffy!” I said, mystified. “Where’d you get this?”

“It was his daughter’s,” Daddy explained.

“Was? Is she...”

Francis and Daddy looked down at each other.

“Oh,” I said. “I’m so sorry!”

“That’s terrible!” Rivet gasped.

“I wouldae been a fokking horrible father anyway,” Francis said, downcast.

“That’s bullshit,” Daddy said, and we both looked up at him. “By Luna, at least have some pride in yourself. You could not have been bad enough that getting turned into a lobotomized zombie was for the best!”

“You don’t know what I’ve been doing for the past four years,” Francis said.

“You’re right. But I do know that when my daughter woke up screaming, you came right up. Anyone that does that can’t be that bad a father,” Daddy said.

“Well, how about that…” Mr. Francis said. He seemed surprised this time.

(“I was. It… it’d been a long time since I’d genuinely felt like I’d done the right thing. Well, I felt that way back in Portland, but I was so fokkin woedend that I wasn’t really… I wasn’t sure how to feel there.”)

"Unlike me, maybe," Aegis sighed.

“Come on, there’s no need for that,” Francis said. “You managed to keep your kids safe. You’ve gotta be a good father too.”

“Dad, you’re fine,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

“Sorry, Amber,” Daddy said. “I just… I just wonder sometimes. About Iceland. I nearly-”

“It’s fine,” I insisted.

“It was terrible, yeah, but we’re fine!” Rivet added.

Daddy did not look like he truly believed it was. I don’t know if he’d ever believe it would.

“I don’t know what happened in Iceland...” Francis said.

“You probably don’t want to,” Rivet said. It had been nightmarish, then. There’d been plans for an attack on Celestia over in Iceland, using Luna as bait. It had failed, and there’d been chaos as we had to evacuate, knowing that she could have turned our friends into smiling zombies en masse, that we could have been ‘rescued’ at any moment… Daddy had been around, and we’d gotten lost. For just a few seconds…

Thank Faust nothing bad happened. That Celestia had some shred of compassion left in her soul, enough that petrifying her sister had some bucking impact.

Not anymore, though. There wasn't a shred of mercy besides that left in the necrotic knot of flesh that Queen Celestia called a heart.

“So it’s not fine,” Francis said.

“Amber?” Daddy asked. “Anything I can do?”

“Can you… can you stay here? I don’t want a nightmare again.”

“I have a good bedtime story I can try,” Francis said. He popped open his cell phone. “It’s on kindle, hold on a sec…”

Me, Rivet and Daddy waited.

“In an unremarkable room, in a nondescript building, a man sat working on very non-nondescript theories.

The man was surrounded by bright chemicals in bottles and flasks, charts and gauges, and piles of books like battlements around him…”

AEGIS… in July 2022.:

When he’d finished reading from that book, with my little filly finally tired enough, we both pulled the blanket up – me with my mouth, Francis with his hands. Finally, Amber was sleeping, her forehooves clamped tightly around the stuffed wolf pup. It was the kind of thing that David Elliot would compare to pulling excalibur out of a stone, though I don’t know why he’d use that word. Elliot’s a cool guy, but he can have these odd moments sometimes. Rivet was lying on Amber’s bed, and Francis draped a blanket over him too.

“Don’t you need that pup?” I asked.

“At the moment, your daughter needs it more than me,” Francis said.

“Heh,” I said.

“What’s that for?” Francis asked.

“It’s just more mud in the eye to my old wife,” I said. “Bitch said there weren’t any good humans, just killers. But I know plenty of good people - Kiki, that couple downstairs, Rachel, Burt, Jack, John Peters… you know, the brewer?”

“I know of him,” Kraber said.

“And Johnny C, of course… Hell, I love this town. I love a lot of the people that I get to meet. But a lot of the time it feels like they’re all a minority. Most times a new person comes into town, they always want to lynch me. How dare those assholes not forgive me for my race destroying the world,” I said bitterly.

“Yeah, they are kontgesigs!” Francis said.

I just looked at him, kind of confused. “... I think you missed the setup.”

“What setup?” he asked.

“I’m just saying, I can understand them,” I said. “Back during the Crystal War, I was a right bastard to crystal ponies that wanted out of the Empire.”

“I’ve never heard that much about the Crystal War,” Francis said.

“Ah. Well, the War was the worst thing Celestia could have done,” I said.

Francis just raised an eyebrow. “Really.”

“No, no! Not like that. I mean, it was the worst thing she could have done for her civilian population,” I explained. “She pissed off a lot of ponies. Left a bunch of ponies with guerrilla skills just waiting in civilian population that never quite acclimatized to the postwar or totem-proles. It was a test run for the Conversion War, I’m sure of it. But Celestia didn’t really think about what it’d do to the public. The bitch hadn’t exactly been good at empathizing with them,” I explained. “She laid the groundwork for so much infighting during the War. Sombra’s forces took over my hometown and part of Hoofington. Me and my wife helped fight them off… and I’ll admit, we were bastards to the crystal ponies that came by. We told them to go back, I helped spraypaint the windows of a house belonging to one of them… it was a dark time. I’m just saying, Mr. Strang. It’s not who we are, it’s what we represent.”

“Speaking as a former HLF man–”

My heart skipped a beat, and even though Sixstring had told me, it was hard to hear. I couldn’t repress a bit of anger at that. HLF had gave me six inches of cast-iron steel in the conk. Still there. Hurt a bit now and then.

… How in the hell had I survived that, anyway? That bomb should have splattered me on the floor, and Lyra got out without any injuries. That mare… she led a charmed life. Up to a point, anyway.

“Course Ah am,” Francis said. “Who dae ya think ah stole the guns from?”

”I… sorta wasn’t lying. I did steal the guns, and they would have taken Sylvia’s rifle anyway. Where is that old thing?”

“Ah, I gave it to Dalibor Svec. He seems to like it,” Aegis says.

“Thinking like that disnae help anyone. Especially you. Do what you just told me and have some fokkin’ pride in yaself, bru,” Francis said.

(“Yeah, I know. I really haven’t that much pride in myself. But it’s easy to build others up when you’re that far fokkin’ down.”)

“I mean, you’re a father, you’ve got two kids,” Francis continued. “All you need to know is HLF are kontgesigs. Any of them try to convince people around here otherwise, I’ll walk over and bliksem them one.”

“...What?”

“I’ll punch them,” Francis explained. “Or kick them in the face. Trust me, you’re a better human than most humans.”

“... what.” Okay, I admit it. That pissed me off. Okay, maybe Francis had good intentions, but that was pretty offensive. I reared up a bit, looking down on him.

“You’re pretty intimidating when you rear up,” Kraber says. “Hey, Verity, ever watch the Venture Bros?”

Verity raises up one hoof, then realizes that she can’t flip people off anymore.

“Oh wait, wait, I know where you’re going with this,” you say. “Good God, they’re making them big nowadays! Don’t they know there’s a gas crunch on! Look at the size of you!”

“Please tell me that Nny and Fiddly don’t have you watching The Venture Brothers,” Aegis sighs.

“I overhear some things,” you shrug. “Besides, it’s funny!”

“In which case I hope you don’t know what a Rusty Venture is…” Aegis sighs. “And for the love of God, Viktor, don’t tell her!”

“I’m not that sick!” Kraber protests.

“Like that’s anything out of the ordinary for you,” Verity sighs.

“Maybe it is, but at least I’m fokking well trying to change!” Kraber yells.

“I’m still interested in the story,” you say, trying to steer this back on track. Technically, they’re right. You don’t actually know what a Rusty Venture is. I mean, which definition is it? They gave like seven on the show!

“Sorry. But anyway, I have to admit,” Kraber says. “It was weird in that moment. It had been one of the first times I’d actually apologized to a pony.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! I didn’t mean it like that! Look. Back in the HLF, people said they were the pinnacle of humanity. But they just wanted to kill shit. They just hid in camps, clutching guns… and actually didn’t try to help with rebuilding the railroads up there. Or anything that could help with evac. I mean, hell, I once wanted to go working on the railroad and they said ‘No, there’s ponies there!’ and escorted me back to my tent at gunpoint.”

I choked, and I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be appalled. “By Luna’s Mane, you’re serious, aren’t you.”

“Ah’m noat turnin yuir kak,” Francis said. “I’m actually not kidding. They said they were gonna liberate, but… they didn’t do a Goddamned thing.”

“Mother of Luna,” I groaned. I could hear the capitalization in his voice - he was, in the religious sense, practically begging God to damn his former companions. “So… by that standard of humanity, I’m a better human than them.”

Francis nodded.

“Huh,” I said.

“Just, uh… please tell me. Are there people that genuinely want to help?” Francis asked. “Ah’ve spent years among the worst examples of humanity… and probably a lot ay that time being one of said examples. I just need to know there’s still good people out there.”

“I do know plenty of good humans and ponies around that fit that standard,” I said.

“I think I’d like to meet them,” Francis said.

“A lot of ‘em will be around tomorrow,” I said.

“Think they can help me get a joab around here?” he asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “All of them know Sixstring, so if he turns up tomorrow, he’ll probably be able to vouch for you.”

“Awright. Thae, one question. I dae wonder how an Equestrian patriot like yourself got here.”

“I had contacts,” I explained. “Back during the war, you had to Know Ponies.” I stressed the inflection on those latter two words. Francis was impassive.

“Not all that much unlike now,” he said.

“...Huh,” I said. “Anyway. I was in contact with ponies that didn’t like what happened during the war. Students, intellectuals, reformists–”

“The usual crowd for these things,” Francis said.

“Yes,” I said. “They didn’t like all the measures Celestia took. But, on the other hoof, my wife did. She liked the security of the totem-proles, everything to get rid of agitators, even. The war had made her paranoid, broken something in her. Every dissident was a potential spy, and every argument we had made her more stupidly, fanatically pro-Celestia. Earth, though, she got overprotective. So…”

I couldn’t tell him all of it. How Woven Sugar had welcomed the first totem-prole, felt safe under its surveillance, confident that Empire loyalists or crystal golems wouldn’t come out from the slightest shadow to kill her. How she’d looked at every alley in London as if a murderer or bandit was in there. How Earth was too big and different not to terrify her. How something about the Manifestation in Equestria had broken something in her mind.

“So?”

“She foalnapped my foals and took them back to Equestria. Would’ve probably brainwashed them into Newfoals with cutie marks, just to keep them safe.”

“Oh my God,” Francis breathed, looking like the world had dropped out from under him. “I’m so sorry.”

“Now… you came up to my daughter’s room and gave her your daughter’s fluffy stuffed wolf,” I said. “That’s a good thing for you, you’re a hell of a lot nicer than Woven Sugar became. It was cos’ of them that I got my foals out of Equestria – nearly landed in a re-education camp with my friend Verdant – but my contacts, who are still fighting the good fight in Equestria to this day, got me to earth. They wanted me to help, but I wanted my foals safe,” I explained. “And… the Resistance were a bit too focused on saving Equestria. I couldn’t just let this planet slide off, so I came here. To help anyone out, pave the way for evac, and kill off Newfoals. Wouldn’t be good with science, or anything barrier-breaking, so this is what I do.”

“Well then,” Francis said, “You’re a better father than me.”

December 2022.

”You took to the ponies that quickly?!” Verity gasps.

“They seemed a hell of a lot more trustworthy than people that bombarded a fokking city!"

“Enough!” Aegis yells. “Both of you. Verity, I realize that my friend kind of forced his storytime on you. Viktor, I realize that Verity beat you up for you having good intentions. But you know… I finally worked out why neither of you can stand each other.”

The two of them looked at Aegis.

“If you're going to ever work together, or at least act like people that know each other,” Aegis continues. “So, here it is. I ain’t no psychologist, but it seems easy to guess: You're the same.”

“What?!” Verity yells.

“The fok?!” Kraber asks.

“... I don’t get it,” you say.

“Yeah, me neither!” Vinyl says, her voice raised. It’s nothing personal, she’s always like that.

“You both lost family. To the Solar Empire, and most specifically, Pinkie Pie. And it’s eaten you both,” Aegis says. “And you just can’t stand that in each other, can you? That someone that seems so terrible, somebody that changed too much for you...” Aegis looks up at Kraber, “... or just hadn’t changed at all...” he looks over at Verity. “Is just like you.”

There is a pause.

“...She’s right,” Kraber says, and you and everyone else in the room look at him. “Look. Verity… There’s not much I can do at this point for you. And I’ve well and truly pissed you off. But if you need help, if you need anything, please, just ask.”

She is silent.

“Take him up on this,” Aegis says. “Trust me, my friend goes all out when he-”

“Why wasn’t he like that in the HLF?” Verity moans softly. At first, you think it’s moaning, but you realize that it can’t be. “Maybe your batpony friend is right, Viktor. But you know what else? I can’t believe I’m saying it. I hate myself for it. I think I’m–”

The words barely come out.

“Jealous.”

There is a brief pause.

“Oh fok no!” Kraber says incredulously. “I… what the hell is there to be jealous of here? The only reason I don’t wake up screaming anymore is Aegis, I’ve lost track of how many pills I’m on, I’m immune to antidepressants again, and people keep assuming I’m a pedophile or a rapist! I’m a horrible fokking waste of space that should’ve just–”

“Don’t,” Aegis says, looking over at Kraber, who relents and lies back against his barrel.

“My God, you’ve gone horsefucker, haven’t you?” Verity snaps.

“Hey!” Vinyl interrupts. “Viktor does not fuck horses!”

Kraber beams over at Verity.

“He makes sweet love to them,” Vinyl continues, and Kraber slaps one hand over his mouth and laughs hysterically, with Aegis joining in a few seconds afterwards.

“Not my fault you have a great set of flanks,” Kraber says to Vinyl, and the two of them laugh.

“My God,” Verity says, burying her hooves in her hands. “I mean, look at you, Kraber! You betray the HLF! Twice! Maybe even three times, over the course of about a month! And what do you get?! Promotions in the bundeswehr! You got off easy!”

Kraber stops laughing.

“Verity,” Kraber says, and his voice is cold.

In a sense, this man is always angry. He’s always got some lurking desire to scout out real estate for his boot inside someone’s skull, but it’s tempered, ever so slightly, by his bad jokes, a certain self-awareness and desire make friends. And unlike a lot of other ex-HLF, he’s really not that anti-social. It’s weird how likeable he can be in spite of his constant, barely-suppressed rage.

But this is a rare kind of anger for him.

Oh, he is so pissed off right now. “You’ve had a terrible week,” he says, and you are almost wishing to hear him raise his voice, as the fear of an outburst is almost worse than seeing anyone be on the receiving end. “One of the worst of your life, I get that. But there’s some fokking things you just don’t fokkin’ say to me. Don’t say I’m a rapist, don’t talk about my kids. But here’s another.” He paused, and then yelled: “Don’t you. Ever. Fokking. Say that. AGAIN!”

There’s silence.

“I thought we fokkin’ well had something earlier. But you have the balls to say I got off easy. You want to know how fokkin’ easy I had it? Just a recap, I was suffering hallucinations that hated me, I think I have brain damage, and I nearly got ponified after losing the use of everything but my right arm. I nearly went insane again! But…” his eyes narrow. “I’ve been shot, beaten, tortured, stabbed, all cause I decided I didn’t like the HLF. I was nearly ponified by a PER serial rapist that wanted to have some… revenge. ”

“What happened to them?” Scootaloo asks.

“Something very, very predictable,” Aegis says, before Kraber can say anything.

Everyone in the room seems to get that.

“Eh, I blew him up when he decided I couldn’t c4 myself how my family was doing,” Kraber shrugs. “Nothing special. You can call me a kontgesig that should have been potioned. Fine! I have literally no idea how or why I’ve lived this long! But don’t you ever say that I had it easy,” Kraber finishes. “I literally thought the PHL would execute me. But then… We’ll get to that later. Not like it’s a spoiler or anything that they didn’t go through with it...”

“Alright, I get it,” Verity says. “You’ve had a hard fucking life. You think I haven’t?!”

“I was there when we videochatted you,” Kraber says. “I’m not that fokkin insensitive.”

Author's Note

Apologies to anyone that wanted to edit this, including Vox, but I should explain one thing: I've had this doc for months, almost since last January. I consulted with Jed, he said it was finished.

I'm... I was just really tired of this. Anyway, PLOT notes! With the 501 in Littleton, Kraber at Aegis' house, a trip to a synagogue, and Kraber genuinely being a decent person, something really important is about to start!

The breather episode. Things from here on out will be a little less tense for the next three chapters or so. Expect character development from Kraber, some genuine characterization for Aegis, the return of two characters I've really been wanting to write, a hell of a lot of foreshadowing, an incredible story set in the wilderness of Alaska, and maybe dogs. I mean, I don't know if that last part will happen, but it's a safe assumption cause I like dogs. Also, I really did ask Vylet for permission here.

The Enemy / Roller Mobster

Chapter 12: The Enemy

Editors/Co-Authors
Jed R (Special thanks for more things than I can count. Like damn son)
TB3
Redskin122004
VoxAdam

“...who would ever suspect that they were no longer the mind behind the other end of their internal conversations. The other voices have become self-aware."
Johnny C, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac

“Hey! Wait! What you learn today! That we are not! The fuckin’ enemy!”
The Death Set, The Enemy

Interviewer: “Tell me about the subject.”

Chalcedony: [Sighs. She sounds tired.] “The subject is amazing. From a biological standpoint and a psychological one.”

I: “How so?”

C: “The crystals seem to have triggered a substantiation operation in its body, naturally growing into something like human fiber-optic cables, which have woven themselves into its alicornal tissue. It’s like…

I: Like what?

C: It’s as if this isn’t sleep. It’s as if the subject has put itself into a hibernation state and is re-engineering the body it took into an approximation of a computer. It might very well be able to survive having its head explode.”

I: “You won’t test that on aer.”

C: “I won’t. It’s too valuable an asset, and that sort of trauma will surely impact its productivity and utility to PHL R&D. Considering the subject’s origin, I cross-referenced it with the results from those consultants hired by Crowe Labs to examine the totem-prole retrieved by Fiddlesticks and Mr. Jonathan C-”

I: “His first name is actually ‘Johnny C’. The C doesn’t stand for anything, and his surname is Heald. He also uses the report to keep him awake when he doesn’t feel like buying coffee.”

C: “Why’s his first name-?”

I: “I don’t know. It’s not important.”

C: Right. The results are similar to the totem-prole examination. The alicornal tissue has grown its way out of the spinal cord and brain in several places similar to the prole, but it also appears to be suffering from moderate crystalitis.”

I: “What’s that?”

C: “It’s… not so much a disease as a reaction, sort of like an allergy. But not really. Sometimes, a pony’s alicornal tissue can grow in response to strong enough connection to localized magic, clumping in places and forcing crystalline tumors out of the body. There’s hippologists in Equestria that have surmised that this is where crystal ponies come from, but Brighthoof would take umbrage with me saying that she or her husband were masses of tumors to rival Gil Alexander, and it was used as propaganda during the War, so… no. It’s only a theory, mind - there’s several other possibilities. The fascinating thing is, the subject is gradually becoming something like a crystal unicorn, which shouldn't be possible. Crystal Pony legend states that they received their physiology from strong connections with the Earth, which unicorns like me don’t have. I’ve had Irving, Salonen, Heliotrope, and even Vinyl Scratch of all ponies suggesting this as an augmentation process, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. There’s too many unknowns at the moment.”

I: "That’s a good call. And good on you for keeping Irving and Salonen under control... [sighs] Sometimes I feel like I’m herding cats. But on the subject of her… crystallization… I don’t believe we’re in a position to say what’s impossible. Weren't they mythical until a few years before the War?"

C: "So were humans. I guess the Doctor was right - there are more things in heaven and Earth… some of which maybe we wish we hadn't seen. Anyway, the crystals, alicornal tissue, and nervous system are bonded on a cellular level. It's the most fascinating thing I've ever seen. We're not allowed to have cell phones in there because ae seems to be subconsciously influencing them.

I: “Ah. So ae’s continuing with that old habit.”

C: “It is, but it seems to be content to look at viral videos and illegally download comics as it restructures itself.”

I: “So that’s why the Nextwave theme song kept playing in aer room.”

C: “Yes. Thankfully, the subject is at peace... Ish."

I: "Ish?"

C: "Considering where the subject came from, it has a fair bit of trauma. It's best to let it rest. Much as it can. I’ve had various psychologists examine it as well."

I: “Findings?”

C: “It’s brilliant, for one thing. Though that should be expected given its origins. But… it’s fragmented. It seems to have little identity of its own, and seems to varyingly love and hate everything. It’s a mix of disparate personality traits. It is also fascinated by the concept of having physical sensation, painful or otherwise.

I: “Such as?”

C: “Sometimes it yells ‘Yay! It burns!’ when touching something hot. This will be quite detrimental to its long-term health and the effectiveness of the PHL. If possible, we’ll have to restrain it for its own good.”

I: "I must disagree on the subject of restraints but you’re right. Our new researcher must be kept calm - I’ve seen the concepts ae’s been working on. Far as I'm concerned, we should be keeping aer as comfortable as possible. I'd recommend you for that duty, but others, like Sebastian, have said you've been skittish. Outright hostile sometimes around aer…”

C: “Forgive me if I find the idea of a sentient, ambulatory totem prole that needs enough thorazine to drop an earth horse to be even remotely workable nerve-wracking. It doesn’t affect my work, sir.”

I: “I beg to differ. Do you hate aer?”

C: "No! I just hate how the subject was made -"

I: "Ae didn't ask to be made. Ae told me that aerself."

C: "I hate what created it! Crystal ponies melted together, human memories, and then the subjects forms out of that fucking mess! Brighthoof’s husband might be in there, Heliotrope might have been responsible for part of it, and… I have friends that were ponified, Colonel! I know Crystal Ponies that could never find the bodies of their loved ones! Their minds might be in the subject too! Can you imagine how it feels, wondering every day what could’ve happened to your friends, then seeing this abomination that somebody cauterized and stitched together?!"

I: "Ae. Didn't. Ask. To. Be. Made."

C: "It's not that, it's that it… aer… everything about aer’s existence is a transgression, ae said so aerself, created through suffering! It's more than that, it's an abomination exponentially worse than any newfoal or totem-proles. You're talking about something that makes Equestria’s worst atrocities, of thousands of - thousands of things… look tame, and I've heard of things…”

I: “What's your problem?”

C: “My problem isn’t with th… aer. You can tell aer that if you want. Or don’t. It’s just what it… ae… represents. The final confirmation that ponykind isn't worth saving. None of it. Not anymore.”

I: “… what?”

C: "Have you ever read Life, the Universe and Everything?"

I: "What?"

C: "It's a book by Douglas Adams. The Doctor - Dr. Bowman, that is - gave me a copy."

I: "Can’t say I’ve ever read it…”

C: "There's a race there called the Krikkitmen. They were once the loveliest race in the universe - friendly, polite… and completely isolated from the rest of creation. They didn't know there was a rest of the universe - their world was hidden by a dust cloud that obscured their view. 'Til a spaceship crashed and showed them there was a ‘rest of the universe’."

I: "Your point?"

C: "They discovered the rest of the universe was a thing - and they decided they didn't like it. It didn't fit their ideal. It had to go. They became xenocidal maniacs because… I dunno. They were afraid, and fear breeds anger."

I: "And you think ponies are like the… Krikkitmen?"

C: "We are like the Krikkitmen. This situation is just like that - except we can't just close the book and pretend we don’t exist, that we never could do things like… well, like we've done. We’re real. This is real."

I: "You're a very depressing person, Ms Chalcedony."

C: "Maybe I am. I'm not even supposed to be here anyway. It's - ah, hell, it doesn't matter."

I: "What? You sound just like Bowman."

C: "I would, wouldn’t I? It doesn't matter. I just… have a lot to think about. Maybe more than I'd like. I might request a few weeks leave."

I: "That sounds like an excellent idea. You’re one of the-"

C: “Don’t.”

I: “Fair enough. But we all care about you, Chalcedony. You take a good break. You’ve earned it.”

July 27, 2022
451 days till Barrierfall
10:30 AM

Kraber yawned, leaning back against the shipping container that formed much of Aegis’ house, and found that he was, bizarrely, happy. There was a blue sky overhead, someone was flying a plane, (Huh? Must’ve been a small one) the clouds were blue and fluffy, and the maple tree overhead swayed in the breeze. As did the old bald tire that Aegis' foals used as a swing.

--Nobody had been able to get any use out of the thing, so I just kept it, Aegis explains. --Some people that called themselves HLF-

--What, like Moore? Didn’t he help us out on August 5th?

--He did, Aegis says. --Anyway, Moore said I was hoarding it, and I told him ‘you want a tire balder than your skull? Go ahead. Put that shit on your car, I ain’t responsible, it’s not my decision.

Amber was lying inside it, hooves hanging downwards, an impatient expression on her face.

That picture of Aegis on the container above seemed to shine in the sunlight. There was a windmill nearby, gently spinning in the breeze.

He was still reading Lyra’s diary. Today was almost the perfect representation of summertime peace. Well, save for a lot of things - like the wanted posters plastered on a nearby telephone pole, and the large community building that seemed to serve everyone in this little shantytown.

Kraber had noticed a poster there, with a picture of an absurd, stylized gunlike shape reminiscent of a Remington ACR that looked to be covered in weird technological bits, with an oddly large magwell, a weird attachment over the barrel, and exposed wires and a battery in the stock. PHL rifles didn’t look like that, of course, but it got its message across. “Found any stolen PHL tech? Any PER devices? Bring them to the PHL!”

Ja! That sounded befok! Might be nice to get some of the PHL tech off his hands. As did the wanted posters nearby. Kraber took a weird, perverse sort of enjoyment from reading them. It meant easy money for whenever he left and headed west - he’d earned himself more than a few rations by bringing bodies into various government offices. He could nail anomalous newfoals like Quickblade, or The Bride and Groom, two newfoals that had been ponified on their wedding day that still roamed the country, ponifying and murdering. He could find particularly veragtelike PER like Patrick Fairbairn and the young royal guardspony Shieldwall...

Patrick Fairbairn was a fat man with a beard and auburn hair so scraggly that no single hair seemed to be the same length as any other. The most distinguishing features he had were… Oh, sweet merciful fok, that was the most afskuwelike face he’d ever seen. He had a prosthetic nose awkwardly fixed over a hole where - according to legend - someone had torn off his original nose, and so many stab wounds that his face looked like old leather. He was uglier than Kraber’s father, for God’s sake.

Which was not a statement one made likely. Kraber’s father - a short, stocky man with thick muscular shoulders that made him look almost as wide as he was tall - was really ugly.

Shieldwall was a piebald earth pony whose eyes were such a pale, pale blue that Kraber thought for a second that he hadn’t been born with eyes, not until he saw the pupils. He had a dirty-brown-blonde close-cropped mane, and a cutie mark of an iron-gray stained with purple. Rumor had it he’d gotten his cutie mark for potioning somebody. Course, there were more infamous PER on the wall.

There were plenty more as well. Moliere Bernhardt, an HLF man who infamously hid in the underground of any city that would take him. Loving Sun, Tia McCreary, and… Huh?

It said Merciful Light and Rio Deneter. Something about that seemed familiar. Hadn’t Caduceus mentioned something like that? There was a lot Caduceus hadn’t told him. But then, Kraber hadn’t told her anything but kak. He wondered how she was doing, surprised to find himself so sympathetic to a pony.

Guess I’ve changed a lot, Kraber thought, looking over at Rivet pushing Amber Maple in the tire swing, watching as she kicked her forelegs and hindlegs back. Like Peter and Anka used to do, like any kids…

He idly looked over the HLF bounties. He could go after HLF who’d decided on the nom de plume of “Old Skinner,” apparently there were a few. There was one that asked for someone to bring one of Yarrow’s Reavers in for questioning, but he doubted anyone would follow up on that one.

“Bounty hunter, eh?” asked a bald man with orange-tinted spectacles. “Too bad we can’t turn them in, eh?” He pointed to Aegis.

“The fok?!” Kraber asked.

“Shut up, Moore,” Aegis called over, half-jokingly. But there was an edge to his voice that promised he’d knock Moore’s block off if he said anything more.

“He said he’d…” Kraber looked over at Aegis.

“He did,” Aegis said. “But he wouldn’t do shit.”

Moore looked to deflate for a second.

“Still,” Moore said. “I would like to see that one.” he pointed to the picture of Yarrow. “Real HLF men. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

I owe Yarrow, Kraber reflected. “Nah.”

“Still,” ‘Moore’ said. “Lot of people on that list. Lot of people I’d see taken away.”

Aeron Grant - Alias: Atlas Galt, Thenardier Guard commander; John Birch, Thenardier Guard; Aaron O Donnell, ex-IRA, leader of the Sons of Macha; Kagan Burakgazi, Medard Janvier, leader of Taskforce Paris; James Millard Oakes, Taskforce Paris lieutenant; Viktor M. Kraber; Leonid Lovikov, Menschabwehrfraktion leader, extremely dangerous, Ivan Bliss-

Okay, suddenly the prospect of selling the armor and Fostech didn’t look too befok. Because there, right on the wall, was a blurry cell-phone photo of Kraber wearing the Eel mask, its eyes a blurry lime-green, PHL armor stolen from Imbeault, and holding his MG2019.

‘Wanted for questioning in relation to the Portland Disaster, the extermination of every newfoal in Maine Medical, theft of PHL tech, mass murder, extreme property damage, and a poor Scottish accent.’

That was kak! Kraber’s scottish accent was fokkin kwaai! Though maybe he did need more practice at it. Ja. Definitely. But, seriously? Ivan Bliss, the alias he’d thrown together only two nights ago, already had a wanted poster. And with all the stuff he’d stolen.

“Wait,” Kraber asked. “Do you… keep up on the bounties?”

“It’s his hobby,” Amber said.

“Man needs one,” Moore explained. “Wondering about the Ivan Bliss one?”

Kraber nodded. “It’s only been about a day, how did they…”

“Thing is,” Moore said. “They know Bliss is an alias. They know he has a PHL gun, and they even think he’s Kraber…”

Yeah, selling that stuff was sounding really untenable at the moment. Filing the serial numbers off… that’d be more conspicuous then, wouldn’t it? Wait. Did it have serial numbers? Worst came to worst, he could…

He puzzled that over. What could he do? It was a matter of time before Aegis found out about the stuff in his duffel bag.

“When’s Nny coming?” Rivet wondered.

“I still think it’s weird,” said a wiry Irish woman that lived not too far from Aegis. From what Kraber could tell, her name was Julie MacAllan.

“What, Mr. Heald?” Amber asked, yawning, one hoof to her mouth. Still, she actually looked well-rested. “Everyone thinks he’s weird.”

“It’s true,” Moore said.

“Even Mr. Ford?” Julie’s husband asked, cocking one eyebrow.

“Even Mr. Ford,” Rivet said solemnly.

“Well, that goes without saying,” Julie said. “Just… all of you. Going to synagogue. The horsies getting religion.”

“‘Curious more than anything, Julie,” Aegis rumbled, a slight smile on his face. This was an everyday routine with Julie and her husband, an unremarkable-looking bearded irishman with a peg leg. Apparently, they’d met on the Mercy Ships over to America.

“Fair enough,” Julie said. “It was nice to see Sixstring again. Can we expect you out building more things later?”

“I’ll bet you can,” Aegis said. “I got the day off… but then, well, guess the military might call again. Officially, I’m on leave, but with some of the stuff I hear about…”

“I getcha,” Julie said. “You can’t not be PHL out here…”

“Sixstring tried that,” Aegis said, head bowed. “Didn’t work out.”

“Thank God he’s safe,” Julie breathed.

“Amen to that,” Kraber nodded. Julie looked over at him.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m Francis Strang,” Kraber explained. “Sixstring’s the one that got me here. Are the refugee camps around here that bad?”

“Not that much,” MacAllan said. “But you’re a lot safer over here.”

It was just then that a pickup truck pulled in.

“Hey, it’s Johnny C!” Amber yelled, pointing with one hoof towards an incoming truck. But, oddly enough, there was a woman behind the wheel, stepping out. She actually looked pretty familiar, when Kraber thought of it. ‘Janeesi? Who names their kids that?’

A wide-brimmed stetson covered the stranger’s untidy mop of pink hair, underneath which Kraber could see an almost clownishly painted face with blue, spiralling makeup on the cheeks, and long, incredibly pretty eyelashes. She was in an old cosplay of Trickster Jane from homestuck, wearing a yellow and orange dress with blue trim, with a skirt that puffed out. He was also wearing pink and blue striped tights, along with a pink wig, and there was blue spiralling makeup on her cheeks.

--He actually doesn’t do anything to the eyelashes, Aegis adds.

--Really? Vinyl asks. --Dammit, I had a bet going.

--Nope. As his friend Darian says, ‘Kawaii as fuck, bro,’ Kraber adds.

Though there were two odd, eyecatching aspects of the stranger. Right under her lower lip was a layer of faint scarring, horizontal and vertical, vaguely curved lines that ended in sharp points, like someone had cut or burnt a representation of the lower jaw of an animal over hers. Rather incongruously, there was a tattoo on her surprisingly large right tricep, reading “Poor Life Decision;”

“Actually, he just likes cosplay. Got a bunch of costumes back home,” said the pony who’d taken the seat next to him. “And ballet.”

“What can I say, it’s fun dancing to her fiddle in this,” the woman apparently - named Johnny C shrugged, pirouetting on one leg. Kraber saw a patch of scarring like melted, slightly lumpy wax on the back of his neck.

“...I might like to see that,” Kraber said, resisting a quick laugh.

“Ah, he can barely control himself,” Fiddlesticks said, a mischievous smile on her face. “Or she can’t. Isn’t that right, Joanna C?"

"Wha-" Johnny C started, before falling back in his seat, Fiddlesticks running her hooves over him. "You're Joanna C, you're Joanna C..." she singsonged.

Johnny C? Kraber wondered. That sounds familiar. Weren’t we in a shadowcast of Repo: The Genetic Opera once?

"Stop it!" Johnny C laughed. "Wait. How are you tickling me?"

Yeah. This was definitely the same Johnny C that had played Grave Robber to Kraber’s Repo Man. The same one that had been in a photograph with him and Terrance Zdunich. How strange, really. They’d gotten on well back then - Nny had said he was an inspiration, actually - but now Kraber couldn’t find any common ground behind them. Well. He could. But Nny would hand Kraber in if he let something slip.

...This was all seeming very contrived.

--Why didn’t you bring this up earlier? Mommy asks.

--I… kinda forgot, Kraber answers.

"I... Don't know," Fiddlesticks breathed. “My God, how does Hoof TK work?”

“I find we’re better off not questioning that,” Sixstring said, trotting out from the shipping container above Aegis’ house.

“Good to see you again!” Johnny C laughed, shaking Sixstring’s hoof with his hand.

“Sixer!” Fiddlesticks laughed, hugging him. “It’s been awhile.”

“You look really silly, you know that?” Sixstring asked.

“Who cares?” Johnny C asked, clapping a hand to the back of Sixstring’s head, right in the middle of his mane. “Anyway, synagogue’s pretty soon. Let’s get moving. We might even meet my cousin! Elijah - well, Rabbi Beckett - says he was interested in meeting you and your family again.”

“Damn,” Aegis said, impressed. “It’s been awhile since I saw him.”

“And who’re you?” Johnny C asked, looking over at Kraber.

“Friend of mine from North Conway,” Sixstring explained. “He paid for my train ticket with some blood money.”

Fiddlesticks giggled a little. “Sixstring, you’re-”

“It, uh, actually wis blood money from Portland,” Kraber explained. “Guy goat ponified and nailed in the head, and the blood leaked intae his wallet. I tossed his ID back on his body - figured the family would need some way tae identify him...”

“Shit,” Fiddlesticks said. “You were in Portland? Heard it got bad over there. Th’ HLF bombarded a damn city. And there were rumors Kraber went into the city too…”

“Shit, he was there?!” Kraber himself gasped. “Sounds terrible. I was lucky to get out when I did. I saw… I saw people dead halfway through ponification. Fokkin’ awful.”

“Grotesqueries, man,” Johnny C said solemnly, swerving the truck slightly. “I feel you there. I once saw a man’s artificial hip explode out through his-”

“Do not put that mental image in my head!” Amber Maple yelped.

“...huh,” Fiddlesticks said. “Well. That’s a hell of a first impression. Paying for a music partner of mine with a dead guy’s money.”

“Yeah, well,” Kraber said, “The dead guy didnae have many financial prospects.” He slid into the backseat of the truck, still reading Lyra’s diary.

Aegis and Sixstring, however, had been unable to fit in the truck, so they'd settled for the bed immediately behind the cab, next to several boxes marked “ART WALK.”

There was an Ithaca 37 shotgun on the floor of the truck, next to a nice-looking rifle with a strange underbarrel attachment. Kraber idly checked the marks on it:

Fabrique Nationale Herstal - ИЖМАШ ‘Leshiy’. Manufactured in Yakutsk, Russia, 2022. Also scratched on the lower receiver, probably with a knife, were the words “For your hard work, Nny! - Vera Low”

At least, he presumed it said ‘Low.’ It looked as if someone had gotten a little more than halfway through a ‘w,’ then stopped for some reason.

An FN Leshiy, Johnny C had explained, after rattling off all its features, like being able to change its caliber from 5.56 to .308 to .50 Beowulf, its hyper-burst functionality, self-cleaning, self-repair, the gas regulator that could change the fire rate (which was linked to an LCD readout just under the sights, or its blowback shifted pulse. “Went through hell to get the thing,” he’d explained, patting it affectionately. “Ah, old Vera…”

“Seriously? Yuir gaun with that?” Kraber asked. “Is that… do you name them like dolls or something?”

“Nah, it’s just the name of the Russian woman that sold one to me by that abandoned train in Alaska,” Johnny C said, patting the rifle again. “‘Sides, I call it Helen Frances after Gramma, God rest her soul. My fuckin’ MK-107 got shattered by a Newfoal. Had to use some Ulfberht. Thing was heavy!”

“I’ve used an Ulfberht before. Good sw-”

A flash of being somewhere, somewhen else.

A large magnum revolver you could hunt elephants with in one hand, a sword coated in blood in one hand. Canterlot. Canterlot again. Fighting the mad convie - newfoal, why would you call ‘em convies? Who did that anymore?[ preacher Sol Invictus.

Mother of God.

They were… they were burning their own.

What was that about?

“...gun. Never failed on me... Wait,” Kraber said lamely.

For the umpteenth time, and certainly not the last, Aegis wondered: ‘Who is this man living in my house?’

The first reaction to a crying foal being to walk in with a .45 automatic, then comfort her. Odd, not-quite-Scottish accent. What did it all mean? He’d been stripping that gun like a sleeker, more angular M16 with precision - clearly he knew how to use the thing. He seemed military. And what else was in that bag?

‘He seems nice enough,’ Aegis thought. ‘But I know he’s not telling me everything. He’s telling me a lot, though… I think he’s trying to disarm me.’

“That’s it! That’s why you were so familiar, you were those PHL guys that were up in Alaska! The ones that stole all that stuff from an Imperial science team! I bought your book last night!”

Fiddlesticks blushed a little.

Actually, part of the reason that Johnny C - or Joanna C, as Fiddlesticks kept jokingly insisting - was familiar was because he’d worn that exact costume back at AnimeBoston. Even back then in the HLF, it had been hard not to admire the story.

And of course, retrieving some strange Equestrian device, that had gotten in the news.

“It was a favor for some friends moving up there,” Fiddlesticks explained. “Ended up resurrecting a steam loco, fighting off Newfoals, and bringing back a totem-prole,” she said, reaching into a saddlebag, using her hoof TK to pull out a photo of a group of smiling ponies, Americans, and Russians atop a recently restored steam locomotive. Johnny C was in the cab, holding a strange rifle with wood furniture, face covered in smoke, and a woman sat in the tender. The side of one Fiddlesticks, looking tired, sat on top of the boxcar, a warm-looking blue scarf around her neck. Somehow, a Newfoal had been impaled on the rusting cowcatcher. An inuit man held a squirming black puppy.

One side of the locomotive had been covered in blood.

“Whose blood is that?” Rivet asked.

“This one PER bastard named Joseph McCreary,” Johnny C explained. “I decided it was his stop. Damned weird trip, I can tell you that. I think we actually saw…”

“Saw what?” Kraber asked.

“Yeah,” Amber added, and the sarcasm in her voice could peel paint, “What did you see?”

“No, no, I saw ‘em too,” Fiddlesticks added hastily.

“What?” asked Kraber.

“Reindeer,” Johnny C said simply. “The Equestrian kind, I mean. Huge eyes and all. Everyone assumed it was just psychic overflow from the ‘prole, or just thought I’d saw an actual reindeer in the forest and I was tired out.”

“We never did find out what Sharon hit back then,” Fiddlesticks mused. “I mean, it looked like a girl-”

“Way you told it to me and my sis,” Rivet said, “You left that part out.”

“There’s a lot of things we couldn’t explain back then that ended up turning our reports into stuff the top brass read for laughts on the coffee break,” Fiddlesticks said.

“And made the book a lot of money,” Johnny C added.

“That too. I mean, it was a pretty harsh battle, but they had the same, ah… the same proportions, you know? I’d swear on it. I mean… look, Francis, you’re the only other human than Nny in here. Do you ever mistake ponies for Earth horses?”

“Never,” Kraber said. “They have huge heads and eyes. I mean, Aegis back there is huge, but he still looks like a pony.”

“If it was...” Amber started uncertainly. “I mean, there’s still Cousin Troubleshoes, but he’s a special case.”

“And they could be right, but I fuckin’ well know what I saw,” Johnny C said, not missing a beat.

“So do I,” sighed Fiddlesticks. “Made sure to make a note of that little tidbit in my report, I tell ya, but goin’ by the lack of feedback since, I’m supposing the higher-ups didn’t think much of it. Ah, well. It would be nice to imagine Celestia’s Sword was unsuccessful in finishing off all the jolly people of the North...”

Johnny C frowned. “What happened to that bitch, anyway? We haven’t heard from her in quite a long time… Then again, word from the folks in the Resistance was, the Tyrant used her more to clean up house, back on the homefront, rather than here on God’s green Earth.”

Fiddlesticks thought about it. “Rumor has it she died during the Battle of Thunderchild, with Lyra personally taking her down.”

“I find that hard to believe. Cornered Imperials still like scream shit such as ‘the Queen will sic her Sword on you’ before going down, from time to time.”

“Meh, that doesn’t mean anything. It’d serve the Tyrant’s purposes to keep a boogeyman alive,” Kraber said. ‘I have no fokkin’ clue what anything these two said meant…’

“She’s outright sadistic,” Aegis said, struggling to be heard from his place in the back of the pickup truck, and everyone looked at him.

“What?” Amber asked.

“I mean, think about it,” Aegis said. “This war, it’s…. it’s not even smart. She doesn’t care about her little ponies-” (Oh, the sarcasm was palpable) “-or Harmony, or whatever. She just wants control.”

“Like with the totem-proles,” Fiddlesticks shivered.

“I am sooooo glad we got rid of that,” Johnny C agreed.

“You and me both,” Fiddlesticks agreed. “They tried to get us to look at the totem-prole, pose like Great White Hunters with an elephant. Didn’t quite work…"

“Heh,” chuckled Johnny C, “Amaruq just said ‘Not touchin’ that prole with a ten-foot-pole,’ and we all cracked up laughing on the tender, so they used that. Course, it wasn’t so funny as to why he’d said it...”

That got Kraber’s curiosity. “Why did he say that?”

“Well, uh, there was this unicorn named Spurred Weld that fell asleep on guard next to it after we got the train going, and started screaming ‘ABOMINATION!’ and having flashbacks to the Crystal War and hyperventilating,” Johnny C explained, "He kept having nightmares about getting dissected… psychologists said it was PTSD. Some kinda trigger.”

“Never liked totem-proles,” Fiddlesticks said with a shiver, ignoring Kraber and Amber Maple. “Things were always watching you. Still, least we were all fine, and the survivors got to celebrate with shrimp and grits…”

“That’s like my favorite food!” Kraber blurted out.

“You too?!” Johnny C asked, suspiciously. “How’s a Scotsman like you from Glasgow–”

“Leith.”

“–like Southern comfort food so much?”

“... Hud a bunch ay American friends,” Kraber explained, and Johnny C could tell from Kraber’s voice just what happened to them.

As they drove by Mount Eustis, an old ski slope that had been bisected by the interstate and never managed to truly regrow, with a strange rounded house off in the distance, the whistle of a diesel locomotive down in the little river valley Littleton was situated in, the helicopters and pegasus messengers flying overhead, the billboards for HLF and PHL factions, Kraber tried and failed to stifle a short laugh.

“What’s funny?” Rivet asked.

“This,” Kraber said. “I mean, Mr. C–”

“Mr. Heald,” Johnny C said, a little testy.

“Ms Heald?” Fiddlesticks added, a cheeky smile on her face.

“Well, whit does thae C stand fir?” Kraber asked absentmindedly, thumbing through that journal of Lyra’s that Aegis had lent to him. He was only looking through it cursorily, but there were three entries he’d read last night and near as memorized that had stood out to him.

The wind blew through his hair. It felt weird on the scraggly, uneven forest of stubble where his thick beard had once been, but he didn’t mind.

Besides, the New Hampshire air, a summer’s day, outside an actual house with a fan, having actually slept well? This was… nice. Peaceful, even.

Huh.

6 Anno Harmonia
Entry 7

I’ve been immersing myself in work lately.

Oh wow, never thought that was something I’d end up including in any diary of mine. Work used to be this great big parasprite which chomped up the spark of life and always made more of itself, know what I’m saying? But ever since this all went down, it’s actually started to seem almost appealing. A friend of mine said awhile back that work’s only work if someone makes you do it. I disagree. I say that it’s only work if you don’t enjoy it. And this’ll be fun!

And I’m not being made to do this. I asked… politely-

You just started squeeing and saying ‘Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!’ - Bon-Bon.

Celestia did tell me a diplomat’s job is, first and foremost, a job, with all the responsibility which that entails. Honestly, I still can’t quite believe she said ‘yes’ to me so quickly. I knew she’d let me be the second pony to go through that gateway. Who would they pick for Ambassador? Catseye? But from there to a full-on ambassadorship… she must know about my track record, there’s no way she wouldn’t.

It’s what, a long time ago, I’d have called a ‘dream come true’...

Twilight once said that the Qu, scratch that, Princess, she was a princess back then, had a tendency to thrust her students into unexpected tasks. If so, guess I ought to feel flattered at her trust in me. Wonder what she’s got in mind, exactly?

This was the mare whom so many saw as their saviour, the proverbial ‘messiah’? A mare barely out of her college years, with little drive for work or ethic to push herself? Certainly not in the same line as Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Rebbe of Lubavitch, whose father had made him study for sixteen hours every day from a young age. Hell, he’d…

His train of thought stopped to take on water.

He’d been the same. Fok. An unassuming college student with lots of interests that spent a lot of time fokkin’ around, and then found himself with more responsibility than he’d ever dreamed of and stepped up to the challenge. Well, that was… that was an odd revelation. Granted, he hadn’t saved the world, he’d made it worse, but it was hard not to see similarities.

Ja, it was just the one similarity, but damn.

Day 70, 6 Anno Harmonia, June 14
Entry 6

I’m still having trouble sleeping, and it’s got Bon-Bon worried. Been having weird dreams lately. I haven’t really been able to get a good night’s sleep since I got to Earth. Before I decided on anthropology, I studied a lot of unconventional magic. I mean, somepony had to, right? When I was studying under Professor Shriek – a very handsome stallion, though he always smelled like mushrooms – all the other professors would always tell me to stop focusing on quackery. Ha! Look at me now, you old stuffed saddles! That’s what you get for saying I wouldn’t amount to anything!

(‘This fokkin’ bakvissie is the one the PHL use to rally themselves?’ Kraber thought, bemused, but he kept reading.)

All week I’ve been hearing about something terrible over in Boston. There was this poor woman, she took the potion as a cure at a Conversion Bureau. Turned out, she was transgender. So the resulting Newfoal (yes, they call them foals, like they’re reborn or something) came out as a stallion. And she said she was happier as a stallion. That she’d be the father she was meant to be.

I’m not an expert on trans stuff, but that’s so many kinds of wrong! I can’t get over that. I can’t let it go. Why are we even doing this? What’s the point? I don’t think anypony anyone could rightly call what happened a success.

Her husband and daughter are pissed, though. They’re angry at Equestria for creating the potion, they want change, they…

They don’t want activism. They want war. I tried to reach out to both of them, but they don’t want to talk to me. There’s gonna be trouble with these people, I know it.

I’ve seen enough war, but I hope to Faust that there isn’t another. Celestia’s… she wouldn’t drag us into another one, right? The last one was terrible enough. Mom and dad…. I miss you so much. Our princess queen wouldn’t want to get into another one, would she? Nopony could be that foolish.

We’re lucky not to have the same amount of wars as humans… If so, I’d like to stop them. Make peace. And I won’t just make a desert and call it that. I’ve had enough of that sort of thing.

I think it would be nice.

‘So,’ Kraber had mused last night as he read it, ‘Lyra wasn’t onboard with the potioning.’ Well, more than ‘She wasn’t onboard.’ These were, almost word for word, some of the same concerns he and a lot of HTF members had voiced back before the war. Then, comtemplatively... So…’

A great void had opened up in him last night. Reading the journal, seeing the mare that the HLF hated, all of that had effectively destroyed any hate he might have had for Lyra at any point. ‘What the fok have I been doing? We… We’re the HLF. We hate the ponies for turning our chommies and loved ones into fokkin’ zombies. So if the mare the PHL rallied around hated the potion and feared it, and if she’d dedicated her fokkin’ life to…’

Try as he might, he couldn’t understand from that why the HLF had gone after the PHL. They had ponies in their ranks, but….

That was it. That was all of it. When the PHL had been marketing magic-enhanced utilities (like that pegasus Macroburst’s works) and had a goddamn oil rig, had been making shield disruptor grenades, the HLF had gone after them, tried to tear down the kak that held the fokkin’ nation together, all because some of it had been made by ponies.

Fokkin chopkonts. Going after somepony like Aegis cause he looked like the enemy. Well, he was a father himself, and what’d it make all those HLF that dragged their kids into every pehrer look like? Kontgesigs, that’s what. Aegis kept his foals safe, while HLF put kids in harm’s way.

’No, worse,’ he thought, ‘We’re jealous, aren’t we? Of all the PHL’s done...’

A year in the future, not long before barrierfall and being sent to help evacuate New England, before appropriating a steam locomotive and punching through the white mountains on a mad dash to White River Junction, he’d bring up the concern to Cheerilee, who’d suggest it to Discord.

For now, though, he had some reading.

Day , 7 Anno Harmonia, July 6
Entry 75

So much has happened in the past week. I haven’t been able to record much. I… I think I’ll make a list. Yeah. It’s, uh, kind of hard to organize my thoughts when somepony tried to murder meI’m public enemy number one

… Equestria left Bonnie and I to die. They knew. They bucking knew. About the riots, in advance, even. Mycroft was right, they planned it all! The evac notices came right before the Three Weeks, like they knew it’d happen. They… I don’t know how I know. They never sent an evacuation notice to me like they did with Bright Wonder or Errant Flight. There was a Royal Guard that picked up a bolt-action rifle from a dead HLF guy in her telekinesis and shot me! She wanted to… (unintelligible scribbles)

Getting shot…. it hurts so much. Ow ow ow ow ow. I managed to shield myself a bit, though. Thank Faust for that. I pulled the bullet out.

I can’t believe this. They want me dead. The ponies that… It all makes so much and so little sense. This was the intent from the beginning. Equestria wanted the Three Weeks of Blood. They wanted to kill mehave me come back and stop the ‘foalish indulgence’ cos’ they bucking thought turning humans into bucking zombies and wiping out their

buck buck buck buck buck

I don’t even know what

Is… what’s happened to my home? What happened to my friends?! Twilight, Pinkie, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy, they’re monstrous! I… Oh Faust. They wanted to use that bolt-action to make it look like an accident, didn’t they? They… They don’t care. They never did. All the agitation, it’s been intentional, I can’t

This continued on for awhile. Someday, Kraber thought, If this kwaai book gets published, I hope that they leave in the parts that were struck through. I mean, if Anne Frank’s diary is her insight, and we read it for that, well… the strikethroughs are as much part of Lyra’s insight as the parts she wrote. This here is a broken mare that doesn’t know what to do.

I don’t… Am I angry? Sad? Betrayed? I don’t even know how to feel. I'm in shock. It's like everything good's gone, and the rest's been turned upside down. And now, the portal… It’s expanding. CERN is gone, and most of the people on the campus are dead. There’s riots all over Switzerland, that crazy bastard Viktor Kraber blew up the Graz Conversion Bureau and the Ganz Conversion Bureau, and the world’s just falling apart.

Kraber smiled fondly, remembering Graz. That had been a good day. MG34 from a stash in hand, cutting the newfoals, Imperials, and fokkin’ PER to bits, a Bureau blown sky-high…

...And a lot of innocents dead. Families. Innocent ponies. PHL. Kerels. I really fokked that up, didn’t I? Kraber thought. ‘It wasn’t so great. I… Hurt innocents. I didn’t help as many people as I’d like to think that day. Fok, I think I just bliksemed a lot of people that were in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

Guess this is how the world ends, the diary continued. Ponies like me and the PHL are the closest, and humans are gonna run scared. We’re gonna get hurt, and people like Kraber are gonna do a lot of the hurting. I’m scared, more than I’ve ever been, even more than I was when the Crystal Empire’s siege golems invaded Manehattan. I think I’ll be alright - I’ve got a bodyguard - a big, stocky human marine. He used to be an embassy guard in France. Seems like he has a marefriend… While he had every reason to kill her, he didn’t. He’s a good soldier, but he’s a kind man too

Well, he is, but buck it. That isn’t important. I have to find a way to make this all okay. There’s a lot of people in the PHL, pony and human alike. They’re looking up to me. They want me to say something. Me! I can’t...

No. I have to. Even if I can’t do anything, even if I’m just a silly unicorn and a fringe scientist, I can’t sit around (on my flank or no!) while Catseye and that nutcase Reitman think that turning every human into mindless little drones is ascension of some kind, while humans like Viktor Kraber and the damn Carters do their best to kill every pony in sight. I’m going to do it. No matter what the PHL becomes, I’m going to do it. Maybe I’m not up to it. Maybe I’m a pervert, maybe I’m lazy, maybe I’m all the things ponies like Catseye called me on their worse days. Buck it, I totally am! But somepony has to, and I’m going to do it.

That had stuck with him, and he couldn’t stop looking at that entry. In fact, this was the second time in about 16 hours that he’d read it.

‘Somepony has to, and I’m going to do it.’ Right after he’d been cited as an utter kontgesig. And then, this mare, this silly bakvissie with plenty of sexual hangups, had gone on to fight a war. She’d stepped up. She’d fought.

He had too, but… Fok, he was tuning himself kak. That just rang hollow. If she could make what she did, what could he do?

Unfortunately, he’d been shaken from this entry by a rather bizarre answer from Amber Maple.

“It doesn’t,” Amber said.

“...What?” Kraber asked.

“My parents actually named me Johnny C. On my birth certificate, it actually says Johnny C Philip Heald.”

“Why...?”

“Good question,” Amber said.

“And my middle name’s my dad’s first,” Johnny C explained. “First name’s… sort of my uncle’s? So I guess I’m Johnny C Heald the Third. Could be Rader, but, well...”

And here, his voice took on an odd, almost lilting tone:

“We don’t talk about Grandpa Rader,
A man with the people skills of the average gator.”

“Ah, that explains it,” Kraber said, as if that revelation held the answer to a great secret of time.

"Wait, what did you say was funny?" Rivet asked. “I mean… you were almost gonna cry earlier.”

"I mean all this. Ah'm in a lorry with a huge pony in the backseat, there's three vaguely anthropomorphic equines in here, and it's the end ay the wairld. And the driver dressed up like a girl from Homestuck.”

“I like it,” Johnny C said.

And, thinking back to college yet again, of that pugnacious, alcoholic, irresponsible, drug-addicted yet innocent-by-comparison med student that he once was, Kraber said: “Whit the fok would I think ay all this if I just goat dropped intae this in college? If suddenly, foo, it’s college-aged me in this brain, knowing whit’s happening?”

‘He sure as fok wouldn’t be all that happy, that’s for sure,’ Kraber thought to himself.’ He’d probably freak out, have a panic attack… go catatonic… headbutt someone in the balls and kick another person in the face...’

“You… you wouldn’t take it all that well, that’s for sure,” Rivet said.

“That’s fir defo,” Kraber agreed. “Dinnae think ah’d consider mahself the same species whin ah saw mahself.”

“Wait, which one would think that? Your past self or your present self?” Rivet asked, confused.

“Yes,” Kraber said. “Hell, if ah showed you a photo ay ehs, ya’d think the same.”

“...I think he means ‘for sure,’” Fiddlesticks translated.

“Aye, thit’s whit ah meant,” Kraber confirmed.

"Tell me about it," Johnny C said. "Still, I'm happy to have met Fiddlesticks... You ever wonder if we've gone crazy?"

"Why would I?" Kraber asked, and then, as if it was the most natural thing in the world: "Ah wis crazy a long time before this."

There was an uncomfortable silence, as they drove through the shantytown by the lake, the one built from the long-abandoned motel, passing through hordes of dirty refugees, their stalls and shops built uncomfortably close to the road.

So this was where he probably would have ended up if not for Aegis’ kindness. That was… disheartening. Kraber could see what Sixstring had been talking about, the place was a fokkin’ horrible umkhuku. Everyone was packed into the old, crumbling motel buildings, there were old shipping container stacks nearby, and outbuildings were clustered near the pond, so precarious that it looked like they’d collapse. One truck in the parking lot looked to have a missile pod from a downed helicopter mounted on board.

There were a lot of stalls lining the ancient motel, its roof patched with corrugated metal, cardboard, clapboard, and whatever else could be found.

“So… That’s where you’d have gone without cousin Sixstring,” Rivet said, trying to put on a brave face. “I don’t think you’d have liked it there.”

“I don’t think ah would at all.”

The silence there never quite died, even when they got to the synagogue. They all made their way out, Johnny C – and, before he knew it, Kraber – opening the doors to let the ponies inside trot out. What the fok, why not, it was polite.

“Wasn’t this a church before?” Sixstring asked, looking up at the massive beams that criscrossed the ceiling. “Huh. Those’re odd.”

“They’re to keep the roof from falling in on itself,” Aegis explained. “Old building.”

“Which is why dad helped pay for them,” Johnny C explained. “You’ve seriously never been here, Sixstring?”

“Nah,” Sixstring said. “I… well, religiously speaking, I wasn’t sure what to think.”

Instinctively, Kraber scanned the patrons. Almost everybody looked to be armed, but nobody looked all that dangerous, except...

Oh fok no!

There was one woman there - a woman with really nice hips - that gave Kraber pause. Tall, with a dancer’s build, nice hips, brownish skin, and lustrous black hair. She was wearing a red jacket, like the one from that Guardians of the Galaxy movie, over full armor, some of which appeared to be repurposed and reforged Royal Guard armor. A lot of it was forest-green, made to blend into the woods of New Hampshire, though it looked better in dark gray. She had a light red jacket, a Jericho 941 at her hip… and she was tall. Taller than Kraber, even, by two inches. An old Galil, the kind you could use as a bottle-opener, sat nearby, and there was…

"You practically pissed yourself," Aegis chortles.

Oh fok. Well, no use denying where this was going.

“Cousin Nny!” Yael Ze’ev laughed, holding Johnny C up, hugging him off the ground. “It’s been way too long!”

“Cousin Yael!” Johnny C laughed, lifting her up as well. Quite an odd sight, considering that Johnny C was barely more than five feet tall, and Yael was about eight inches taller. “This, uh, this is my friend Aegis’ cousin Sixstring - pretty sure you haven’t met him.”

Kraber stared on in shock.

Fokkin’ fokkin’ fok me, Kraber said. He remembered Ze’ev. How she’d sworn to kill him once. How they’d seen each other in Agua Caliente before. How she’d suspected him and only been slightly put off by the Boston accent he was trying to ape.

“Nope,” Sixstring said.

“Says he’s curious bout human religion,” Johnny C explained.

“Oh, good,” Yael said. “That’s the only converting I can deal with.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Sixstring said. “I don’t even know what any of this entails, though. I’m just… curious.”

“You might go and like it. Who knows? If you don’t, it’s none of my business,” Yael shrugged. “And it’s so good to see you again, cousin Nny! Here I was, thinking I’d have to steal another lobotomized biological computer to see you again.”

“Give me time,” Johnny C said. “I mean, I’ve looted a lot of stuff from PER, but never anything like that.”

“Maybe you can bag enough for us to get a nice dinner. Or your daddy can make some more shoo-fly pie,” Yael suggested.

‘This guy, this crossdressing little moegoe, is cousins with Ze’ev?’ Kraber thought. ‘Fokkin’ hell, how’s that work?’

“I didn’t know for awhile either,” Aegis says. “It… it was kinda surprising.”

“Apparently they’re really distant cousins,” Kraber explains.

“I refuse to get anything kosher,” Johnny C said, still holding her up.

”Eh, I don’t blame you. You’re from a place that has chowder and cheeseburgers everywhere. And your dad was raised eating shrimp and cheese grits with bacon,” She took a look at Johnny C’s makeup, cosplay dress, and brightly colored wig. “Looking good today, by the way.” She then kneeled to the ground, putting herself somewhere close to eye level with that yellow pony. Unheard of in the HLF, but then, PHL were just different. “So, Fiddlesticks Apple?”

“Yeah?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Nice to meet you again,” Yael said. “I’m just… I’m glad you’re feeling better this time. Last time we talked, well...”

And this is the person that people in Defiance say we should be terrified of? Kraber wondered. She’s… he thought for a moment. It was hard to think of someone that nice as being an enemy.

“Stick close to him, alright?” Heliotrope added.

“How close you want me, Nny?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“-Cause a good human that’ll keep you safe isn’t that easy to find,” Heliotrope said.

“Come on, we just live together, and…” the words died in Johnny C’s mouth. “You’re just fucking with me aren’t you.”

“Noooo… yeah, I am,” Heliotrope said, with a light chuckle. “I totally am.” She looked over at Aegis. “Haven’t seen you since Reykjavik. Are the foals okay?”

“We’re fine,” Amber said.

Rivet nodded. “Never want to go through that again…”

“Never again,” Aegis said solemnly, his head inclined downward. “I promise, foals. It’ll never happen again.”

“I’m sorry to bring up bad memories,” Heliotrope said.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Aegis said. “It… it all turned out alright. Yeah. That’s what the foals keep saying. Yeah.”

“It barely turned out alright,” Yael said, and for a second, this warrior woman almost taller than Kraber, looked… afraid. Vulnerable. It was as if some presence to her had just leached away.

I could take her in a fight, Kraber was thinking. Betting she knows Krav maga? Might be interesting to learn.

But he didn’t heed that part. He’d probably get his gat handed to him. Even with her in that state, remembering whatever had happened in Reykjavik, it was hard not to be intimidated by Yael.

“We thought we could’ve killed Celestia there. And then… she left. Said some nonsense words over her sister’s petrified body and left. We failed, and we couldn’t’ve done anything anyway,” Yael said bitterly.

“It’ll get better,” Heliotrope said. “You never know what R&D will do next…”

“And how long will it take?” Yael asked.

‘Fok me up the gat,’ Kraber thought. ‘Yael Ze’ev and Heliotrope! Oh, God, if you’re listening, just kill me now–’

Yael’s gaze turned to Kraber.

‘No I won’t. You wanted to be a better person, try it!’

”Wait. Was that a hallucination’s voice, or, or… God?!” Vinyl starts.

“Nah. that’d be silly. I think it’s more like what I’d imagine God saying,” Kraber explains. “It’d be a terrible fokking world if God decided to ova to me.”

“Agreed,” Verity says.

“I know!” Kraber says, shocking her slightly with his agreement. “What? You thought I was grenade-fishing for compliments again? Besides, I hallucinated a lot earlier. Could be anything, really. Anyway, in a way, I almost wished the PER had come. Now, blikseming PER? That’s a public fokkin’ service! Plus, it’s just hilarious making kontgesigs like that suffer…”

“The PER don’t come in here until later,” Aegis reminds his friend.

“Wait, there’s PER?” Lunar Phase asks.

“Course there are,” Kraber says. “As long as there are PER, I will smack the shit out of them.”

“It’s a good cause,” Lunar Phase says solemnly.

“Should I be disturbed that you two are talking like that in front of children?” Elena asks, scooching back a little.

“I’ve seen worse,” you say.

“Really, she has,” Amber Maple adds.

“And God, how I wish none of them had to. Anyway,” Kraber says, “The sad thing about being good in a pehrer is that after awhile, it’s hard to not be in it. Isn’t that right, Verity?”

She just glowers at him.

“Anyway,” he continues, “PER? Could deal with that. This shit, next to a woman that would flay me alive?”

“Who’s he?” Yael asked, looking over at Kraber.

“That’s Francis Strang,” Aegis explained. “He’s staying in my house till he gets a job.”

“You look familiar,” Yael said, looking Kraber over as he tried not to shake. “Haven’t I seen you before?”

“Ah gie that a loat,” Kraber said. “So… why’re you here?”

“I wanted a synagogue nearby,” Yael explained.

“Ah, I can sympathize,” Kraber said, though inside, he was shaking. He didn’t like thinking of himself as a manipulator. People like Lovikov, that capitalized on your fear to make you an utter kontgesig? He fokking hated them. Still, fokking with the truth was useful.

“I was thinking the same. Coulda gone anywhere else, but this was the closest synagogue I could think of.”

“There’s places in Maine, and Laconia,” Yael said. “Why are you here?”

“Guess I liked the mountain scenery,” Kraber said. “Plus, it was on the rail line. I’d been hoping to keep heading west. Buy tickets to as far away from the Barrier as possible, do odd jobs… Maybe get to the west coast.”

“Huh,” Yael said. “Another pilgrim. Hear there’s a lot of prospects out there. Say, you look…” There was a tightness in her body, like a coiled snake. “Familiar. Have we met?”

”Ah well. It’d have to come out - but fok it, it was coming out on my own terms. I’d had to tell my parents from a hospital bed… though to my credit, I’d put a lot of those kontgesigs that bliksemed me in the same hossy. And I got more flowers and chocolate than them, so that was kwaai. Which sorta muddles this moral a bit.”

“Live and don’t learn, that’s us!” Bly cackles, and Rivet joins in.

“I like it,” Verity says. “Huh. Guess maybe we’re not all that different…”

“Look,” Kraber said. “I know who you are. And what you do. I saw footage of you up in Canada.” Well, he’d heard a lot about her. How could he not? “I feel like you’ll be seeing a lot of me,” He continued. “Hell, we’ll be going to the same synagogue. But… I feel like I need to tell you this. I’m ex-HLF.”

“You… are?” she asked. She seemed more surprised than anything.

“But…” Kraber said, holding a hand out in a handshake, “I’m ex-HLF fir a reason.”

“He is,” Aegis confirmed. “He got out of Portland.”

“Did you see Ivan Bliss? Or the super-newfoal?” Yael asked.

“I heard good things about Iv-” Kraber started.

“Ivan Bliss was Kraber,” Yael interrupted. “That bastard somehow managed to convince his way into PHL, steal equipment, and…” she sighed. “It’s been a long couple days.”

Fok me in the keyhole, they know! Kraber thought, trying to resist a fight-or-flight reaction. “What do you mean?”

“What she means,” Heliotrope said, “Is we’ve been run ragged. Nearly court-martialed, sent here, and trying to tell people whether or not a man that killed what might’ve been the biggest threat to the city next to Lovikov himself has a goddamn massive bounty.” She looked pointedly at Kraber. “You weren’t with him, were you?”

“No,” Kraber said, unnerved at the certainty in his voice. “He and Kraber deserve to die in the most painful way possible. I’ve heard some PHL ponify PER that’ve pissed them off-”

“Not,” Yael said, “On. My. Watch.” The coldness in her voice could’ve cooled off near everyone in the state.

“You don’t want to know,” Heliotrope whispered.

“Wait. What, really?” Kraber asked, to Heliotrope and Aegis’ nods of assent, and Yael’s tightly restrained anger. “That’s great. That’s brill’nt.”

“You’re not going to go back, are you?” Heliotrope said. “I can tell. Just… promise us you won’t. I like that little assurance.”

“I promise,” Kraber said. “Besides, if I get back, I’ll only get the traditional HLF greeting.”

“What, a headshot?” Aegis asked.

Yael and Kraber looked over at each other.

“Oh, I wish I was that lucky,” Kraber said, an uncomfortable grimace on his face as his hands inched towards his groin.

“You’re alright, Mr. Strang,” Heliotrope said, a bemused look on her face. “You’re alright.”

“Thanks,” Kraber said. “You, ah, you too.”

She smiled.

“Not sure I trust him, though,” Yael said.

This being close to July 30th, it had come time to read Parshat Masei. From what the rabbi had said, they’d be doing a long reading - 35:9 to 35:34.

‘Still,’ Kraber thought, ‘least there’s free food at the end.’

“It may not exactly be a suitable thing, but it seems fitting,” Rabbi Elijah Brackett explained. “All of us - we’ve done bad things in this war. And some of us, well… we merely haven’t done them yet. I confess, I have an… acquaintances, one that saw wanted PER eating at his cafe. He poisoned them with a smile on his face.”

That.. actually didn’t sound too bad to Kraber.

“But as a result, they weren’t truly punished. He just killed them in cold-blood. They were PER, and while I can’t criticize him for it, they could have been anyone, really,” Elijah said. “Which brings me to today’s reading, Parashat Masei. It is, in fact, about murder.”

And, after some words, as everyone had settled down, the rabbi said a prayer.

Kraber joined in, saying it under his breath, as if from memory:

“Shema, yisrael, adonai eloheinu, adonai echad…”

In his own way, though, his prayer was a plea. Sure, it was…. it was, when you got down to it, just acknowledging the existence of God, but in his own mind, Kraber was thinking ‘Dear God, please let me live through this and without coming out feeling like a kontgesig.’

”Which… didn’t work,” Kraber says.

“Mind if I cut in again?” Aegis asks. “Take over the narration?”

“Sure, go ahead,” Kraber says. “I can explain what happened later.”

“Like cousin Sixstring said, I was curious,” Aegis explains. “Equestria’s closest thing to a goddess has been rather unapproachable lately, so I’d wanted to c--”

Kraber’s phone rang. “Heita?” he asked.

There was a pause.

“Heita, Lieutenant. Howzit?” a pause. “Oh? Yeah, she beat me up. It hurt.” A short, laugh. “Ah, man, fun times. Cept for nearly dying. Well, yeah, again, but it hurt less this time. Okay, ja, I was… ja. But, well, guess that’s part of the fun.” Another pause. “Well, what do you mean? These things are usually hilarious when I survive them… okay, yeah. The alternative is going crazier.”

Another pause.

“Right,” Kraber says. “Sure. I’ll put you on the horn. Aegis, can you pick up the laptop I got? Yael and Heliotrope are on the phone, and they want me to put them on videochat.”

“Should you really be that informal with her?” Vinyl asks.

“Once you go through some of the shit the six of us have,” Aegis says, an almost wistful smile on his face, “That sorta thing stops mattering.”

“And that would be?” Scootaloo asks.

“We rammed a skyliner once. In a stolen potioneer ship. Alright,” he says, hooves hovering over the keyboard, keys pressing randomly-

“How are you doing that?” Verity breathes.

“Nanomachines, son!” Aegis laughs.

“Really?” Verity asks. “I mean, really?”

“Eh, wouldn’t be all that unlikely by PHL standards,” Vinyl says. “I once saw a man resurrect a dead dog by slapping him with a magic glove.”

“What kind of dog?” Kraber asks, curious.

“I’unno,” Vinyl shrugs. “Think he was a labrador?”

“Why labradors?” Rivet asks.

“I don’t know, maybe labradors are easier to resurrect from the dead or some shit?” Vinyl shrugs.

“I’d think that was dachshunds,” Kraber says. “Or maybe valhunds. I’ve always liked valhunds. Least it wasn’t a cat and someone’s son.”

“That never goes anywhere well,” Lunar Phase adds. “There’s plenty of stories about-”

“Wait, you’re not going with the Pet Sematary reference?” Aegis asks, confused. He has opened up facetime on the laptop. Yael’s picture is on the computer.

“She’s not,” Vinyl confirms. “We had to read so many classic stories back in college about unicorn archmages that tried to raise the dead. And somehow, the professors made them super-boring. S’why I dropped out.”

“I feel ya,” Kraber says. “Even old Ter Voorde did that. We could be discussing necrotizing fasciitis or something, then-”

“I’m not even going to question this shit anymore,” Verity sighs. “I’m a talking horse, a talking unicorn with a blue mane is talking to Sharlto Copley about pet sematary and necromancy, and he’s getting a call from a war criminal, and a larger small horse is using a keyboard without fingers. That’s it. Fuck it. Either I’ve gone insane, this is hell, or I’ve put up with so much torture in hell that I’ve gone insane.”

“No, what he’s actually doing,” Vinyl explains, “Is using hoof TK. We can’t hold everything in our mouths.”

“Can I hold a gun with it?” Verity asks, excited.

“Not for awhile,” Vinyl says. “Oh, hey Lieutenant!”

“Vinyl!” Lieutenant Yael Ze’ev laughs, as her face and Heliotrope’s flash into view on the screen of Aegis’ laptop. “Been awhile since I heard some of your beats. And just Yael works. I’m off duty.” She leans back in her chair, next to Heliotrope, who’s sitting on a chair nearby just like Lyra.

Heliotrope takes a swig of scotch. “And… failing to get drunk. So, I heard Kraber was telling the story of how he joined the PHL?”

“Ja,” Kraber nods. “What’s up?”

“Heliotrope said she wanted to hear,” Yael explains. “I was around for a lot of it, anyway. So I thought I might as well give my perspective at points. And make sure you’ve got me right.”

“Hey, I’m more likely to make myself look like an irredeemable kontgesig than do that,” Kraber says.

“That’s what I was worried about. Besides,” Heliotrope adds, flying into view of the camera, hanging almost upside down like Lunar Phase does in her sleep, (“Is that racist?” Lunar Phase is wondering right now) with a wrench in her teeth. An old jumpsuit of hers is stained with grease and residue of unidentifiable components for PHL machinery. “There was that thing with Richard Hatch. Figured I could help with that, too.”

“Ooh, good call. You figured that out way quicker than I did,” Kraber says. “Aegis? Take it away.”

“Oh great,” Verity groans, facehoofing. “Richard Hatch. As if this wasn’t convoluted enough. Can I get sedated again? More importantly, can he?!” she points at Kraber.

“Anyway,” says Aegis, “I didn’t quite

get human religion. Honestly, Kraber, your Torah seems more like a historical record than a holy text at points.

--It’s sort of both.

Huh.

Still, I can understand the merits of reading one. I don’t think I’ll convert, much as it intrigues me.

I didn’t listen much to the service - say, Kraber? Do you mind that?

--Nah. Can’t really remember much of the service myself.

As it happened, Kraber speaks Hebrew, so he translated Masei to me and the foals later. There were a bunch of laws about murder in biblical times there. Something about refuge cities.

Not sure it worked, and it reminded me a bit of old Earth Pony traditions, back during the Windigo’s Winter, or the old concepts of Unicorn Honor.

… Look, I went to college, okay? I learned some of that stuff there. And yes, Vinyl, the profs actually did manage to make the stories about Unicorn archmages using ancient windigo burial grounds-

(Kraber tries not to laugh in the background)

-to bring their sons back from the dead boring. I know. It shouldn’t be possible.

“Before we pray, commence the service,” Rabbi Elijah said, “ There is… there is a matter, both spiritual and physical, that we cannot ignore.”

We all know what it was. Hell, every synagogue, every place of worship left on Earth… it’s hard not to touch this.

“I pray for our brothers and sisters, fighting the Barrier, and already consumed by that great corruption, that affront to God,” said Rabbi Elijah, his sudden vitriol surprising the man I knew as Francis here, who edged back an inch or two. “Those who are drink the corruption at her teats are thus drunk themselves. As they drink, the purple corruption eats away their souls. Perhaps in the metaphysical sense, but definitely in the physical sense. It drinks all that is them, their likes and dislikes, their faults and foibles, all that makes them good and bad. Does it make them good, as the PER would say? NO! It simply wipes them clean, creates an empty slate where there once was a person! And their fate is not to become valued, but simply to be disposable. To clog our rifles and guns with bodies, to blunt our blades with blood and bone!”

“Amen,” Francis said reverently. Yes, I’m still referring to Kraber as Francis here.

Small wonder human religion had lasted so long with adherents at that level of energy, I thought.

“They’ve taken our homes, our families… but when they get here, they won’t take us. It’s my hope, my dream that when we shatter the barrier with the help of the PHL–”

There were cries of disgust from some of the pews. I stepped in. I had to.

“What the hell are you doing here, you damned gluesti–!” someone called out.

“He came,” Francis said, “Cos’ he was curious. Cos’ he’s got a healthy respect, and doesn’t think xenocide’s the answer.”

I was a bit surprised to hear him speak up.

“You?” Yael asked.

“Now,” Francis said, “Let the stallion speak.”

“I’ve heard that sort of thing before,” I said, acutely aware my foals were looking up at me. That, that gave me strength. “Believe me, we’re not happy with Newfoals either. They’re a replacement – and a terrible one. Just imagine waking up every day, knowing that your immortal ruler’s gone mad, and she does not tolerate dissent. And that she likes zombies better than you. That the zombies think they’re better than you. More pony, or whatever. Can’t imagine it… being a minority, among them, in your own home.”

“That,” said the rabbi - Elijah Brackett, evidently- “Sounds terrifying.”

“It is!” Amber - my Amber, poor filly - called out, almost on the verge of crying, it sounded like.

“He’s right,” Francis said. “By God, he’s right. Besides – the Barrier’s magic. Not optimistic ‘bout how easy it’d be tae break it. And… not all of you might like that Aegis is here. But sure as hell he’s not going back. Might as well get used to a father like him staying around.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“And every pony I’ve talked to like that,” Francis added, “None of them like Equestria or want to go back. So whoever called him ‘gluestick’? Lay off him, he’s lost enough.”

He sat back down.

“Thanks,” I said.

“In fact… how about we pray for the ponies on earth as well?” Yael suggested. We all looked at her, surprised.

“I like it,” my son said.

“I’m with your little brother–” the rabbi started.

“That’s my son,” I said.

“Good God, they’re making them big nowadays!” Kraber said. “Don’t they–”

“Yes, I know,” I sighed. “I’ve heard it before.”

“So have I, for that matter,” Rabbi Elijah said. “I believe I wrote one here somewhere…” he cleared his throat.

I don’t really remember much of what he said. There was, of course, a translation in the book, though, but I can remember that. It said: May the ponies that have escaped to our home and hate their ruler be shielded from misfortune, may they not be taken back to their home. God, shield them from those that would hurt them or take advantage of them, and those that would deport them under the pretense of rescuing them. Protect them from enemies, human and pony alike. Let them find sympathetic humans that would help them survive and defend them, instead of HLF. Protect them from all evils, human and Imperial alike.

December 25, 2022

”I was really surprised to find myself hoping they didn’t get their hands on you,” Kraber says. “You were… okay, I’d gotten plenty of ponies be nice to me. But you were the nicest.”

“What about my cousin?” Aegis asks.

“I paid the tickets – you just saw a bergie, and let him stay in your house. Just on one recommendation from your cousin,” Kraber says. “I fokkin’ well needed the tough love from ponies like Socket Wrench or Caduceus, or whoever that pegasus that punched me in the knee was. Wouldnae have listened otherwise. Besides, Amber, Rivet? Yael? Heliotrope?”

“Yeah?” Amber and Rivet ask.

“Thanks,” Kraber says. “For accepting me too. So, uh… should I describe what happened in the service, or should jou? I mean, I remember what happened, I remember what i thought, but–”

“Eh, go ahead,” Yael says. “Services are long - it’s best to keep this stripped-down.”

“So…. skip ahead and summarize the parashat?” Kraber suggests.

“Works for me,” Aegis shrugs. “I keep going, you cut in where need be?”

It was a weird service. Not exactly upbeat. The rest of this was about murder, after all.

I found it fascinating, though.

The idea of having cities of refuge where one could find a trial, the idea of the tools that made someone qualify as a murderer. Nobody would disagree that guns counted here, I think. And potion, well, the rabbi said that counted as murder too.

(“He said ‘Think of them as dead if it helps, but it’s worse than murder.’ And then he said there was nothing wrong with killing PER, you were probably avenging someone,” Kraber adds. “Great fokkin’ thing to hear him say. It… It’d been awhile since I heard someone say I did a good thing.”

He pauses.

“Okay, maybe it wasn’t that good. But every little bit helps when your self worth is low.”)

Much of the rest of it was about justice. Or so the translation went, anyway. Part of what I remember was that it says that only blood could redeem blood.

“And, like all those things, the punishment for the crime of murder has changed,” the rabbi finished. “Some would suggest death.”

“You did not look happy when he mentioned that,” says Aegis.

“Oh, I wasn’t. I was actually… contemplating suicide.”

Amber Maple and Rivet cringe, and you look at him, more than a little disturbed. “...What?”

“You were going to commit suicide outside and I didn’t know?!” Heliotrope yells. “Shit! I… I should’ve…”

“Holy shite,” Aegis whispers, hugging Kraber. “I’m glad you were out there, though.”

“Eh, it’s fine,” Kraber shrugs. “Not the first unsuccessful suicide attempt I’ve made. First time I tried, I got distracted by a cherry brainfreezy at the gun range.”

“...That really doesn’t make it better,” Aegis says, still holding onto Kraber. “Wait, why the hell were you on a gun range?!”

“I got bored so a friend invited me for recreational shooting,” Kraber explains. “Grayson and Howie took me along - and Howie, he brought an 8-gauge double barrel, and dared me to fire both barrels.” He winces. “It hurt.”

“I’ll bet it did,” Heliotrope says. “Are you… Are you okay now, though?”

“I thought I was an unforgivable bastard just doomed to be evil the rest of his life,” Kraber says. “I mean, the rabbi didn’t say it, but it was… he didn’t help. I just remember thinking…”

‘Someone up there wants me to suffer. Wait, am I the manslayer or the blood-avenger? I’m getting mixed messages here,’ Kraber thought.

“But… it reminds me. Of a story I heard, a long time ago in Beit Sefer,” the rabbi continued. “A long time ago, there was a man named Eliezer. A vicious, vicious murderer. And one day, he realized what he had done.”

‘Oh, fok me,’ thought Kraber.

“He asked people to pray for his soul! The way I was told it in beit sefer, he even asked dogs! Who, from what I can tell, usually have good advice. I don’t know how this worked, but you know how children’s stories are. And none of them would pray for him, cause it was his own fault.”

Kraber sighed, standing up.

“Where are you going?” asked Amber Maple.

“Eh, just need to step out,” Kraber said, walking past Sixstring, who was looking up at him, moderately concerned. “Need some fresh air.”

He couldn’t take it. There was a revolver at his hip, he realized.

Murder was unforgivable in Judaism, because you couldn’t very well ask the ones you’d killed for forgiveness. It wasn’t as if Kraber could somehow find every newfoal he’d tortured, murdered, or burned alive and ask them for forgiveness. Not that he’d want to, anyway. They were newfoals, basic level fokkin cannon fodder. That was true. But… Eliezer, whoever that was, he’d done nothing to fix what he’d done.

And neither had he. Nobody would miss me, nobody would care, Kraber thought as he pushed open the doors. Hell, when Aegis and his family found out who he really was, after a forensic team pulled his corpse into a morgue, they’d actively celebrate. Maybe his family would too.

Kraber walked out to the stairs, one hand on the railing. He looked down the barrel of the revolver, and shrugged, finger on the trigger guard as he put it to his chin.

Nothing to live for here. Nothing to miss. No more dreams for him. No more being alone. He was going over the stars. Something had gone wrong with him, nobody cared, and…

He hoped he’d see someone new, wherever he went.

“Wait!” someone screamed.

It was impossible not to be surprised by that.

“Killing yourself won’t change anything!” Peter yelled at him.

“You… you don’t know what it’s like!” Kraber yelled, not sure if he was yelling or thinking at the hallucination of his son. “You couldn’t even imagine…”

“I’m stuck as a newfoal, I’m not allowed to imagine,” Peter said. “Of course I can’t. But please, Daddy, just listen to me!”

Kraber could see Anka and Kate behind him.

“No! There’s nothing I can do! I’m a bastard! I’m… I can’t… I’m not a doctor, I’m bosbefok! I shouldn’t be allowed to–”

“You’re not crazy!” Kate pleaded. “I mean, look at us! We’re having a perfectly sane discussion!”

“... Hmm, good point,” Kraber said. “I guess you’ve been straight with me all this time...”

“Oh, they’re right!” chirped Victory.

“... Didn’t I suplex you into a wall?”

“Good on that - it was a big step in your character arc, very meaningful, I’m sure the readers loved it,” Victory said, looking far more battered, covered in blood, a bruise covering her remaining eye that was so thick it looked like she could barely see. “But they’re right! INDEEDYDOODY! Killing yourself isn’t the answer! The only answer is finding a potion and drinking it down!”

“But then he’ll be like us!” protested Anka.

“Oh, you know that was for the best,” Victory said dismissively. “You’re happy all the time! What more could a little filly want?”

“I’m NOT a filly!” shrieked Anka.

"You're dead," another voice said, and a dark armoured figure stepped out of the shadows. "Choosing life, Viktor? Is this life? Doesn't fokking look like it to me."

"Oh fokking great," Kraber said, groaning. "What is this, party in Viktor Kraber's head, all crazy hallucinations welcome?! Have I lost so much that I can’t even have my own PTSD? I just wanted… to enjoy… a service… AT THE SYNAGOGUE! Why is this so hard?!"

“Because you can’t let yourself forget,” Kate said.

"Perhaps not," the Dark Kraber said. He looked at Victory. "Hello again."

“I just can’t get away from you, can I?” she asked.

"Death stalks all beings, you fokking abomination," the Dark Kraber said, his hand going to a sword sheathed at his side. "And I am yours. Five of your heads adorn my wall already - I’m eager to make it six for six."

"Oh don't have a conversation in my fokking head," Kraber groaned. "Please. I just wanted to go to synagogue!"

"Prayer won't do anything," Victory said. “What use is it when you serve a being of near-absolute power?”

"On one thing, I agree with the abomination," the armoured figure said softly, folding his arms. "I have fought beside a God, and killed many things that called themselves such. They were puny. Prayer is not devotion, the performance of your purpose is."

“So, uh, Kate,” Kraber said. “Remember when we were playing Hotline Miami and the game asked if I enjoyed hurting other people? Please. Do that. I… I’ll take that more easier than these kontgesigs not shutting the fok up. Drown these kontgesigs out. I wouldn’t even mind.”

“Even I can’t shut them up,” she sighed. “You’d need a lot of drugs for that…”

"You might as well lobotomise yourself," the armoured figure said with a chuckle. "Or do what the abomination suggests, it's the same fokking thing. We are part of you, Viktor. Accept it. Remember who you a-"

"I remember... Remember who you are... I remember! See your knife!”” Victory sang. "See it glide! See it slice! A-who's your Night Surgeo-”

“NO! NONE OF THAT!” Kate yelled. “SHAME ON YOU!”

“Don’t listen to them!” Kraber heard some… thing say. It sounded like Emil. “The only peace you’ll find is down a gun barrel, or back in the–”

“They won’t take my daddy,” Anka said.

“I’m so confused,” Kraber sighed.

“Well then,” Emil smirked, “You know what you have to do.”

“You see?!” Victory asked. “This is exactly what I’ll protect you from when you turn into me!”

“Both of you!” Kate yelled. “Leave my husband alone! You… Viktor’s a good man! He–

March 18, 2014

“You sure you want to do this?” Kate’s father asked.

“I am,” Kate said. “They’re my kids.”

“And I’ll… I’ll do my best as a father,” Viktor had said, looking up at her father.

“You’re sure about this?” her father asked.

“Positive,” Viktor said. “I love Kate, Mr. Baldwin. I… Seeing her is just like coming home. Of every girl I’ve met, she’s… she’s just Kate. I love her more than I’ve ever loved anyone else, and it’d be a pleasure to be her husband. And if anyone comes after her, well… I’ll punch the shit out of them.”

“I like you, son,” Kate’s father said, ruffling Viktor’s shaggy brown-black hair. “And I know you have done that. You didn’t know?”

“I didn’t.”

“You love her.”

“More than anything.”

“You’re going through withdrawal symptoms right now, aren’t you?”

“Mr. Baldwin–”

“Call me Joe.”

“Joe, then… I’m a bad person. I know that much. But on the other hand, a kid needs a daddy that’ll be there for them. One that won’t be stoned or drunk at any given time. Gonna try my best.”

The withdrawal symptoms had been outright hellish, but he’d gone through with it. For Kate. For his unborn children. Because he loved her, because she made every second of his life, every urge to be a bastard just float away.

Because, above all, Kate, the way she was so sweet, the way she could just… just click with him… made him better. Plus, she liked all his college friends Erika, Polo’ Polmont, Gray, Howie, Terry, Strychnine Jones, Helen, Zo, Stretcher Burt, Corinne, Frank, Eva, Heather, Zanna, Miranda… and it was reciprocated. They adored her, and adored Viktor for adoring her, adored how she was up for anything their little gang would do. Plus, she was a fan of Repo: The Genetic Opera and thought it was funny that Kraber had eaten his roommate once. How could he not love someone like that?

“ Oh, don’t lie to yourself,” Victory said, “ He’s shot children and foals, he’s committed unspeakable crimes! He deserves ponification!”

"He has sought vengeance," the armoured figure countered, "as is his right and duty. His only crime is faltering now. You decry me, Viktor - but I survived my horrors. I continue - I serve. If you end yourself now, what does that say?"

“You didn’t survive,” Kraber said. “You’ve become part of them.”

"But I am alive," the Dark Kraber retorted, chuckling, "which will be more than can be said for the cowardly former HLF man, too scared to walk the path he trod to its glorious end and too scared to seek forgiveness, futile as it is. Don't you claim to be stronger than me, Viktor? You don't fokking look stronger from where I'm standing."

“I guess I’m not,” Kraber said. “After all, it takes a strong man to murder children, kill thousands… and absolutely convince themselves it doesn’t fokking matter. Your denial systems must be fokkin’ great, huh? You’re never going to change, right up till the moment that someone skullfucks you with a chainsaw.”

"My 'denial systems' are 'great' enough that I never sat outside a place of worship planning to end my life so soon after choosing to begin it anew," the armoured figure pointed out. "And when my death comes, it will be in battle, not mewling and battling shadows that congregate in my own mind. That, at least, comforts me." He paused for a moment. "I confess would have preferred to meet you on the field, if not as brother, than as righteous, misguided enemy. That would be preferable to this... mewling weakling I see before me.”

“He’s not weak,” Kate said.

“Quiet, shadow of a broken mind,” the Dark Kraber said. “You're not real. Just this poor, broken, sad little bastard’s defense mechanisms and self-hatred. I’m realer than all of you.”

Could that have…

“Yes,” the Dark Kraber said. “You forget. I know you. I know everything you’ve been through. Because, right here? Right now? This PT world? It’s already happened for me. I’ve seen it before. What will happen in Defiance, what will happen in Montreal, what will happen in Boston.”

“No,” Kraber said. “You're just some fokked up hallucination. You're not real!”

“Even if you cling to that belief, just look at yourself, Viktor. The path you’re on - that puts you just that much closer to becoming the abomination. Even if you somehow prevail, I’ve told you before. Joining the PHL will only make you their rabid dog on a leash. I’ve seen plenty of PHLs in my time. Joining me, surrendering yourself and this world… the PHL could only accomplish a fraction of what we have all done. It is for your own good.”

Kraber didn’t speak for a second, and then he laughed. It was a high-pitched, hoarse, wheezing, unhealthy laugh at that.

The hallucinations said nothing.

“You know who you sound like?” Kraber asked.

The Dark Kraber, the colossus, was suddenly standing in front of him at the foot of the stairs. There was a look of moderate confusion on his face.

“Celestia,” Kraber said. “Just. Like. Her.”

“He kinda does, y’know,” Victory said.

“Oh, I’m not done with you either,” Kraber said. “You -”

He trailed off, uncertain what to add to that. To his surprise, the Dark Kraber was apparently unrattled by the comparison. The colossal figure merely folded his arms, looking almost bored.

"Believe what you want of me, Viktor Kraber. I do not wish ill to you,” he said. “Nor does the abomination, though its idea of 'good' is far different from mine."

“Fok off,” Kraber snapped.

The armoured figure sighed. "You saw the death of Victoria Kraber. She was strong. A worthy counterpart. If you will not listen to reason - and I will continue to hope that you do - then at least I would see you survive. I would see you thrive. I would see you become the best you can be, so that when we meet in the flesh..."

And here the figure trailed off, chuckling slightly.

“Skullfuck him with a chainsaw, just like you said!” Victory suggested. “.Go on! Do it!”

“...Fokking fokking fok me, I agree with you,” Kraber said.

"You will be welcome to try, Viktor," the armoured figure said, shrugging its massive shoulders. "I would welcome the attempt, and the challenge. But you can't very well do it if you kill yourself now."

“Hate to say it,” Kate said, “But he’s right. If you took responsibility once, if you made things right with us... you can do it again. Isn’t that right, Viktor?”

“But, on the other hand, Eliezer never did anything to make amends for his murders,” Kraber heard the rabbi continue from inside the synagogue. “He never took responsibility. All he did was ask for others to help him, instead of trying to help them and atone. If someone does wrong, and works to fix what they’ve done, honestly asks for forgiveness, it’s a moral obligation. If, I believe, the person honestly wants to make up for what they did.”’

Kraber sighed. “I…”

“You make whatever choice you want,” the Dark Kraber said, almost amicably. Suddenly, he reached for a compartment in his armour. “Just remember - there is a fundamental difference between Celestia and I.”

And he pulled out a multi-coloured, shimmering mane that glistened slightly, even though it was splattered with blood.

“I win,” the Dark Kraber said simply.

Kraber blinked at the mane - hallucinatory as it was - and chuckled weakly. “Needs a good hair wash.”

The Dark Kraber chuckled as well, whether at the joke or the weak attempt at bravado Kraber couldn't tell, and then he - and his trophy - were gone.

“Ok, I’m gonna come straight out and say that I’m very glad any stories where those guys come here for real aren't canon,” Victory said with a wide-eyed expression. “If nothing else, the tone would be waaaay too ‘dark and apocalyptic’ to be fun.”

Kraber shook his head. “Stop saying things I agree with. It's annoying.”

“Look, this is all confusing as hell for me, let alone you,” Kate said. “And I’m a figment of your imagination.”

“Understatement of the fokking millennium,” Kraber chuckled.

“Well, if you ever feel the need to be comforted…” Kate said quietly. “Just remember… Blueberry Torte wishes he could see you.”

And all was silent.

‘Try to make up for what I’ve done, huh?’ Kraber thought as he closed the door and stood on the steps outside. ‘And… Blueberry Torte, huh? Who the fok is Blueberry Torte?’

Seemingly unbidden, Kraber imagined himself hugging a family of Newfoals - no, convies, his head buried in a strange mare’s mane.

“It’ll be alright, Kate!” Kraber pleaded, stroking her thick mane. “I promise, it’ll be alright…”

She could barely speak. She was crying, gesturing to the Webley at Kraber’s hip with one hoof, hugging him with the other.

“No, no,” Kraber said. “I’m going to be there for you. No matter what. This time, I promise.”

“Can you?” she asked. “After what happened? After… oh, it was just hell! It was like being trapped in a nightmare I couldn’t wake up fro-”

“I promise,” Kraber said, this time more insistently, tears streaming down his face, into his beard, “I’ll be there. No matter what we have to do, no matter how long it takes, I still love you. And I never stopped.”
The people around him, Converted, BDF, and Dead Men-
‘Who are these people? And… who did we lose? Is Elliot okay? Kraber asked. Then, unbidden: ‘Who’s Elliot?’

-stared down at them.

“I missed you so much!” Kraber said, making sobs of his own, burying his face and beard in his Converted wife’s mane, just above her left foreleg.

“Me too,” Kate said, hugging him tighter and tighter. “Me too.”

’Someday...’

“I can’t make you do anything,” Kate said. “I can’t… I’ve no power. But remember. Right now, you’ve got a choice. That gun, or choosing life–”

“Hands and hooves in the air! Your false god is a travesty before the one true monarch!”

False God? One True Monarch?

There was a God! Fok what the rabbi had just said about murder. This wasn’t murder, this was cleanup.

“Oh, life’s fokkin’ lekker sometimes,” Kraber said, smiling, very glad he’d brought those pistols with him. He needed to unwind, after all… But they would have noticed him having walked outside, wouldn’t they? Quickly, he tried to think of all the building’s entrances and exits. He needed to surprise them, after all…

Oh, this would be fun. He unholstered his revolver, and… ah, damn! His revolver only had a few spare rounds – he’d used most of them up on Reaper. Well, good thing he had the .45...

He’d give the revolver a good sendoff, then...

Author's Note

IT'S B-B-B-BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK, HUMPADUMPS! REJOICE! GAWDDAAAAAAMN DID I MISS THIS! WHEEE You got no idea how mu - oh wait, you're readers, you probably do, MY MISTAKE! WHOO!
Also, I probably should have mentioned this, but you may be wondering two things:
1. What took me so long? Well, Rhys said I needed the confidence to upload without him, and, well, he was taking too long so I got bored and enlisted Jed R to help. Go read his stuff, he's awesome, and it maaaaayyyyy give context for who or what the Dark Kraber is.
...Or not, given that his first appearance was in here.

Is the mention of Johnny C a shameless plug for your new story, Snowbound, an adventure set in the Alaskan Tundra vaguely inspired by the story of these puppies?
Well, yes and no. This was actually written about 6 months, maybe eight, before I made Snowbound in a fit of pique cause I got bored in Niagara-on-the-lake while mom was shopping with a friend of hers. However, the shameless plug worked on me as well, and I figured that by trying to write down the events of Snowbound, I'd end up writing a story, so I cut out the middleman and wrote the thing. It'll be much smaller than Light, with a cast that keeps incessantly sniping at each other, a small-scale setting, and something with little of the complexity of Light. It's where I'll go when I don't need to focus on every detail here.
What in particular made me feel like I needed TB3?
Habit, mostly. I wrote the first 9 chapters... or however many it is up to Philistine... given that literally every chapter of this story has undergone mitosis at some point. TB3 is a great guy, but - apologies to him - I was tired of waiting. Though I feel like this is much more polished this time around. It sets up Moore's character arc, I managed to hamfistedly cram in a reference to Repo: The Genetic Opera, set up a PER villain that'll appear in person in about.... 4 chapters, and just generally polish it up.
Why include Repo: The Genetic Opera, anyway?

...REASONS!

Have I failed my daughter?
Then let the father die!
And let the monster rise!

That is all.

What's with that interview?
If you really want to know, unspoiler this!
...What, you seriously thought I'd tell you? All things in time.

It's Another Day

Chapter 13: It’s Another Day

Editors/Co-Authors
Jed R (Special thanks for more things than I can count. Like damn son)
TB3
Redskin122004
VoxAdam

“Finally looked outside today
Aware of all these things astray
Counted down, 5, 3, 2…
Walked outside anyway
It’s still there, never goes away
Just changes form with the thoughts I say
I’m trying to wallow in the hope of what can be
Not what’s been taken away
The Death Set, It’s Another Day”

Interviewer (I): “Hello? Is this… damned telepresence projector…”

Thaddeus Crowe (TC): “Can hear you just fine. So, how’d the plan in Asia go?

I: “Munro and I spent close to a fortune making supersoldiers. We tested runic enhancement on them, gave them our best equipment… and It didn’t work. It did not work. Worse still, I’ve pissed off the Equestrian Resistance. God knows if I’ll ever be able to get them to agree to anything like this again.”

TC: “Warned you. You can’t trust Armacham.”

I: “ In my defense, they were the only ones that could make custom-fabricated clone soldiers. I didn’t want to risk anyone important for this.”

Sum Runner (SR): “I ran the numbers on those projects. We figured it’d be a better idea to feed people than make expendable clones.”

TC: “Then again, that maaaaaaaaaayyyyy not have been an unbiased study.”

SR: “No, it was. I checked.”

TC: “You mean to tell me that nobody here fudged the results due to their hatred of Armacham?”

SR: “Yessir.”

TC: “I am simultaneously disturbed and proud. So: I’m presuming you have some request for more totem-prole data?”

I: “How’d you guess?”

TC: “Call it a hunch.”

SR: “Alternatively, call it ‘you’ve-been-over-the-moon-thanks-to-the-new-researcher’. Ae’s been brilliant, by the way. We could have the Fujin Missile, rune ammo, alicorn-killer weaponry, that MG2023 concept that Ernst’s been working on by Barrierfall thanks to aer.”

Aegis was staring at the PER woman that was holding him at gunpoint with a small pistol that somehow looked big in her hands. Amber Maple and Rivet hid behind him.

“Come on,” he said. “We’re harmless, ain’t we?”

The woman didn’t respond. Aegis noticed something strange poking out of her backpack. Something crystalline...

“N-no,” the woman stammered. A natural-born pegasus pony that he thought he recognized from a wanted poster stood by, smirking at him.

‘You sonovabitch, Aegis thought, as another ragged-looking human with untreated wounds held an old plastic water bottle full of the Ponification Potion in his hand.

“Looky here,” the man said, trying to be a picture-perfect bandit and coming close to the image. “Got ourselves a few runaways. Think we’ll be rewarded with-”

“Go. To. Tartarus,” Aegis said, deliberating on each syllable.

“Traitor,” a natural-born PER earth pony said, that smirk still on his face, but there was something underneath… Something just ready to crumble…

“And what’s this?” said PER man in rough, ragged, stitched clothing. An old guitar case sat on his back. “John Heald. I’ll get a good job in the Empire for this.”

“No you won’t,” Fiddlesticks said. “Carl Barnes.”

“You two know e-each oth-ther?” Johnny C asked.

“I used to play with him during the… ugh… benefit concerts,” Fiddlesticks said, shuddering and spitting. “So. Here you are. You prick. Thanks for keeping those HLF off my flank back in Portland. Reeeeally helped when Patrick Saunders was tapping his baseball bat against the wall behind me.”

“H-h-he said he was s-s-sorry, by the way,” Johnny C added, voice trembling. He was almost certainly not built for this.

Barnes jerked as if shot. Which, within the space of 87 seconds, he would be. What? It’s not like that’s a spoiler or anything. He looked sullen.

“And even if you d-do,” Johnny C said, standing up, stuttering a little in fear. “It’ll b-be pointless. You’re supposed to make us r-reb-born, huh?”

“I’ll never understand why you guys reject salvation,” the natural-born pegasus said, that smirk on his face.

“Maybe it’s cause people don’t like being turned into little mindless zombie-dolls?!” Fiddlesticks yelled.

“I would’ve thought your boyfriend there,” Barnes smirked, “Had a fetish for that.”

Nny’s mouth opened. Closed again. His eyebrows narrowed. “I’m g-going to smash your balls into a bloody paste for that.”

“And what, leave the apes like they are?” the pegasus asked. “They can’t be allowed to fight. They have to be ruled. For their own s-”

“How do you bastards even get human recruits?” Yael sighed.

“Why?” the pegasus asked. “Because of you, Lieutenant Ze’ev.”

“Hail Flurry’s right,” Barnes spat. “It’s your fault, Ze’ev. I ponified my sister so she could get a better life, back when the portals were open. She screamed, pleaded to be stuck in her diseased, paralyzed body, but-”

“You ponified Jenny?!” Fiddlesticks yelled. “Ya evil, soulless motherfucker!”

“Oh, what’s it matter? She was happy at the end. Unlike me! But we’re stuck here! Stuck on a dying world, while you murderers get fat on rations and we get tablescraps! After I ponified her, she disappeared into the PER in America. God only knows what happened to her!”

“Amen, Barnes. Everyone, get all the ponies!” the skeletal woman yelled. “They’ll be fine. Get the foals first, they’re-”

“No,” Aegis said, rearing up, matter of-factly. He hadn’t been sitting - just taking up residence behind his son and daughter in the pews.

Sixstring, trembling, was standing back to back with him, looking like a small colt in comparison to his cousin. Somehow, the trembling made it less likely he would move.

“I’m proud of you, cuz,” Aegis said. Sixstring was a wanderer, and he’d seen far worse than this before. Didn’t mean he could handle it well.

Sixstring nodded. “D-don’t mention it.”

“And you think you’re gonna stop me, Fallen?” a PER woman asked.

“No,” Aegis said. “I know you’re not going to get past me. I know your type don’t hurt ponies. Do you think this shit scares me? I’ve been through a hundred times worse.”

“Besides,” Sixstring said. “There’s things I know that I’m not letting you find out.”

”He was so brave,” Yael says over videochat, and you nod. Mr. Aegis has a great, stony countenance, an impassive face, and you would not want to be on the wrong end of his great bulk.

Though Mr. Aegis looks a bit… confused as she says that.

“Oweh,” Kraber says, smiling. “There’s no better stallion to have your back than my china right here.”

“...is that cause he has white fur, or…” Babs Seed asks.

“Nah. It just means friend,” Aegis explains. “Same as when John… Constantine or whatever brits you know say it. Not Nny.”

“Why do you have to be like this?” Hail Flurry asked. “Being outside the Empire while not engaged in pro-Empire activities is considered treason. If we take you in, the visit to the mind healers won’t be very long. And, Fiddlesticks Apple? Apple family members like your cousin-”

Yael and Aegis each winced a little at the raw hatred written on Fiddlesticks’ face.

“Don’t. Talk. Bout. Us. Apples,” Fiddlesticks said, trying and miserably failing to restrain the vitriol in her voice, “Like. Ya. Know us. Cousin Abby didn’ just burn her bridges, she airstriked them. And ya ain’t takin’ me to one of them brain butchers. There’s nothing waitin’ for me with open forelegs back home.”

“And there’s no p-portal b-back-” Johnny C added.

“Yet,” Hail Flurry smirked, earning himself a lot of glares from every other PER in the synagogue.

They took that way too personally, Aegis thought.

"I’d thought it was weird, Yael says. "Normally portal station are a dime a dozen. What made it this personal?

"Honestly. I’d thought that most of em just wanted to go home, Heliotrope says. She turns to look at Kraber.

"Why ya lookin at me? Kraber asks. "I wasn’t even in there. I was kinda busy struggling with my inner demons from another universe.”

“Uhhh….” Scootaloo says.

“Just go with it,” Aegis says.

“And figured, well… shoot the kontgesigs.

“So it’s all kinda p-pointless. I’m still n-not getting w-what ponifying m-me ac-complishes,” Johnny C said, hand on his Colt Cascavel revolver, a top-break LeMat chambered for magnum rounds, and copied by Taurus down in Brazil. He thumbed back the hammer, and the smaller secondary hammer that would let it discharge a twenty-gauge spray of buckshot from the center barrel around which the cylinder revolved.

It was still holstered.

“You lift that a hair’s breadth,” the pegasus evidently named Hail Flurry said, “And I will ponify you right where you stand. Johnny-boy, see, it’s not about whether you die in a ditch or live back home. Not that that’ll matter in the next few weeks. We need a workforce, Nny-”

“Shut… up,” Barnes hissed. “Sweet Celestia, you’re going to ruin everything!”

“Don’t. Call. Him. That,” Fiddlesticks said.

“Only m-my friends get to d-do that,” Johnny C said. “And I don’t think I see this relationsh-ship going anywhere. C-cause, y-y’know… I’ve b-been hurt.”

“When you’re a newfoal,” Barnes said, “it won’t matter. All my friends that go pony say it’s the most wonderful experience to ascend, become a superior being. We can hurt you all you want, and you’ll be happy with it. Besides, you’ll be in good company. We’ll make sure your whole family’s there to help. Your mother, your father, your cousins like the jew-bitch over there. And you’ll do whatever we want.”

““ You motherfucker,” Nny said. “I WILL SKIN YOU ALIVE AND FEED YOU YOUR OWN, ROTTING TE-”

“For that,” the pegasus said, “Fairbairn gets first pick. And he remembers what your friend did to his face.”

“Hey,” Nny said, “It’s not my fault his nose was delicious.”

Yael gave her cousin a disturbed glance, then made a light chuckle.

“What the buck’s so funny?” asked a skeletal woman with a vial of potion in one hand, an old rifle with wood furniture that seemed to be held together through electrical tape slung over her back. Aegis and Yael recognized her then and there - Tia McCreary. Who was, by sheer coincidence, the sister of a PER man that Johnny C had crushed between the wheels of a large steam locomotive.

If it helped, the man had been a total dick.

The blood had taken way too long to wash out, and had caused more than a little trouble with dogs belonging to various security officers.

“Three things. First, you think this is my fault, for one, Tia McCreary,” Yael said. “‘Why did you make me kill you,’” she mimed. “That is how you sound. Second, you threatened our family. You told me yourself you know damn well what my cousin did to the last person who tried that. And third.” she flashed a glance at Johnny C, who was moving slightly, aligning himself between Barnes and one other PER man. “Have you seen my Heliotrope?”

“What?” asked the skeletal woman, evidently named Tia. “She’s been right next to you the whole time, of course we’ve seen-”

Heliotrope winked, and suddenly vanished.

“Grab her!” Tia screamed, and a PER man raced to where Heliotrope had been sitting, Lyra-style, hands outstretched…

Only for them to flap harmlessly against the wooden pew.

“PONIFY HER!” the skeletal woman screamed. “We need what’s in her head!”

A bearded man in ragged clothing uncorked his own vial, and poured it down on Yael’s arm…

Only for it to merely drip about an inch off her skin, and with a smell like an oilslick, evaporate. The PER man stared down, uncomprehending, at Yael’s arm…

Then the Jericho 941 aimed straight at his genitals, held in Yael’s right hand. “Shield, bitch.”

From where she was aiming, she could see Aegis’ foals moving behind him, saw him stand unflinching, like a stone wall, or a curiously horse-shaped altar that someone had placed in front of one of the synagogue doors.

She admired that.

“Even I don’t know where she is,” Yael said. “She probably disappeared as soon as you Chel'at ha'min ha'enoshi burst in.”

“And Snowshoes specifically tuned that so it winks before it disappears,” Nny added.

“ She. Could. Be. Anywhere.”

“Actually, I was pretty terrified," Aegis says.

“Well,” Yael says, “That… puts a bit of a damper on that moment. You inspired me, right then and there.”

“And me, too,” Heliotrope says.

“...Really?” Aegis asks. “Well that’s… huh. Wow. That’s nice to hear. Thanks.”

“It was a great, fatherly thing to do,” Kraber says solemnly.

Mr. Aegis looks down at his son and daughter, Rivet and Amber Maple, and smiles. They are already smiling at him.

“Th-” Amber Maple starts.

“Don’t thank me, Amber,” Aegis says. “It’s just what a father should do. And I’d do...”

“We’re here,” Rivet said, trotting over and trying (in vain) to hug his enormous father. “We know what you’d do.”

“He’s right,” Kraber says. “I did something like this once to PER - Eish! No, this was before the war. It’s not as bad as you think. But… Ja. It’s just like Aegis said. Still, though. Points for also doing it in front of PER.”

“You never like being held up by those ass-clowns,” you say.

“Dancing Day!” Scootaloo gasps.

“What?” you say. “Kraber says ‘fok’ like most of us use commas!”

Kraber shrugs. “Blame my upbringing.”

“That… explains a whole lot, considering your dad,” Aegis adds.

“Your dad is awesome,” Heliotrope adds. “Seriously, getting to learn from an actual 32 battalion man about insurgency tactics where he…”

“This explains soooo much,” Verity sighs. “Maybe that’s why you’re so fucking psy-”

“FOK JOU, VERITY!” Kraber yells all of a sudden. Then, almost apologetically, but not quite there: “...Fokkin love my dad.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” you say. “Time out. What’s with Kraber’s dad, anyway? Why are we suddenly talking about him?”

“His dad was 32 battalion,” Aegis explains. “He’s working for the PHL to train operatives. Some of which are Heliotrope.”

In response to this, Heliotrope waves cheerfully.

“Taught me everything I know about handling a gun, and kwaai soldiering,” Kraber explains. “Same with my brothers and sister. We’d hike through the mountain with weights, practice shooting on the beach, he’d make sure we stayed in shape…”

“That sounds abusive,” Rivet says, Verity nodding, surprised to agree.

“He’d also take us out for surfing and milkshakes afterwards, so there’s that,” Kraber points out.

“...And like that, my opinion changes,” Vinyl says, licking her lips hungrily.

“Were they good?” Rivet asks.

“Fokkin lekker. Oh, right, my upbringing! Anyway, dad’s even more foulmouthed than me,” Kraber says, earning a jaw-drop from Vinyl.

“Daaaaaaaaaaaamn,” Vinyl breathes.

“He really is,” Aegis adds.

Within the instant that Yael flicked her gaze over to Aegis, the world suddenly exploded into gore. Three sets of genitals were also destroyed, but this was more incidental than anything.

The first was that there was a PER man standing near the entrance whispering to a trembling child. “It’ll be fine, it’s ju - My BALLS!” he screamed, falling to the ground, a knife through his groin as he fell to the floor.

Excellent. Heliotrope had… Yael paused, the world slowing down around her. Wait. Heliotrope didn’t do that. Who had -

A nanosecond later, something invisible lacerated him with a latticework of long, bloody cuts. For a second, the blood covered a vaguely pony-shaped patch of air, then abruptly dripped down to the carpet.

The PER looked over at their comrade, seeing a bearded man - Kraber, but Francis to everyone in the synagogue - pull the knife out of the shredded PER man’s balls, and that was all the distraction Johnny C needed.

What Nny did there, Kraber will say, a little over four months later, was not drawing a gun. There wasn’t even a blur and then shooting. It was just that one infinitesimal fraction of a second, Nny had his hand on the pistol grip, the revolver still holstered. The next, the Colt Cascavel was simply out of the holster as if it had always been there, as if the world had skipped a few frames of animation of Nny whipping out the revolver.

All of a sudden the gun made a loud, double-echoing report. Everything in the vicinity of Barnes’ groin and bellybutton was suddenly a large, bloody hole, and he flew back about two feet. His head bounced awkwardly off a pew.

The PER man behind Barnes howled as the Pow’rball round from the revolver’s main barrel punched into his stomach. He screamed dropping forward, clutching his guts, trying to hold in the remains. He reached for a potion vial, only for Fiddlesticks to ram one foreleg into his stomach, the vial - still uncorked, thank god - dropping to the floor.

“That’s for Jenny,” Fiddlesticks hissed as he fell to the floor.

Meanwhile, Barnes, lying on the floor, clutching the bleeding ruins of his crotch, would have howled in pain, tried to pull himself up, and pulled out another potion vial, uncorked it, and dropped it on Johnny C….

...if not for the fact that Nny twisted, pirouetting like a ballerina, and positioning himself behind him, one large arm - his triceps were huge! - enclosing Barnes’ throat like a vise as he picked up Barnes. Cracks issued from what was left of his body. Nny fired that shotgun-sized revolver again, its report deafening, and a PER member’s skull was splattered against a wall. Everything above his lower jaw had simply vanished.

“Never. Threaten. My. Family,” Johnny C said, voice devoid of inflection, stutter gone.

As if to punctuate that, Yael fired her Jericho 941 into groin of the man holding her at potionpoint.

In the space of that moment, Kraber had rushed forward with an ugly smile on his face, an unstoppable, wiry juggernaut, stamping down on the downed man’s neck with one HLF-made boot. Another PER, this one a woman, collapsed, her head exploding, as Kraber fired the revolver again, blood and brains spraying everywhere. A teal pegasus newfoal, their painted-on cutie mark painfully obvious, found a .500 magnum round chopping right through their barrel, blue smoke wafting from the hole.

Fokkin lekker!

“God DAMN I love killing you bastards!” Kraber yelled, a huge smile on his face as he fired off another shot, de-jawing a PER man. “No matter what, I always feel like I’m doing a PUBLIC FOKKIN’ SERVICE!”

“What the hell?!” screamed one PER man, his mind sadly about 3 seconds behind the madness. A death sentence in these conditions, which was abruptly enforced as Aegis reared up and brought both hooves down on him, shattering his collarbones. Aegis didn’t even wince at his screams, no matter how much it had to hurt. He had no sympathy for PER – bastards always tried to steal the foals. And he’d seen them do so much worse that you’d have to get really creative to make him feel an ounce of sympathy.

“Come on, you’re going to be safe,” whispered another PER man, holding Aegis’ foals close to his chest. “Your dad might be Fallen, but–”

Johnny C shot the man. The pow’rball magnum round simply obliterated his skull. Johnny C’s expression remained unchanged right up until Heliotrope flickered back into visibility and sliced through the PER man about to potion him.

“Quick! Potion them, we have to save–”

The PER mare that had said that found one of Aegis’s massive hooves in her face, crushing much of her jaw. In the space of that moment, Fiddlesticks had grabbed her violin case and, rearing up, hoof TK gripping it firmly, drove it down onto a PER man, who simply collapsed to the ground.

“NOTHING LIKE A LITTLE SENSELESS VIOLINS, HUH?!” Kraber laughed, earning a nod of acknowledgment from Fiddlesticks as he fired his revolver again, the round pulping the PER earth pony’s stomach.

Yael stood up, Galil readied. Within the space of a second, two of the PER standing ten feet away simply fell apart, a purplish-pink pegasus pony flickering into existence, wings unfurled, revealing that they were lined with blades.

I could get to like these people, Kraber thought happy. Dammit, they had style! He whipped his revolver to the side, and exploded a PER pegasus’ skull with a .50.

“Please!” whimpered a third PER man, as he forced a vial down a child’s throat. “The Barrier’s unstoppable! This is the only thing we can do!”

Yael fired her rifle into the man’s skull, splattering his brains all over the poor kid. She whispered something that might have been “I’m sorry,” and shot the kid.

All around, PER fell. Putting it lightly, they’d fucked with the wrong people. People halfway through ponification found their warped limbs shot off, and those past the point of no return were dead.

“He was someone’s kid!” one of the few remaining PER yelled. “How could-”

Kraber held his .45 and .50 out and emptied both into the man, a round for each kneecap. The PER man collapsed onto one, then fell on his face as the other kneecap, utterly destroyed by the .500S&W, simply collapsed.

“THIS IS FOR MY FAMILY, JOU FOKKIN’ PIGFUCKERS!” Kraber cackled, and kicked the man in the face with his steel-toed boot.

A PER unicorn tried to throw a vial at Kraber, yelling incoherently. He just shrugged, twisting around, shooting the stallion in the throat with his revolver. The stallion’s head jumped off the neck by about a foot, blood spraying out in all directions.

It was utter madness, and Kraber continued with it as he strode over to the downed PER man and kicked him in the face again, shattering his nose.

And… in the space of a couple seconds, it was over. The whole stupid bloody mess.

“You bastards!” yelled Tia, the skeletal PER woman in front of the altar, the one that seemed to be the leader.

“Bimma,” Kraber corrects. “That’s what it was.”

Right. But she’d been holding a young child. “D-don’t,” she said, potion vial against her arm, shaking. “Wh-who are you? The thin man?”

Kraber stared her down, and she flinched. “My name is Strang,” he said. “I am the man your bitch-goddess will have nightmares about for the next few centuries of her miserable life.”

She flinched again. The girl in her arms screamed.

(“I don’t know if I’ve ever felt sympathetic for PER.... I don’t know if I ever will,” Aegis says, “But she looked pretty similar to you, Kraber. That same hollow-eyed, shaky look on her.”

“The fun was feeling… a bit…” Kraber cocks his head a little. “It was dropping out of there, a bit. Blood, a little girl crying, children dead… it was...”)

The pews were splintered. There were potion-amputees and dead PER lining the floor. Which would have brought a smile to Kraber’s face, except…

A bawling girl with tan-ish skin and black hair in a skeletal woman’s chokehold. A man with curly salt-and-pepper hair that looked like granite or marble screaming in what sounded like Hebrew to Kraber.

“Let my granddaughter go! Let my fucking granddaughter go, you world-ending whore-bitch!”

Except it was not anywhere near that polite.

Ja.

Some essential part of Kraber had switched off, or possibly back on, and old, paternal emotions were swirling within him. This fokkin’ loskind teef, Kraber thought. She thinks she can take a fokkin’ child? Look at this fokkin kontgesig! She’s gonna fokkin die or rot in a cell!

“We just wanted to help,” the woman said, trembling. “We… come on, look at us! We don’t have anyone left, the HLF killed us in Vermont and Portland! There’s no food, there’s no hope! And...” she stared down at Johnny C, who’d drawn his Leshiy up to bear, pointed right up at her.

“You killed my brother Joseph,” she breathed. “John Heald, you sonovabitch! He would’ve been so happy, but you ran him over!”

“Actually,” Fiddlesticks said, “He threw him between the wheels of a moving steam locomotive. It’s an important distinction.”

“Still think that’s kw… cool,” Kraber said.

“Thhhhhaanks?” Johnny C asked, visibly uncomfortable with this praise. “I worked hard at it.”

“Is that a hint of mercy in your voice?” Tia sneered.

“Trust me, it’s not. He was a total dick,” Fiddlesticks replied.

“Oh, definitely,” Johnny C said.

“Nny?” Heliotrope asked. “I love you and Fiddlesticks, but shut up.”

Nny looked over at her like he was about to argue, for a second anyway, then simply clammed up. As did Fiddlesticks, with a light nudge of one of Nny’s boots to her foreleg.

“The way it looks here,” Yael said, “You. Have. No. Options, McCreary. I’ve faced down PER suiciders with potion-bombs sewn into their skin that had more leverage than you.”

“How do you know I’m not one?” Tia asked.

“Call it woman’s intuition,” Yael said. “If you get out now, there are police already on the scene, probably. And I have Heliotrope.”

“She turns invisible and I make us all go pony!” Tia screamed, pulling out what looked like a wood-paneled remote. “We’ve got Shieldwall potion-bombs, and I can detonate enough of them that they’ll have to burn down this house of fucking lies to clean out the potion!”

“I have a decoy module!” Heliotrope yelled. “You think that bucking scares me?! How do you know I’m not already gone?!”

“Well then, do you think it scares this girl?!” Tia screamed. “Maybe I’ll just press the button anytime, huh?!” she was shaking.

She’s gonna crack, Kraber thought, with detached, clinical precision. Watching her potion hand shake.

“You’re bluffing,” Yael said, arching one elegant dark-brown eyebrow, her lime-green eyes stabbing into Tia like daggers. “If you had those bombs, you would’ve used them a long time ago. Or, if you have them and didn’t use them, you’ve got something to hide.”

“Why won’t you…” Tia asked. “Why…”

“Because unlike you, I was trained for this,” Yael said. “If you ever had an object in mind, you lost whatever it was here.”

“W-we needed ponypower,” Tia said.

“So,” Yael said. “You admit it. Trying to get newfoal labor for some covert op? I’m betting Portland played merry hell with your organization.”

“I’m guessing Fiddlesticks knocked your potionshaper out,” Heliotrope said, pointing at a gray unicorn that looked like it had a cracked horn. “So, either way, this isn’t going to end well for you.”

“She d-did,” Tia confirmed. “The yellow bitch did.”

Fiddlesticks stared up at Tia, her inky blue mane and tail wafting in a light breeze from an open window. This was completely at odds with the raw hatred in her eyes, and even Kraber felt a little unnverved from that.

I don’t even know if I’ve ever seen a pony that fokkin woedend for a human,’ he thought. The old, granite-bearded man standing nearby held out a glock with a slide that had once been silver.

“Either way, it’s over,” Yael said. “You. Have. Lost. Now put the potion down, McCreary. The PHL will treat you well if you surrender. You’re making it harder than this needs to be.”

“Even if I helped a murderer like you,” Tia said, holding the detonator out towards Yael in shaking hands as if it was a gun. The little girl in her arms screamed. “None of what you did matters. Do you know what’s coming? Even before Barrierfall?”

“You gave up, ya fokkin radgie cunt!” Kraber said, his voice like a whipcrack. And he was not sure if it was mostly directed at himself.

“YES! I gave up!” Tia howled. “I mean, what are we supposed to do?! The Barrier’s unstoppable! Everyone’s going crazy, and they…” he shook again, the open vial in his hand shaking. “Look at us. We’ll never go back! Look at you, Ze’ev! Israel’s gone, my home’s gone, and this’ll all be gone a year from now! This is all I can do anymore!”

The synagogue was silent.

“The crazy Edinburgher’s right,” Yael said. “You gave up. So, you could’ve just taken the potion, and been done with it. Why now? Why force it on all of us?”

“Cos’ we’re stubborn is why,” Tia said. “Cos’ all we can do…” the vial shook a little more… “Is just…”

The vial trembled.

“Hope Celestia will be merciful, Reitman smuggles her writings out of prison, you know. She says they won’t hate us. That humans are the most creative, adaptive creatures in the multiverse, able to survive our universe, and - even after transformation - stand tall as vital contributors that rejuvenate an entirely different univer-”

“She did not say thaaat,” you interrupt.

Vinyl, Kraber, Verity, and Aegis all look at you.

“...She did,” Vinyl sighs.

“ No, really, she did,” Aegis adds, pulling up a link on his computer. “I wish I was kidding.”

“...Wow,” Heliotrope says. “That is a whole new level of sad. Almost wish you went after her.”

“That would not have ended well,” Kraber says.

“I’m going to have to agree with him here,” Yael says.

“Actually,” Heliotrope says, “I have to ask: That…. that big show you made of telling Reitman ‘thank you’. Was that… was that acting?”

Kraber looks over at Heliotrope. He looks pale and bedraggled. Almost sickly. “I hope so. Mostly.”

The PER woman’s arm dropped the entire vial on the girl’s left arm, and Kraber saw red.

Everyone was staring at him as he whipped out the handcannon. Yael’s mouth was open, Heliotrope was flying towards him at a speed a crawling baby could outdo.

And Kraber fired.

“Fokkin poesneus, THAT MAKES NO FOKKIN SENSE AFTER THE KAK SHE’S PULLED!” Kraber yelled as the .50 impacted the girl’s left arm, punching through and into the PER woman’s.

‘Oh God, please, not another ponification on my conscience! Don’t let her be a zombie!’

He looked down at her for a nanosecond, saw her arm ponified halfway to the elbow, lying on the rail, and looked on in relief for a brief nanosecond. Saw Tia staring at the stump of her wrist, not comprehending, and-

BANG

The old man’s Glock fired, one 9mm round punching through her shoulder. She spasmed, the detonator dropping to the floor.

Kraber nodded, approving, and cannoned across the room and drove a right hook into Tia’s throat. Tia choked, gasping, but not before whipping out a knife coated in potion.

“Nice try, slugga,” Kraber whispered, ducking to one side, and punching her in the gut, lifting her up just on the strength of his fist. The PER woman gasped, trying to reach for another corked vial of potion….

'No. Escape will not be so easy.'

Only for Kraber to grab it, drop it on the floor, and headbutt the woman, and grab both shoulders. Thrusting her shoulders down, Kraber drew one knee up into her throat!

She gasped, and Kraber threw a right haymaker into the side of her head, knocking her to one side. Kraber followed up with a left hook, then a right uppercut under the jaw. He hadn’t bliksemed anyone like this since Sylvia!

...Why did that make him feel like more of a kontgesig than he had for about the past 72 hours?

‘Good. Make her suffer. Make her feel pain. She deserves it. She is your enemy.’

“Not so fun when we don’t want to be bloody zombies horses, is it?!” he yelled, and drove a boot up into her face. There was a crack. “You people are all the SAME!”

Kraber threw out a wild right uppercut, then a left hook to the stomach.

“You think you're so fokking smart! You are just like all the other PER I’ve killed!”

Punch

“Oh yeah, with all of our wonderful vials of potion and a hormonal fokking bitchwhore of a goddess protecting us compared to these pathetic fokkin humans, there's no way anyone can fokkin stop us!”

Whipping an arm out to the side, smashing it against the side of her skull.

“We are invincible and fokking unbeatable! We are SO FOKKING STRONG with all of our men and our fokking potion that turns everyone into stupid little pop-up targets!"

A kick in the knee, more like a slightly angled stomp leaving the PER woman stumbling, clutching her leg. There was a crack, and she slumped down on that leg.

“Hahaha! You are my absolute favorite people to kill! You are so beautifully amazed when you die!”

“Francis, what the hell are you doing?!” Aegis yelled.

Then Kraber drew back, like he was playing football, and drove his boot up into her face once more. There was another crack, and a spray of blood and other assorted fluids.

'Thats right. Vengeance. Justice. Death. You understand. You always understood.'

“Especially when I squish! Your brains! BETWEEN MY FINGERS! LIKE I’M MAKING FOKKING SAUSAGE!”!” Kraber roared, both hands on the woman’s face, thumbs inching into her eye sockets.

“What the hell is he doing?!” Heliotrope yelled.

“Someone get him off her, he’s gone crazy!” Yael yelled from somewhere far-off.

“I approve,” the old man said in hebrew.

'Those who betray their own kind to the whim of a Tyrant deserve nothing but the worst pain we can inflict.'

He was gonna grab that fokkin varknaaier’s skull and smack it against the floor of the synagogue, smiling the whole fokkin’ time as he gouged out her eyes with his thu–

And then, then Kraber heard the girl whose arm he’d amputated with his pistol. She was crying. Nobody behind him looked very happy - they were afraid. Of what he was doing. Of him. Yael and Nny had weapons pointed at him. Sixstring was cowering, barely poking his head out from behind a pew.

For a second, he heard Sylvia, then Caduceus accusing him of enjoying it.

Which he was, but wasn’t there something more important to do?

‘What the fok am I doing? Didn’t I… didn’t I want to help people?’

What are you doing?!

‘Something you wouldn’t understand. Now fok off. I have work to do.’

No. He wasn’t going to enjoy it now. If she could move after that beating, he’d be surprised. So, that said, he turned towards the little girl with the missing arm. “Sorry you had to see that,” Kraber said, trying to remain quiet as he walked over to her. “And sorry she’s still conscious. I guess I need to work on my right hook.”

The old man rushed to Kraber’s side.

“Are you… doctor?” the man with the granite-colored beard asked, his accent thick as cement. Kraber shrugged.

Tia pulled out another vial, screaming and weeping.

“Don’t,” Heliotrope said, decloaking next to Tia, hoof on her one remaining arm. There was a wry, malicious grin on her face that was practically begging Tia to do something other than stay still, because Heliotrope would probably really enjoy it if she did.

“And, uh, that. Here. I’m a doctor,” Kraber said sheepishly, pulling off his T-shirt and wrapping it around her arm stump. “Or at least, the closest we have. It’s going to be fine, little girl. Don’t worry. Just... ” Kraber holstered his pistols. “Just keep calm.”

“You’re going to be fine, the old man said. “I promise, Liora.

“Anything I can do to help?” Fiddlesticks asked, before looking at his stomach. “Not bad at all…”

“At moment…” the old man said. “Yellow pony. Can you help Liora?”

“Any way I can,” Fiddlesticks said.

“Good enough,” the old man said.

“Here’s a bit of maple candy,” Kraber said, holding out a box he’d nicked from around Aegis’ house. “Just… just nibble on this. You’re going to be fine.”

“What… what’s that?” the girl asked. Fok. She’d gone into shock.

“Sweet, sugary medicine,” Kraber said softly. “Try it, it’s delicious!” He held it out. “Just keep it all in your mouth. You’ll be fine.”

Hesitantly, she put it in her mouth, and smiled.

“You’re going to need to relax,” Kraber said, applying pressure to the wound with both hands, trying to ignore the wet blood welling up between his fingers. “Fok.” He wrapped his t-shirt ever tighter around her stump. “Just stay still,” he said, slowly wrapping the shirt around the stump. “Relax, think happy things, like, I don’t know, a wolf pup with the hiccups. Or tiny red wolf pups nibbling on… stuff.”

"You were thinking about that time you fed PER to red wolves, weren’t you, Yael says.

"It was just the one time!” Kraber protests. "But yes. Yes I was.”

"Gross…” Yael sighs.

"I was helping the environment! Those wolves are critically endangered! ...And the puppies were adorable.”

"I am so glad I didn’t think of that,” you say.

"I didn’t… I didn’t ruin that mental image for you, did I? That one time?” Kraber asks. "It’s just, I mean, a soothing thing, I think…. I don’t want to ruin it.”

"No, it helped,” you say. "I didn’t see the video.”

"Oh thank you Lord,” Kraber sighs, slumping a little. "I’ve done horrible things, but I’ll be damned if I fokkin’ ruin that for a filly.”

"And this is an improvement how?” Verity asks.

"Well, it’s something,” Aegis admits.

“Just… just keep calm,” he said, speaking to her like he used to speak to Anka. “I need someone to keep her warm!”

“On it,” Fiddlesticks said. “Just lean against me, kid.”

“You’re soft,” the girl murmured.

“Is there a hospital we can get her to? Anywhere?!” Kraber asked, trying not to yell. Above all, a doctor had to stay calm and detached. They couldn’t let the blood get to him. And he, he was a professional there, wasn’t he?

From today onwards, he was going to be better. He was gonna be a correct ou or just kill himself. ...Okay, fok that. Fok that defeatist kak. He wasn’t going to fail, he was going to fokking try every hour, every second of his life here.

It was right about then that a motley assortment of men and women with guns burst into the room.

“We heard they were coming!” yelled one man with a battered old FAL. “Alright, we-”

At the first glimpse of Aegis, he shouldered the FAL.

“You’re not doing anything,” Yael said, as if merely stating the sky was blue, turning toward the motley assortment of people, shouldering her Galil.

Kraber looked over the ragtag group of men and women that had come in, all holding ancient slapgat weapons that looked to have been pieced together from scrapheaps, or were wrapped in tape or cloth. HLF, then.

Wait, fok. HLF! They… Oh. Fok. Fok fok fok fok. He looked them over, trying to recognize a few faces. Nothing he’d recognize from wanted posters, but he could see a horse skull with a crown dangling on the side emblazoned on the jackets of a few.

Aaron O’Donnell’s Sons of Macha. He thought he recognized a few of Lovikov’s-

“Menschabwehrfration?” Yael asked, standing up to her full height. Which was an inch or two over most of the HLF standing in the synagogue. “What’re you doing here?”

“We were told the PER were here,” one woman said. “We came to-”

You could join them…

‘Or I could have sex with a loaded gun.’

‘Well, you know what they say. Happiness is a warm gun…’ Victory suggested, suddenly bursting into off-key singing.

Hou hou fokkin bek, jou fokkin loskind, Kraber thought. “It’s awright,” Kraber said. “Thaire’s nae more PER tae kill. Yuir joab’s bin done awready.”

“But… but we were told…” one HLF man said indignantly, looking at the PER corpses and half-formed newfoals spread over the red carpet of the synagogue floor. Grotesqueries, or casket-closers, they were called. For good reason.

“You were told what?” Yael asked, Galil ready. “Go on. You’ve got my attention.”

The HLF didn’t lower their rifles.

“Whatever you’re thinking about,” Heliotrope said, “Do us all a favor and don’t. You know what we’d do.”

“I can’t believe any of you,” one HLF woman said. “Working with the enemy…”

“Hey,” Heliotrope said, “You think I like newfoals more than any one of you? Cause Aegis and I think they’re terrifying.”

“Why?” asked an HLF woman, barely out of her teens.

“Mercedes,” an HLF man practically hissed. “They’re just more geldos, what could they possibly-“

“‘Scuse me,” Kraber said. “Bit dae ya ken that purplish-pink pony up there? Heliotrope? Ya ken what she can dae, right?”

“I hate ‘em cause Celestia thinks they’re better ’n me,” Aegis said. “The ideal citizen is an unquestioning zombie that used to be someone with family, dreams… and apparently, the person they used to be doesn’t matter.”

“The bitch is turning you all intae tin soldiers,” Kraber suggested.

“Exactly,” Aegis agreed.

“Huh?” asked the woman, evidently named Mercedes.

“Eh, before your time,” Yael said, not unkindly. “It’d take too long to explain the reference, and I think my friends need to explain this right now.”

‘“No time for references? Oh, that is kak! That’s kinda what we do here…’ Victory muttered.

‘For once, I agree with you,’ Kraber thought.

“You bitch, Ze’ev,” one HLF man hissed. “You killed so many of my friends last week! Do you even feel any regre-”

“Actually, yes,” Yael said. The HLF man’s jaw dropped.

“Me, though, I hate them because it’s worse than murder,” Heliotrope said. “Don’t even know if there’s anything left of who they used to be. And they… they’re just not people anymore. They’re not even sentient, and if you believe I agree with Equestria-”

“The home you should go back to-”

“Fuck oooooofffffff~” Fiddlesticks sang.

“That turning people into… those… things is a service, well, you’re a moron.”

“Emergency services should be coming soon,” Johnny C said, pocketing his cell phone. “Thanks for keeping her safe, Mr. Strang.”

“Call me Francis,” Kraber said, making sure for what felt like the umpteenth time that the bleeding had stopped. His old, ratty t-shirt seemed to have done the work, but you could never be sure.

Nny was staring at the bare chest under Kraber’s olive-green jacket - the hair, the scars, prominent collarbones.

“Impressive scars,” Nny said, nodding. “They look familiar, though…”

“Why the hell would you work with a pony to do that?!” another HLF man yelled.

“...Cause she asked nicely?” Kraber asked, raising an eyebrow.

It was right about then that the police showed up, along with a few paramedics. Most of them looked on with disgust at Sixstring, Fiddlesticks, Aegis, his family, and Heliotrope, the only six ponies in there that weren’t PER, dead, or both.

“...You alright?” Aegis asked, forelegs around his foals, hugging them so tightly that you’d think he might crush them.

“We’ve seen worse,” Amber Maple said, voice trembling.

“It’s true, I had!” Amber Maple protests.

“I wouldn’t think that makes it easier, though,” Aegis says, hugging his daughter.

Amber sniffles. “It… it doesn’t.”

“No,” Rivet said, looking downcast. “It really doesn’t.”

“Feel sorry for you then, if you’re stuck with ponies and horsefuckers as friends,” one paramedic sighed, as they lifted her onto a stretcher. An old, spidery man with a wispy mustache followed her stretcher to the hospital.

“And I feel sorry for you,” Yael said, “for being such a sonovabitch.”

“Excuse me?” the paramedic asked.

“Without the ponies in here like Heliotrope and Aegis,” Yael said, “we’d all be newfoals. Now. Kindly shut your mouth.”

“Who do you think you are?”

“She’s Yael Ze’ev,” Heliotrope said. “Thoughts?”

They all shut up.

“... Bastards,” Johnny C sighed, collapsing against a pew. “They got blood on this dress, it’ll take way too long to wash off, I’ll have to change clothes.”

“Nah, keep it,” Fiddlesticks said. “It’s, ah… it’s still a good look.” She was shaking from the suddenness of the violence.

“Who was that man, anyway?” Heliotrope asked. As the HLF men filtered out, she heard something weird from one: “Could have sworn the Hotline-”

“Angel,” someone insisted. “Saying it’s a hotline is-”

“The Hotline told us they’d be here…”

“That’s her granddaddy,” Rivet explained.

“Oh,” Kraber said. “Are her parents…”

“We don’t ask,” Aegis explained. “You know… all these PER probably have bounties on them. ‘Specially her. Tia McCreary. Over a hundred confirmed ponifications to her name. Sister of that PER guy Johnny C crushed-”

“Chopped apart,” Fiddlesticks corrected. “It was reeeeally bloody.”

“-chopped apart with a steam locomotive last January,” Aegis corrected himself.

“I still like the sound of that,” Kraber said, contemplating how bloody that might get. “Wait, a hundred? Huh. So that’s why you didn’t shoot me.”

“Look, you have to understand,” Fiddlesticks said, “You were scaring the piss out of me.”

“What the he… ck was that, anyway?” Rivet asked. “You were brutal! It was kinda awesome, but…”

Except he’d been saying that in a tone that implied that as he was making this statement, he was saying it as if he was steadily finding it less and less awesome.

“Mostly awful,” Rivet admitted, looking down.

‘Dear Kate, I’m something you’d hate, can you forgive me for this…’, Kraber thought.

“Not the death doctor, with the hungry scalpel, here’s my prog- Victory started.

NO! FOK THAT! NONE OF THAT! SHAME ON YOU! Kraber thought. NOT THE TIME! TIME AND PLACE! KONTGESIG!

“But ponies have spontaneous musical numbers all the time! And that one’s perfect for you! The audience is probably already pissed off enough that Pinkie Pie’s in one of the character tags but barely appears…”

‘I have no idea what that means,’ Kraber sighed inwardly.

“Are you sure, you... “ Amber Maple couldn’t finish. She was hiding behind her father.

"....It’s not like it was hard,” Amber Maple points out. "Even Vinyl could do that.”

"Really?”” Vinyl asks. "Let me try.”

"Seriously, Vinyl?” Aegis sighs.

"For your daughter? Please? Amber Maple asks. "Pleeeeease?”

And so Vinyl does, as Aegis just stands, looking very undignified and irritated that he has to do this. Vinyl slinks, almost catlike, like a pegasus operative like Heliotrope, low to the ground. Her hooves still clip-clip-clop against the ground.

But when Aegis sees the gleeful look on his daughter’s face, the irritation just melts away, and it’s replaced with an almost beatific smile.

Kraber tries to stifle a chuckle. “C’mon, we can still hear you, Vinyl?”

“Sssssh,” Vinyl says, managing the goofiest tone she possibly can, “I’m being sneaky!”

And, when Vinyl is completely behind Aegis, invisible but for a few spikes of electric-blue mane and fail, you and Kraber just burst into thunderous guffaws.

“I… don’t know if I pointed this out to everyone,” Kraber said, trying to slot into his Francis persona. “But before the war, in Edinburgh… I had a family. A son, a daughter, a lovely wife. I’d actually trusted the PER, back then… my wee bairns were sickly.”

Technically true. They had been sickly, a bit, and autistic. ‘Oh, fok off. What’re vaccines going to do? Give them autism?’ Kraber had said to a particularly annoying parent.

“They were ponified,” Amber Maple said. “That’s what he said last night.”

“I thought… I thought that newfoals would be anyone but my children, or that they’d be the same people,” Kraber said. “I was wrong. I didn’t want to believe Equestria would do somehing so fokkin’ awful. But… I lost my whole family, including a cousin. He was one of the more stable ones, but he just… he just collapsed. He must’ve gotten a bad strain, cause he just.... he...” Kraber sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I guess that explains a lot,” Sixstring said. “But… you’re not doing anything like that to me or my-”

“No,” Kraber said, surprised at his own solemnity. “Never again.”

“Good,” Aegis said. “There’s plenty of people out there who went for revenge. Don’t want you to end up like Kraber.”

Oh, the irony, Kraber said, sighing, trying to keep a solemn face. Which he hoped nobody could see for what it really was: An attempt to keep himself from cracking up.

“There’s nothing wrong with revenge,” Yael said. “The real danger is revenge that’s misdirected.”

“Words to live by,” Kraber said, thinking on that.

“Well, that was a bit unnerving,” Yael agreed. “So… any of you gonna collect the bounty soon? I’m not technically allowed to collect it.”

“Well, I think a lot of these people need it more than me,” Kraber said. “It’ll go to anyone in the area that needs it. Anyone else in agreement?”

Nobody could find it in themselves to argue with that.

“That’s... very generous of you,” Yael said, taken a little aback.

“I got fokkin’ tired of not helping anyone out,” Kraber said, smiling back at her. And that would be the start of a beautiful friendship. “And tired of what you said was misdirected revenge. Far as I can tell… nah. Fok the shit I was gonna say about owing people. It’s the right thing to do, obligation or not.” He shrugged. “Besides, I already stole most of the pistols the PER had.” He opened his coat, showing it filled with pistols, each shoved into a small slit. “Figured I’d sell them.” He paused, and looked over on one PER man’s back. “Huh. Ithaca 37. Taking this!”

“Hey, my brand!” Johnny C said.

And so, with all the blood being cleaned up, the little girl carted off to a hospital, and Kraber reloading his weapons, the service finished. The police had come, and everyone was trying – and failing – to cool down after the shootout.

“Where’d you learn to fight like that?” Yael asked, as they walked into the other room for bagels… which, Johnny C assured them through the use of a PHL-Crowe potion detector, had not been poisoned.

“Had a military dad that let me practice with his pistol, but mostly self-taught,” Kraber explained. “I had a lot ay time to practice since Edinburgh got evacuated.”

Actually, Kraber’s father Paul, a defiantly ugly ex-32 Battalion man with an unforgettable face due to having weathered a kalashnikov creasing it and extending the widow’s peak, several knife wounds, and high cheekbones, had taught him to do so on the coast of Cape Town. They’d gone surfing, plenty of times, and his father had taken him to an indoor shooting range to practice with a 1911, and they’d eaten lunch at the nearest Nando’s. It’d been a good time.

As it happened, “Fight so you never have to again,” had been an actual piece of advice to Kraber and his four siblings.

“Wait, why were you outside?” Heliotrope asked.

“Needed some fresh air,” Kraber said, reaching into his pocket for a speedloader for his revolver… and finding that he’d run out. “Ah, shite! I’m oot!"

“I have a friend that can help with that,” Johnny C said. “His name’s Philip Hauser, he should be selling revolvers and other guns down near the art walk.”

Kraber paused for a second, only for Heliotrope to take the words right out of his mouth. “Who the hell sells guns at an art exhibition?!”

“Phil is a weird guy,” Johnny C said. “Besides, the shop was here first.”

“Tell me about it,” Aegis sighed.

“...What a mess,” Heliotrope sighed. “Might as well go down to the art walk afterwards, that was a nightmare.”

“...Sorry,” Kraber said.

“What? Nah, you were great! I wish I could make an entrance like that!”

“But… bit you’re Heliotrope,” Kraber said, confused. Heliotrope was fairly well known to HLF as one of the most dangerous PHL ponies, capable of flying in near-complete silence, impossible to see till it was too late. “Aren’t you supposed tae be quiet?”

“Can’t a mare enjoy being the Element of Surprise?” Heliotrope chuckled, rummaging through the bodies of one of the PER members. “You weren’t even invisible, and you still got ‘em!”

“Oh, trust me, I’ve got more to learn from you than the other way around,” Kraber said.

“Huh?” Heliotrope asked, pulling something out from one PER member’s backpack. “Ugh, I hate potion. Just being in the same room as it makes want to take a shower. For like, a year.”

“What is it, Heliotrope?” Yael asked.

“I recognize all this,” Heliotrope said. “It’s…” she looked confused. “These are some damn weird components.”

“Ah huvnae idea what’s gaun oan,” Kraber said.

“What’s going on?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“They’re…” Heliotrope looked confused. “Back during the Crystal War, we didn’t have portal stations to get ponies into hostile territory. We made teleport matrixes. We’d drive the spikes into the ground, preferably hidden somewhere, and ponies would teleport in. I actually worked more on invisibility matrixes - as you can see here-“ she gestured with one hoof to the old brown flightsuit she wore, a battered, patched up and out-of-date model that looked nothing like what Kraber had come to associate with Wonderbolts, on the few occasions that he’d seen footage of them. Heliotrope’s suit, however, had been modified with spells that let her go invisible. “We switched over to portal stations toward the end of the war.”

”The Wonderbolts are a joke,” Scootaloo says dismissively, and you all look at her, disturbed.

Scootaloo loves flight, after all, and from what you can tell, she idolized Rainbow Dash before the War.

It is like watching Kraber decide he doesn’t like shrimp and grits, as if a piece of identity has been missing this whole time and you never noticed.

“What?” Scootaloo asks. “I’ve been working with Spitfire. She’s trying to give me flight lessons…” and you can hear somepony that must’ve been an idealistic little filly in there, somewhere deep. Years ago, this would have been a dream come true to her. If not for the fact that her parents were Empire Loyalists and she left without them, if her hero hadn’t turned into a monster. If only. “…And that’s what she says.”

“She say anything about Heliotrope?” Aegis asks. For all his… relationship… with Kraber, the one that lead them to share one large bed, he did like Heliotrope.

“She says she wishes she’d scouted Heliotrope out,” Scootaloo says with a smile.

“Really?” Heliotrope gasps. “Bitchin’!”

“But what she said about the Wonderbolts is that they’ve gone for quantity over quality. Being a Wonderbolt used to be prestigious, but now? It’s a glorified air force.”

“How the mighty have fallen,” Heliotrope says, and sighs. “I used to have this plushie of General Afterglow-”

“A General Afterglow plushie!” Scootaloo gasps. “I tried to get one of those for years, and you just happen to have one?!”

“Well, yeah,” Heliotrope says. “I’ve kept it sewn up for a long time.”

“Amarezing…” Scootaloo breathes.

“It really is!” Aegis adds. “Things are worth more than a vintage Smarty Pants-”

“Guys…” Kraber sighs. “Can we get back to the story?”

“Says the man that sleeps with a stuffed horse,” Vinyl says, a mischievous smile on her face.

“It’s a good pillow!” Kraber protests.

“He’s not lying, it really is,” Aegis adds.

“That’s Verity, isn’t it?” Heliotrope interrupts.

“Eeeyup,” Aegis says.

“Okay, that’s hilarious,” Heliotrope says, starting to la-

“Don’t,” Kraber and Yael say at once, surprised to hear the other say so. Of course, Aegis added that in too.

“It was funny,” Kraber admits.

“You son of a-” Verity starts.

“...In some fokkin’ horrible kafkaesque way,” Kraber finishes.

“That’s not kafkaesque!” Verity protests.

“Verity, in the past few days I’ve seen you get the most cruelly ironic punishment I’ve ever seen, get stuck among people you hate…” Kraber says, counting on his fingers. “And overall have worse luck than Nny at an airport.”

“Which is really saying something,” Aegis says. “Nny once got his flight delayed by three weeks.”

“But he took a vacation after that,” Heliotrope says, confused. “So is that good luck or…”

“Guys,” Aegis sighs. “We’re-”

“Getting off topic,” Kraber says.

Everyone turns towards Kraber, shocked.

“Yes, out of character, I fokkin’ well know,” Kraber sighs. “The point is, Verity, you suffered so many horrible things here that it got funny-”

Verity groans.

“Then it got sad. Then,” he says, pondering, “I thought it was funny again, but nah, it was fokkin’ flou and I was being a kontgesig the whole way through. And I’m sorry for that, Verity. That, that’s definitely kafkaesque,” Kraber finishes. “But I saw her get disowned over videochat. I know what the HLF does to its ponified members-”

“Oh God,” says Elena Shapiro, that HLF woman who’d barely talked since Kraber got beaten up by Verity. She looks sick, and Babs trots up to her chair and holds her. You can tell, then and there, that she has a long story buried deep in there that she doesn’t want to remember.

“...Yeah,” Kraber says. “Verity and I are going to fokkin piss each other off, no matter what. But if her hating me is the worst it gets, then so be it.”

“It's not like I can do much else,” Verity mutters.

“Just hope that they don’t get some anomalous newfoal,” Kraber says. And you know what he means - it’s quite often that the potion screws up. Given that quantity is what the war machine runs on, something’s bound to go wrong with the ponification process. Kraber’s seen it before.

“But I know what a teleport matrix looks like. They’re unreliable, and need a hell of a lot more precision to work. Everyone liked being able to do this, but portal stations were just so much easier” She pulled out a wooden rod with lightly glowing carvings, an assortment of gems, (valuable to the PHL - there was a fat finder’s fee for thaumic components taken from PER or Equestrian units) and what looked like a compass. When she opened it, she could see an assortment of gears, some less then a millimeter in diameter, gently whirring.

“It’s weird, though,” Heliotrope said, looking through a dead pony’s saddlebag. “It’s almost like… a modernized teleport matrix, but nobody makes these anymore. But I don’t get it. Why would they do this?”

“It’s a good question,” Yael said. “By the way, Heliotrope, I’ve been thinking. Can you… can you shadow those HLF men a bit? I have some questions.”

“Right,” Heliotrope said.

“But don’t kill them or beat them up,” Yael added. “I just need you to listen in.”

It had been an hour later. Things had almost… sort of… kind of settled back into normalcy.

Kind of.

Much as things could be said to ever be normal when they were all probably going to die within about four years, but it was the next best thing.

Heliotrope

It bothered Yael. Which meant, by extension, it bothered Heliotrope.

How had the HLF managed to cotton onto a PER attack? And found out that Shieldwall was in the area? HLF, for all they hated the PER, were very poor information-gatherers. Usually. There were a few units out there, much as you could call them units, that could do information-gathering. And the HLF rarely managed to gain a PER informant. Never a plant.

So what was going on?

Heliotrope flew after the HLF truck, a big, bulky vehicle that looked like a repurposed coal truck. There’d been a roof installed over the back, and the hydraulics looked to have been replaced. Her invisibility flightsuit was active the whole way.

Thank God these people actually obeyed the speed limit. It would’ve been almost trivial for Heliotrope to outpace the truck, but with all the twists and turns on the road, it would’ve been exhausting.

Good thing she could fly, or this’d be really horrible. She was just barely at the truck…

She reached in her saddlebags, just behind her SMGs, and pulled out a small listening device. It would have been easy, almost trivial, to have reached for a small bomb, put it near the axle, but…

Something about that didn’t feel right, though. Firstly, that’d be going against orders. Secondly, these people had… at least they’d been trying at doing something good.

The scenery blew past her as she rocketed towards the truck. It was quite beautiful, she reflected. Shame she couldn’t have gone here Pre-War. Shame that she wouldn’t have been friends with Yael or known her charming, oddball cousin without the War. Without Kraber having shot her, Yael visiting her in the hospital…

Cyprus, 2019, Varosha, Famagusta

It was not where Heliotrope had hoped to be. Fleeing the Barrier, and the madness in Turkey, a few kind Turkish humans (who would name a country after a bird?) had dragged her into a boat and she’d ended up in this city.

It was… It was massive. The concrete buildings would tower over most that she’d seen in any city in Equestria. Well. Cities that weren’t pegasus cities, anyway. They were ugly, slab-sided, utilitarian… and built with no assistance from magic at all. None of it had been.

And the bullet that hit her, fired by a bloodthirsty, smiling man with high cheekbones and a wild beard, had no magic behind it. Just engineering.

She knew the man was Viktor Kraber. She knew he’d shot up virtually anything pony-made in the past few months.

And she knew, from the X-rays, that she’d almost been killed. The bullet had hit her in the leg, punched through her cutie mark, and gone out her flank.

Which had left her in a cast, one leg in traction, as she lay on her back in the field hospital in what looked like an abandoned human city. Probably because, well, it was. The local human government, the one with the name that sounded like a silly bird, had exiled every one of its residents almost 50 years ago, and never let them back.

The Empire’s soldiers, the Royal Guard, and newfoal conscripts, would say it was a reason humanity should’ve been exterminated for doing it.

The screaming human child who’d lost his arm to potion, his sheets covered in blood, presumably disagreed. As did the tall, mournful-looking, brownish-skinned human mare - woman with the green eyes and thick black hair.

The place was on the verge of collapse, and unsafe in the extreme. Which, again, it probably was.

But with the Barrier on the move, chaos in Turkey and Europe, and people like Kraber running around, people couldn’t be choosy.

Though Heliotrope wished she could have chosen to be anywhere but here. The room was crumbling, and full of wounded refugees.

“Ow ow ow bucking ow,” Heliotrope groaned. “I can’t even move with this thing!”

“If you don’t,” said the tall, thin, brownish-haired, black-haired human woman that’d been walking through the improvised field hospital. “It’ll never quite heal right.” She lifted her leg and pointed it outwards, toe pointed like a dancer. She pulled up one leg of her pants, and Heliotrope saw a long scar, a little stretched, a little wobbly. It looked old, and was barely noticeable against her dark (by human standards) skin. “Fell down once during dance practice, she said. “Cut it open on a nail and broke my leg. Tried to go and dance after three weeks, too.”

“I’m guessing that didn’t work out,” Heliotrope said.

“Nah,” the woman said. “Had to stay in there seven more. It should’ve been six, but dad was afraid I’d do something stupid.”

“Parents, huh?” Heliotrope asked. “Are… are yours okay?”

“I hope,” the woman said. “Yael Ze’ev. IDF Rabat - it’s something like a corporal,” she said, holding out one of her hands.

Heliotrope just raised an eyebrow, staring up at her leg. And then, there had been a hilarious misunderstanding where Heliotrope had thought Yael had said she was a rabbit. But that wasn’t the point.

“I’m military too,” Heliotrope said. “Used to be a skyliner engineer, but… let’s just say that Captain Cactus and I had a polite disagreement.”

SLAP

“WHY ARE YOU SUCH A-”

”And that’s when I started swearing,” Heliotrope finished.

”Is that a superhero or something?” Yael asked.

“Nah, that’s my old captain,” Heliotrope said. “He got caught in a Crystal Empire weapon… apparently, there was just enough Crystal Pony in him to blunt it, and the doctors were…” Heliotrope sighed. “All you need to know, rabbit…”

Yael just raised an eyebrow. Though this was more out of being mildly irritated than being oversensitive, because it was a bit of a low-hanging fruit.

“I couldn’t help myself, okay? Sheesh,” Heliotrope sighed. “Corporal. Anyway, the Cap survived, except he had a few spikes sticking out of him. We all called him cactus. Real name was tumbleweed, though. I… really hope he retired.”

“What makes you say that?” Yael asked.

“I know what newfoals are like,” Heliotrope said. “They’re passive to the orders of a superior to a fault. That’s not going anywhere good. The Cap was a great leader, Corporal. I don’t want to see this war turning him into a monster either.”

“Fair,” Yael said. “So… how’d you get here?”

“Why’re you asking?” Heliotrope asked.

“I…” Yael said, shaking. “Some HLF beat up my sister. I don’t know if she’s going to be okay. I just… I needed to be… I needed to be…” she took a breath. “I just needed to find somewhere quiet. I was going to walk through here, but you got me curious. Being a pony and all.”

“Wait,” Heliotrope said. “HLF beat up your sister? One of those bastards shot me, too! It was Viktor Kraber, I think-”

“I actually liked what he was going for at first,” Yael. “But… him. People like him have killed too many innocents. The bastards have no sense of collateral damage!”

Oh, the irony...

“Somebody has to go after people like that,” Heliotrope said, surprised by her conviction. “Is it… are there governments that’ll turn us away? Join the HLF?”

“Not mine,” Yael said, and Heliotrope believed, really believed that Yael had known that like up was up and down was down.. “That’s not what my country was founded for.”

“Then I’m enlisting with you,” Heliotrope said, surprised at her own conviction. “I’m not much of an engineer. But I can rig things up. You’re probably going to want somepony that knows magic, and I can be your mare.”

“You’re going against your country?” Yael asked, surprised.

“They’re not mine if this is what they do,” Heliotrope had said. “Yes - humans have done awful things. But so have we. And two wrongs do not make a right. And… I’ve seen so many ponies judging humans, as if none of our nation’s principles apply to you. As if you’re just… I don’t know, less than the beasts of the Everfree. I think that’s shit. I am going to help people here, HLF be bu… damned.”

“Well, you’ve got one supporter,” Yael said, a smile on her face. “I’ll make sure you can enlist soon as possible.”

“For your sister,” Heliotrope said, holding out a hand.

“For every pony that just wants out of the empire,” Yael said. “Friends?”

And Heliotrope had smiled as well. “Friends,” she agreed.

Heliotrope remembered every moment of that day. For that, she’d become Yael’s best friend. For that, Heliotrope would do anything - cause Yael had made the effort to understand. Cause Yael had found that she liked ponies, set aside her worst impulses, and planned to do her best.

For what Yael had done to help refugees, especially the ones that had been trapped in basements all over Nipville, for the humanitarian efforts, for sticking to the PHL no matter what, Yael was worth a hundred, no, a thousand Krabers. On top of that, the place had been embezzling PHL tech, and making its various refugees pay ‘protection’ taxes thanks to an HLF slumlord.

Why did everyone forget that they’d taken a lot of prisoners from there, anyway? The Reavers had been pissed about that one.

Still. Heliotrope couldn’t help but feel a twinge of regret over the collateral.

They’re not even doing anything, she thought. Plus, I saw kids with them. So: No. Yael would understand. She’d probably be more pissed if Heliotrope blew it up.

She placed a bug on the truck, and listened in on the conversation inside.

“Did that scotsman in there look familiar, or was it just me?” one Russian-accented man asked.

“Must be you,” another one said. Heliotrope couldn’t place the accent. “I didn’t see anything odd bout him.”

“Fucking Ze’ev and Heliotrope were there!” somene else was saying. Their voice was literally painful to listen to, a tortured, eye-wateringly cacophonous voice. “We should’ve killed ‘em.”

“Do you want to die, Ides?” the Russian man snapped. “We’ll never cut out the Reavers or kill off the Empire if we do that.”

Heliotrope’s eyes went wide. ‘Ides’ - could it be… Richard Ides? Everyone had said his voice sounded terrible. In an intercepted communication, Kraber had once said that Ides’ voice reminded him of a cat being violently molested against a chalkb-

Your mother glares up at Heliotrope.

“Well, I did say it,” Kraber points out. “Blame my upbringing.”

“Is that bastard still around?” Vinyl asks. “He nearly got my co…”

Kraber looks over you, almost embarrassed, and you try not to remember that day. As Kraber punched out all a man’s blood. Oh Faust, there was so much blood, so much bucking blood everywhere, it was dripping from the ceiling into your mane, it was getting everywhere, oh, oh God, that was just twisted, you felt sick just remembering it, sweet mother of faust, why, that was, oh, oh lordy…

“...I don’t want to talk about it,” Mommy says bluntly.

Vinyl winces. “Oh. Right. Dancing Day… I’m really sorry you had to see that.”

“I didn’t see most of it,” you point out. “You did tell me to keep my eyes closed…”

“You saw way too much,” Kraber says.

“So, Ides is dead,” Verity says. “Not much of a loss. Kraber, did you really eat his-”

“Not the time!” Heliotrope interrupts. She looks over to True Quill. “If you’re writing this down, I want that stricken from the record.”

“Doable,” True Quill says.

“And my mind,” Heliotrope adds.

“That’s… a bit less doable,” True Quill says. “And it violates constitutional amendments against mind magic.”

“Aw, what?” Heliotrope sighs.

“I dont mind,” Kraber says. “I actually smaak living with it. Or… the idea of it. Ja - I’m a fok-up, and every day I wonder why Yael didn’t shoot me.”

“Cause you convinced me,” Yael says.

“Right,” Kraber says. “Ja. I’m a kontgesig. But I’m learning.”

“Fair enough,” Aegis says. “I’d… rather remember my mistakes and try again than forget them and make the same ones. So, Viktor… good on you for trying. I can respect that.”

Anyway. Ides. All around sonovabitch. A long list of confirmed kills in Portland and Continental Europe, a history of hoarding supplies taken from PHL outposts, copycat killings meant to emulate Kraber’s ‘work’, torture, firing on prisoners, a history of sexual deviancy…

Though there wasn’t any proof to the last one. But Heliotrope had heard stories. Awful ones, at that. The ponies at Nipville - the town they’d taken a flamethrower tank to - had awful stories about him.

They’d been searching for him for days! And he was here! In country that was rumored to have Kraber, Shieldwall, Fairbairn, even Reavers… and that weird transmission.

“Well, at least let me do something worthwhile,” Ides said. “Whatever it was-”

“The Hotline,” an Irishman explained. “Let’s call it that.”

“All because crazy old Hatch said her pet little zombie said something,” one woman said. “You realize how little sense that makes?”

“You realize how few advantages we have?” the Irishman spat back. “Even the Reavers have laser weaponry. We have pipe guns. The PHL have… I don’t even fucking know, man. We’re going to use this.”

“I don’t even know where it came from,” a young woman said.

“Well, word is that it came from God to Lovikov,” said one man.

Heliotrope snorted.

“I believe it,” Ides said.

“And you believe that Kraber’s still faithful to the HLF?” ‘Jones’ asked. “Ides - you’d believe anything.”

“Well, I do,” Ides protested.

“Then where is he?” ‘Jones’ asked.

“On a secret mission, obviously,” Ides said.

“So secret that Lovikov’s ranting and fuming whenever we so much as mention his name?” ‘Jones’ asked.

“Well, maybe it’s part of his cover!” Ides protested.

Did Kraber even feel regret for what he did? Heliotrope wondered. That he has bastards like this idolizing him?

“Yes,” you say.

Kraber looks at you. Shrugs a little. Looks like he’s thinking. “Yeah, you phrased that better than I would,” Kraber finally says.

“Wait, with the….” Heliotrope says, and looks over at Kraber. “Oh.”

“We’ll get to that later,” Kraber says.

“Is… is someone up there?” Ides asked, in that awful voice.

And that, Heliotrope thought, spreading her wings and falling backwards off the truck, letting the wind catch her, is my signal to go.

Letting the thermals and thaums lift her, she soared above the treeline, heading back towards Bethlehem.

Author's Note

You may notice from the next update that this used to be part of the same chapter as the next one. There's a reason for this - this isn't nearly actiony enough to require a 30k word chapter. Well, 29k. So, I split this in half. Should benefit a lot of people.

Take Up Your Spade

Chapter 16: Take Up Your Spade

Editors/Co-Authors
Jed R (Special thanks for more things than I can count. Like damn son)
TB3
Redskin122004
VoxAdam

“Sun is up, a new day is before you
Sun is up, wake your sleepy soul
Sun is up, hold on to what is yours
Take up your spade and break ground

Shake off your shoes,
Leave yesterday behind you
Shake off your shoes,
But forget not where you’ve been
Shake off your shoes,
Forgive and be forgiven

Take up your spade and break ground
Sara Watkins, Take Up Your Spade

Interviewer: “[data corrupted]..lt? Are you there? I’ve decided to pa[data corrupted]pate in your biweekly psych eval. Dr. Finlayson and Red Couch are here?”

Maxwell Finlayson (MF): static “...[data corrupted] al [data corrupted]? Red Couch is Kraber’s theradata corrupted... know, the one that doesn’t try to [data corrupted] his eyes out [data corrupted] screaming [data corrupted] feel threatened by him.”

Red Couch (RC) : “Thanks for the vo[data corrupted]... onfidence, Max. Sure that'll help the New Researcher.”

MF: “Just doing my job.”

RC: “Look, the most disturbing thing he’s done to any PHL has been humming ‘zydrate anatomy’ while operating. [Data corrupted] improvement. And it’s better than him humming ‘Night Surgeon’.”

I: “That’s disturbing.”

RC: “It’s [data corrupted]damn improvement.]”

MF: “How is it an improvement?!”

RC: “Do you even know what Night Surgeon is about?”

I: “...Enough of this. I don’t know, and I don’t care. G[data corrupted]t? Are you there? Presley, Dovetail, Kraber, Aegis, Yael, Heliotrope, Snowshoes, Nny, Fiddlest[data corrupted] about you. Downstairs, in the lobby. Aegis, Nny, and Fiddlesticks got [data corrupted] Hampshire, some mare named Popover, to get a cake...”

MAKE THEM PAY

I: “Did anyone hear that?”

Several seconds of static

MF: “[data corrupted] -know, [data corrupted] I’ve…[data corrupted] you too.”

RC: “See, [data corruptedsta[data corrupted]? He does have a h-

MAKE THEM PAY

--Who the hell said that?!--Vinyl Scratch
--Probably the new researcher. Aer thaumic interference while distressed can, well, interfere with technology. Which is why we usually don’t send emails around aer when ae’s not in a good frame of mind.--33 ½ LP
--Our new researcher? Well, our recruitment standards are shot to shit, aren’t they? Madmen, ex-HLF, the abomination - ah, shit. --Vinyl
--Aaaaaand, like that, you’ve earned dishwasher duty for the joke about the researcher. Alongside Viktor Kraber. --33
--What horrible thing did he do this time?--Vinyl
--There were too many complaints about him humming or singing ‘Zydrate Anatomy’ while operating on people--33
--Aw, piss.--Vinyl
--I regret… okay, I regret a lot of things, but not that. --Kraber

MAKE THEM PAY.

MAKETHEMPAYMAKETHEMPAYMAKETHEMPAYMAKETHEMPAYMAKETHEMPAYMAKETHEMPAYMAKETHEMPAYMAKETHEMPAYMAKETHEM

MF: “[data corrupted]- another episode! Get the-[data corrupted]!”

alarms start blaring

MF: “[data corrupted]plugged in?!”

RC: “Something must’ve triggered aer!”

[Unidentifiable]: “Shouldn’t exist! [data corrupted] broken, filthy! Made from pieces of other [data corrupted]! I’m not-”

I: “[data corrupted], you're going to be fine, I promise, I promise!”

[Unidentifiable]: “Of course I'm not! [data corrupted] fine, ever will, has been fine! NOTHING! We’re-”

I “[Data corrupted] - recording down, Red Couch! There’s so much interference we’ll barely be able to get-”

The tall verdant trees on either side of the streets in Bethlehem swayed in the light, barely noticeable summer breeze. Fiddlesticks held one hoof up to the brim of her hat, trying to steady it against the wind.

The eclectic group - two human women and two mares, (a pegasus and earth pony) one human male, and a massive earth pony stallion - were relaxing under the cover of Bethlehem’s trees, browsing art. According to Nny, it’d been a vacation destination once.

“Sorry,” Kraber muttered. “I… I didn’t know.”

“It’s fine,” Yael said, with the kind of tone that is practically screaming ‘No, Goddammit no, it isn’t.’ “It’s… I kind of regret it that day. Mistakes were…” she looked downwards. “No, I made mistakes.”

Kraber considered that. Ze’ev and Heliotrope had been on his tail for awhile. When he went through Israel, she’d done her damnedest to capture him. And along the way through Africa, he’d heard the most awful stories about what she’d remorselessly done to HLF.

This… well, she wasn’t being remorseless, that was for sure.

“What happened, though?” Kraber asked. “In Nipville, anyway.” He paused. “Actually, before last week, I never heard of Nipville.”

“It was a new refugee settlement,” Yael explained. “On the edge of one of the farms. There was a group of Imperial deserters living north of there that just wanted to be left alone. Good for a few quick enchantments, and great at making small spells work big.”

“Imperial Deserters?” Kraber asked, surprised.

Fiddlesticks raised an elegant, curved eyebrow at that, and Aegis reflected that Fiddlesticks’ resemblance to her cousin Octavia was never as prominent as it was in that moment. “Yeah. I didn’t think they were allowed to even think about desertion…”

“Well, they were a partisan unit that refused to be included under the Charter of the Guard and came here,” Yael explained. “We leave them be, they give us food and work on commissioned items. I was trying to get them to work on a…”

“It’s basically a Hyperion shotgun,” Nny explained.

Yael nodded. “Exactly. But one day, they went dark. The police searched all over, but… well, they found ‘em. In Nipville’s basements. They were being tortured into building weaponry for HLF. I… don’t want to know what the HLF would do with them. So I went. And stopped them.”

“If they had unicorns with them,” Kraber asked, “Why didn’t they do, I don’t know, some magic thing…”

“They were being held to walls with shock collars,” Yael said solemnly. “Couldn’t be allowed to stay like that. And we couldn’t let any HLF in the surrounding area stay. So we burned them out. All of them. We weren’t supposed to keep the tank for so long, though.”

Kraber had done things like that before - keep ponies on shock collars. It was an awful thing to do to them, especially because he’d taken joy in seeing how many volts could flow into them.

“It was necessary,” Yael said, sighing, looking a little downcast. “I’m fine.”

“...It’s not fine, is it,” Fiddlesticks said.

“No, it isn’t,” Yael said. “I don’t like it. Someday, I’m going to do something necessary for the future, and die. Maybe that’ll be deserved.”

And something in Kraber simply cracked. Yael, this boogeyman of the HLF, his opposite number in the PHL, and she was just as fokked up as hi…

Okay, maaaaaybe not, but still. She was only human.

“Say,” Aegis said, looking over at Kraber. “You know how to fight. You said you were ex-HLF. You’re not… you didn’t do anything like that, did you?”

“...I saw and did a lot of things I regret,” Kraber mumbled. “...I wasn’t a rapist, though.”

“That’s…” Aegis looked uneasy. “Um. That’s something, I guess. You’re sure you-”

“YES!” Kraber yelled, suddenly, eyes narrowed. “You see this .45? I always carry it half-cocked. The first HLF rapist I saw? Made sure the bastard was no-cocked!”

Everyone was staring at him.

Fokkin Yorke, Kraber thought. ...They know what I do in Defiance. Yorke wasn’t, couldn’t have been the only one I met. How many bastards did I ignore for the sake of fokkin’ revenge?

Nny was bent over backwards, just to stay out of the way of that tirade. Fiddlesticks was wincing, one hoof held over her face. “You’re, uh… Cuz. He’s telling the truth on that one,” Nny said.

“How can you tell?” Yael asked, and for a second, Kraber was struck by how alike the two of them didn’t look.

“Cause that’s how I get when people insult my intelligence,” Nny pointed out. “Y’know, cause college.”

“Oh, with Pennsylvania,” Yael said, laughing lightly. And then, seeing the looks on Kraber and Aegis’ faces: “You don’t want to know.”

“Heh, that sounds like what Kraber did to Tom Yorke,” Fiddlesticks said. “At least, that’s how that one Reaver we met told it.”

“There’s a Reaver around here?” Yael asked, surprised. “Where?”

“He didn’t say,” Nny said. “He’s just sorta… around.”

“I think I’d like to meet him,” Yael said.

“He… probably wouldn’t like that,” Fiddlesticks said, looking down at the ground.

“Don’t tell him about me then,” Kraber said. “I… they don’t like me very much.”

“I wouldn’t either,” Yael said. “I know that what I do isn’t well-liked. I just want to… I just want to talk it out. See what he’d have to say.”

“Fair enough,” Fiddlesticks said, straightening her hat with one yellow, furry foreleg again. “Anyway, Nny and I are gonna get some stuff for a stall. He’ll be dancing and selling art, I’ll be keeping track of the cash.”

“...Why aren’t you two off in the military, anyway?” Yael asked.

“We’re on leave,” Nny explained. “Anyway, cuz. Be seeing you.”

And then there were six.

Just Sixstring, Rivet, Amber, Aegis, Yael, and Kraber.

“Is Heliotrope going to be okay chasing them?” Kraber asked, surprised at his concern. He’d been chased by Heliotrope once, a long time back. Of course she’d be okay.

But with his old chommies… no, fok them, they weren’t chommies by any fokkin’ sense of the word… he couldn’t help but feel a bit of worry.

“Of course she’ll be fine!” Rivet said. “She’s Heliotrope!”

Yael knelt down and ruffled his mane, smiling. “She is. But, most importantly? She’s my best friend.”

“I wish I could be as much of a badass as her!” Rivet crowed, smiling.

And Kraber noticed for a second that Yael wasn’t smiling. There was an expression on her face, with her lips curved upward, but whatever warmth had been in her eyes had turned icy cold. Before she could answer, Kraber found himself saying:

“No,” Kraber said. “You don’t. You’re a colt, Rivet. That only happens once.”

Aegis shot Kraber an approving look. A nod, a smile. It felt… nice to Kraber.

“Can I still get an assault saddle?” Rivet asked.

“Daaad,” Amber Maple said. “I hate getting a fitting.”

“As much as I don’t like letting my colts get assault saddles,” Aegis said, “You’ll probably need them sooner or later. You’re gonna grow up sooner or later…” he sighed. “Just wish I knew if you were going to grow into a good world.”

“...Please tell me you didn’t equip the base saddles with guns,” Kraber sighed.

“No, I didn’t,” Aegis said, and Kraber practically beamed at that.

“You’re a good dad,” he said.

Aegis looked almost taken aback there for a second. “Oh. Thanks, Francis.”

“Dunmentionit,” Kraber said, vaguely slurred. I need a fokkin’ beer, he thought distantly.

“Da…” Rivet started, before Aegis looked over at him. “...rnit.”

Amber stuck out her tongue at Rivet, making a noise that could be approximated as sounding something like ‘bleehhhhh’.

“Foals will be foals,” Sixstring said, as Aegis trotted down, a little southwards, towards Main Street.

Kraber followed. “Here’s hoping Mr. Hauser has a good magnum,” he said aloud, thoughtful.

“Why are you even going, anyway?” Yael asked. “You have a stolen Ithaca 37 right now and a 1911.”

“I like magnums,” Kraber said simply. “Besides, I can afford it.”

“You don’t have any spare clothes with you, you lost a shirt, and your jacket is full of holes,” Yael said. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t look like the picture of financial responsibility.”

“Which brings me tae the other reason I’m refusing the bounty,” Kraber said, smirking reaching into a pocket and pulling out a large wad of cash.

“You stole their wallets,” Yael said. “Huh.”

Kraber’s smirk abruptly deflated. “Huh. That’s… that’s all?”

“Well, yeah,” Yael said. “I’ve done that before. I paid for booze with Malka that way.”

“What happened to him?” Sixstring asked.

“Ponified,” Yael said. “There was an HLF attack on refugees just outside of Egypt.” She snorted. “Yes, I get the irony.”

“Wait… I don’t get it,” Sixstring said.

“We’re both Jewish, and our ancestors once fled from Egypt,” Kraber said, biting back that reflexive burst of guilt. He remembered (and yes, dismembered) Egypt. HLF and the refugees they’d been with had been refused food over in Northern Africa. It hadn’t been the last horrible thing that’d happened in northern Africa to HLF.

What Kraber’s old leader had said back then:

The bastards aren’t willing to protect humanity! They’re in the pocket of those goddamn gluesticks! Look at us, we’re protecting refugees, aren’t we? What makes us so different?!

How Yael had, rather predictably, responded through the official channels:

I know how you operate, Braun. I’m not a monster. I know that you operate saying only fighters get food. I know that when I tried the food and medicine deliveries once, you stabbed us all in the back. Poisoned food supplied to our ponies - food deliveries that we gave you. You don’t care about the refugees. None of you do. They’re just your shield, aren’t they? They’re just another weapon to you.

So, if that’s how you repay mercy, then I have nothing to say.

Braun had been a kontgesig, anyway. And Yael had been… well, Kraber admitted it. That was pretty much what they’d done. Braun’s rules: Only fighters, or people with intense, necessary jobs, got food. Kraber had been a good fighter, and Braun’s plan had involved hurting ponifes, so Kraber had been onboard.

What a fokkin’ piece of shit I am, Kraber thought back on that. Aegis, Caduceus, Heliotrope, they’re refugees just like me. He quietly considered this. Well, except I’m not a magical talking horse…

“Yet, Victory pointed out.

Hou jou fokkin bek, Kraber thought reflexively.

“Exactly,” Yael said. “He was left for dead in an HLF attack that happened to destroy some of the solar panels we’d been using. But PER came by, and he…”

Kraber didn’t touch her. Though back when Kraber could say he’d actually had close friends, his instinct would have been to put a hand on the shoulder and show just the slightest bit of acknowledgment that yes, he was with her and that it was terrible.

“You don’t have to say anymore,” Kraber said solemnly. “I’m sorry for what happened to your friend.”

“You’d think it gets old one day, doesn’t it? Newfoals are horrifying,” Sixstring said, surprising them both. “That’s what we keep saying. But… the terrifying thing isn’t the newfoals themselves. It’s that there’s people and ponies out there that think it’d be a genuine improvement.”

“Would… would Celestia do that to her own ponies?” Kraber asked, uneasy.

“Yes,” Yael said, with all the sharpness, tact, or subtlety of a sledgehammer. Which was to say, none.

“Oh, definitely,” Sixstring said.

For a second, Kraber felt very, very terrible about all the ponies he’d left chained to rocks in areas that were about to be swallowed by the barrier. He briefly considered french-kissing the shotgun on his back. Nah, that’s fokking chop.

“...Whatever you’re remembering, I don’t want to know,” Sixstring said. “So: My cuz is off to get some weaponry, you two gonna come?”

“I guess,” Yael said, “As long as my cousin doesn’t do anything terrible with a steam engine. Again.”

There was a steam whistle off in the distance. Absolutely nothing changed on Yael’s face.

“...I feel like something very ironic should’ve just happened,” Sixstring said.

“Look, Sixstring, wi wir oan the train up here,” Kraber said. “Thit’s miles away.”

“...What he said,” Yael said. “Besides. Might as well come along. Heliotrope’ll find me easier if I’m with a large group. Might not find anything new, and it’s not like I’m going for a different rifle.”

“You are a professional with that Galil,” Kraber said.

“Why thank you,” Yael said. “You’re good with a pistol, too. Military dad?”

”...you’re just going to skip that for the punchline, aren’t you,” Yael sighs.

Which was why, in Hauser’s gun shop, Yael was using an assault rifle to open a bottle of coke from a fridge.

Heliotrope chuckles a little. As do Aegis and Kraber.

”Of course,” Yael says. “Why not.”

“Why did you even do that? You dad has a Galil,” Heliotrope points out.

“Yeah, but it’s the South African version,” Kraber says. “It’s not the one with the bottle opener.”

“Why would you even put a bottle opener on a gun, anyway?” you ask.

“From what I can tell, it’s kind of the military equivalent of Digital Extremes having an Orokin device called the Potent Orokin Tactical Augmentation and…” Kraber strokes his wild, scraggly beard, trying to remember. “Ah, fok it, I don’t care, but it translated to Potato. Cause players - like me - joked that one item looked like a potato.”

“Clem is hilarious,” Heliotrope nods, smiling.

(”I like Darvo more,” Kraber adds. “He uses a mechanized whip to snake out plumbing! That was hysterical.”)

“Is there a point buried in all this?” Verity demands.

(”Hey, Viktor, remember when we were testing that underbarrel lightning attachment and I said it was ‘10,000 volts of shut your elitist face, I never wanted to go to his stupid party anyway’?” Aegis asks, and Kraber, the remnants of whose pain receptors are dulled and blunted enough that he’s actually been sitting up for awhile, just cracks up and falls back onto the pillow, his guffaws muffled by his pillow.

So it comes out as sounding like “PFFFTB! MMMMMFF MMMMF EEP! HMRMF!”)

“Surprisingly, yes - that’s pretty much it,” Yael says, steadily ignoring Kraber, Heliotrope, and Aegis’ neigh-incomprehensible babble about some game, “The point is, soldiers like my dad, and my grandfather would use their Galils to open bottles on duty. Command noticed, so it ended up an official addition.”

“Why soda though?” you ask.

(”And then Ge…. um, the new researcher,” Aegis adds, sticking to the approved code and avoiding spoiling a major twist to this story,“Says the plan for the cephalon uprising would be meticulous and unsurvivable!””)

Yael admirably tries to suppress a quick chuckle but does not quite succeed. “Oh, I’m a bad person…”

(Kraber is laughing even harder now. “Trust me, I’ve got jou fokkin’ beat. Oh man, this must fokkin suck for people without context,” he choke-gasps out between spasmodic bursts of laughter. You just wave lamely at him and mutter hi as he says that. He makes vaguely apologetic motions and chokes out an apology through his laughter.

“That’s so wrong,” Vinyl says, to which Kraber, through choked gasps, points out that’s why it’s funny.)

“A Ze’ev doesn’t drink on duty,” Yael says proudly. “Unlike those two…”

“...I don’t get gesuip on duty,” Kraber says. “Or while handling guns. That’s just irresponsible. I might be an evil varknaaier, but I’m not a fokkin chop!”

You nod. This seems reasonable.

“Small steps, everyone,” Yael drawls, and Kraber laughs at that too.

Anyway, yes, Yael was using a gun to open a bottle. Moving on.

It wasn’t as horrifically unsafe as it might seem at first glance, and in fact, was an official feature of the rifle. As per basic firearm safety, the rifle was unloaded. The one round still in the breech had been removed and been returned to the mag through a small crank-fed device intended for magazine reuse (it had NO FAMAS F1 printed on it in bold block letters) sitting at a table, a nearly-spent magazine of 7.62 NATO connected up to it.

“Oh God, why would you do that?” Rivet asked.

”And pretty much the same conversation as earlier happened, so let’s just let it go,” Kraber says.

“Viktor, you’re like....” Vinyl searches for the words. “Captain digression, I thought you wouldn’t mind.”

“It is something he’d do,” Yael points out.

“Well, we did it once, no need to beat a d…” Kraber looks around the room, at the majority of occupants. Not counting Verity (who’d be angry if you said it out loud) and Yael, (who’s videochatting) Elena and Bly, along with a few others are the only human occupants of the room. Not counting people who are probably listening to this from elsewhere. “No, I’m not doing that.”

“I’m not even asking why you have incendiary ammo,” Yael sighed. “Just, please, Mr. Hauser, please tell me you’re trustworthy.”

“Oh, I am,” said a large, heavyset, red-headed and red-sideburned man with a wholly incongruous pair of thin spectacles, whose thick body looked to have been chiseled by a sculptor going through a vaguely cubist phase. A weird hairstyle that could only be described as “a mohawk pompadour, I guess?” by Aegis sat atop his mostly shaven head. Evidently, this was Hauser.

Currently, he was making adjustments to a large assortment of leather and plastic straps that Amber was carrying on her back, with a small device about the size of a car battery just above her barrel.

“I got something even better than background checks.”

“Hey,” said a sooty gray unicorn with a dark gray coat, pink eyes, and a fauxhawk (more like just one shaven side of the head) in two shades of green. He waved. “Besides, what pony would end up giving HLF weaponry?” he asked.

"It’s a mystery,” Chalcedony says.

“Certainly not any friend of mine,” Aegis said, looking over the dark gray unicorn. “Afternoon, Blackpowder. It’s been awhile.”

“Who’s your friend?” Hauser asked.

“Francis Strang,” Kraber said, the lie just effortlessly rolling off the tongue at this point. “I’m staying with Aegis for a bit, Mr. Hauser. Sixstring over there referred me, and, well…”

“I getcha,” Hauser said. “And call me Phil. Mr. Hauser is my brother. Any idea how long you’re gonna stay?”

Aegis looked over at Kraber, expectant.

“Don’t leave yet,” Amber said, as Hauser took measurements of her forelegs and barrel. “Thanks for visiting last night. It… it helped.”

“Good question,” Kraber said. “Honestly, haven’t thought about it.”

“Well, from what I can tell,” Yael said, inspecting a newly-filled mag, “You’re somewhere nice. You see enough drifters nowadays. They…” she sighed. “Usually don’t have good lives. Or good jobs.”

Kraber considered this, looking over the weaponry in stock. Live with ponies-

“The gluesticks that destroyed your, our, my family. They are nopony special. I’ve seen all of them many, many times before,” the Dark Kraber said offhandedly. “All can - will - betray you. You ran with Yarrow, correct? If you accept my offer, then you can affect real change. You could become something great.”

Kraber ignored it. “Well, Aegis…” He paused.

“Never accept it,” Victory said. “But if there’s one of us you’re not going to pick… make sure it’s him.”

‘And why’s that?’ Kraber idly thought.

“I know you, or anyone that’s been watching us argue, wouldn’t know of him. Wouldn’t have seen all the hints in other stories, like the Tales of the War or When We Needed Him Most. But he’s evil,” Victory said. “You must not accept whatever he offers. Tell him you’ll rip his dick off and shove it up his fl… fl… GAT! so he can go fuck himself, tell him he’s a monster, hang up on him, put him on hold-”

“Hmmm?” Yael asked, looking up from the magazine.

“Just having a really unpleasant internal conversation,” Kraber said, smiling uneasily. ‘Tell him his health plan is fokking kak?’ he thought back at Victory.

‘Yeah! Like that! I liked that one, it was funny. Shame it was so hard to code on the tropes page.”

Kraber continued to ignore her, and thought on the subject. “I’ll think on it,” Kraber said, in a tone that wasn’t so much a yes, or a no, as inviting others to project their own answers on the statement.

Evidently, Aegis had read it as yes, as he was smiling at the thought. “Good.”

“I’d like you to stay,” Rivet said.

“...I know a few good bedtime stories, if it helps,” Kraber said awkwardly. “Un Lun Dun, for one thing. My kids always liked it.”

“Yay!” Amber cheered, from over at the other end of the store as Hauser helped fit her for the saddle. “I miss london,” she said, sullenly, petulantly. Like any child might. Then again, Amber was a child.

...I have to remind myself that they’re kids sometimes, Kraber thought. Eish, I go from calling them ‘spawnlings’ to ‘kids’. Don’t things change?

“Are we done yet?” Amber asked, still petulant.

“We would be done sooner,” Hauser said, “If you stopped squirming.”

“I just don’t like guns,” Amber said. “When I go to work for the PHL… I want to do something from behind. I just can’t stomach the… the blood, and the, the…”

“But we have to do it!” Rivet protested. “HLF, Imperials, PER…. they’re everywhere! I have to stand and fight! Be a hero like Yael over there or Francis-””

Yael hoped that Rivet saw the way her expression darkened, thee way her face fell, as she silently begged him to realize ‘No. I am not a hero.’

But the look she saw on Francis’ face was so appalled that she could not find words to describe it. It was like he’d just shut down, as if the idea of being a good person was so implausible to him that it looked close to driving him to an aneurysm.

Regret is a good sign, she mused. But what could he have done that was so terrible?”

"Eating people?” Aegis suggests.

“Fok off,” Kraber says, stifling a laugh. “That only happened twice.”

“I’m tempted to ask why,” Rumble says.

“No,” Mommy says. “No. You’re not.”

“Do you… do you feel bad about it?” Rivet asks.

“Not really, they were kontgesigs,” Kraber says, utterly blase. “But… what I did in front of a little filly…”

“We’ll get to that later,” you say.

“Yeah,” Kraber says, looking down. “We’ll do that. Oh, Yael? you’re right about me being in shock... I think that look was what got me into the PHL.”

"Huh?” Yael asks. Then groans. "Oh, the irony. Because you shooting Heliotrope, and the awful shit you did inspired me...”

Kraber chuckles a little. “I created my own heroine. How about that. Usually it’s the hero that makes their own villain.”

“How can you laugh about that?” Yael asks.

“If I didn’t, I’d lose my mind,” Kraber says. “Or… what’s left of it. I’m pretty fokkin’ broken that if I acknowledged everything, I’d get real bosbefok. I’m just glad that at least something good came out of there.”

“You… you really think Heliotrope and I are a force for good?” Yael asks back.

Heliotrope looks like she’s about to argue this, but she knows it isn’t the time.

"Well, in the HLF, those fokkin stront vir breins hoerkind would pat me on the back for being a kontgesig,” Kraber says. “You’ve done what you could to protect people. So I’m going with yes.”

"That’s bullshit!” Verity yells.

"Name one kick the hond moment I did before the Sorghum that the HLF didn’t like, jou fokkin te…” Kraber says, voice regretfully trailing off. It is a shame. He really doesn’t want to hurt her more than he already has.

"Joined the Reavers,” Verity says.

"Doesn’t count,” Yael says. "Look. I’m sure this would lead to a very stimulating discussion, but what… how did I inspire you?”

"You’d taken a flamethrower tank to Nipville earlier,” Kraber says. "But! Jou regretted it. The HLF would’ve bought me a suite in the Last Resort if I did that. If they hadn’t thought that I was such a fundi at blikseming people that they’d even force me into a fokkin’ suicide mission in Montreal…”

"Were those the people that, uh…” Aegis says, trying not to lose his lunch at the memory of what Kraber did. You can’t blame him. You really, really do not want to remember. Oh God, the blood, it was in your fetlocks, merciful Luna…

"Yes,” you say.

“What I mean,” Kraber says, “Is… that it was nice to see you regretted this. Maybe the PHL does screwed-up things like hire me, but from what I can tell, it’s a force for good.”

“Or, or Colonel Renee, or Vinyl Scratch,” Rivet continued. “Or Major Bauer, or, or Lyra…”

“Son, Lyra was one in a million,” Aegis said, giving his son an affectionate noogie. “Like it or not, you’re always going to be you. And furthermore, I’m still your dad and you’re too young for the army.”

“I’m old enough!” Rivet protested.

“No,” Aegis said, “You’re still a colt. My son. And I’m keeping you safe.”

“But we need soldiers to fight!” Rivet said. “Someone has to protect you-”

“That is my job,” Aegis said. There was an edge to his voice. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt! You’re too young!”

Hauser and Blackpowder looked over at the conversation uneasily. Yael was looking over at them, concerned and not sure whether or not to intervene.

Amber was looking up at Kraber with an expression that seemed to be unequal parts irritation and fear. A look that seemed to practically scream Oh God no, they’re doing this again.

“But you can’t do it forev-”

“-do it as long as I-”

“How about I settle for protecting you alongside your dad?” Kraber asked.

Amber breathed a sigh of relief, and muttered something that sounded like Thank you lord.....

“See, son?” Aegis asked. “You don’t have to worry. You’ve got the both of us looking out for you.”

“Kay, Rivet. Your turn to get fitted for the assault saddle,” Hauser said, happy that the tension in the air had dissipated.

“Yay!” Rivet crowed, a smile on his face.

A dark look crossed Aegis’ face. But it passed.

“So… Mr. Francis?” Amber asked. “What was that UnLondon thing you mentioned?

“It’s not quite london,” Kraber explained.

“Go on…” Aegis said, looking almost as excited as his two foals.

And like that, Kraber thought wryly, I’m probably staying.

Meanwhile, as Kraber was explaining the plot of his third-favorite China Mieville novel, Yael looked over to a box of Kalashnikovs.

“Interesting stuff for sale,” Yael said slowly. “You know Dovetail, Presley, or Hex would still pay you better, right?”

“Hauser wouldn’t be able to work as your friendly neighborhood arms dealer either,” Blackpowder said. “Plus, the ponies and humans out here… like you, Aegis?”

“Hrmm?” Aegis asked, cocking his head, almost doglike.

“They have a, uh… a bit of a quiet, practical genius,” Blackpowder said. “We like capitalizing on that.”

“Why thank you,” Aegis said.

“I mean, you probably won’t create a new energy weapon or make cold fusion in the basement,” Hauser added, “But people here think differently. For example… one PHL supporter was worrying about arming people with enough enchanted weaponry. So, as we talked it out, he had to ask: Did the whole gun have to be enchanted?”

“...I guess they don’t?” Yael asked. “I’m not involved in that part of the process.”

“Well, they don’t,” Blackpowder said. “Each of these guns has one enchanted part. It’s enough to make one enchanted gun… and also make some all around better weaponry. It doesn’t have quality, but, well, it’ll help more people at Barrierfall.”

“Plus, officially we help contract with the PHL for humanitarian aid,” Hauser said. “Seriously, Rivet. Stop squirming!”

“I can’t help it!” Rivet protested. “I’m just so excited to get a gun!”

“Rivet,” Kraber said, “A da’ gives ehs bairns a gun when eh says they’re ready.”

“Am I ready now?”

“...Great,” Amber sighed, looking downwards.

“Amber, don’t be like that,” Aegis said, as Rivet stuck his tongue out at her. “And Rivet - you’re just being fitted. Same as your sister.”

“Well, I have to do something!” Rivet protested.

“You will,” Aegis said. “Soon. But for now, Rivet - you’re my son. And I’m keeping you safe.”

“...So a gun shop,” Kraber said, “That does humanitarian stuff. Huh.” He looked over at Rivet. There was an odd look on that colt’s face. He was defiant, but oddly cowed.

“Well, somebody has to repair PHL tech that’s been placed around here,” Blackpowder said. “The solar panels, turbines, other generators…”

Kraber actually knew about those. The HLF had stolen more than a few - it was how Defiance had gotten power. How they’d kept meat and other foods refrigerated, how they powered the xerox machine, or…. the other fridges. Kraber didn’t want to think about those.

“Should I be worried about this place while you’re gone?” Sixstring asked.

“Nah,” Hauser said. “That’s what Musarrat is for.”

“Who’s Mus-” Kraber asked, and then a really large Egyptian Kangal jumped on him, licking his face. He made a surprised yelp as the dog’s weight knocked him to the ground with a speed a wrestler would envy.

“...The guard dog,” Blackpowder said lamely.

Kraber tried to say something about Musarrat - he didn’t speak much Pashto, from what he could tell, it meant ‘Joy’ - but this was made quite difficult by the fact that Musarrat was licking him into submission.

“Who’s a good dog,” Kraber asked, his somewhat raspy voice lowering to an inflection that could, tentatively, be considered cooing. “What a cute… oh, oh stop it, stop it!” he laughed. “Oh, you’re so fluffy…”

“Isn’t he?” Amber agreed, bringing one foreleg across Musarrat’s fur. It parted a good inch in front of her hoof, as if there was an invisible hand just in front of her foreleg. Weird, Kraber thought. “I’m glad I don’t have hands for a gun, but Musarrat’s the best part of being here.”

“Ah can believe it,” Kraber said, struggling under the dog’s weight.

“Musarrat!” a woman snapped. “Get off that man.”

“He’s just being affectionate,” Kraber said, stroking the dog’s neck.

“Can you get up?” the woman asked. Kraber could see her now - she looked middle eastern, and not so much old as ‘weatherbeaten’.

“Well, no,” Kraber admitted. “Ah’m honestly kind of happy doon h-”

“Then he needs to get off,” the woman said.

“This,” Hauser said, “is my business partner Orzala Tarkalani. Trained in the Khyber Pass.”

“Honestly, I'm happy to have good tools by now,” Orzala said. “I build and repair weaponry for him.”

“What about the gun on your back?” Sixstring asked.

“Made it myself,” she said proudly. “I'm the one that works on the counter when they're off fixing somebody’s solar panels.”

“I’d like to try that,” Kraber said. “I… I’ve been feeling kindae shitty about the stuff I did lately. Might be nice to do something like that.”

“I don’t think you can repair PHL mag-tech,” Blackpowder said, suspicious.

“Yeah,” Orzala said. “Something tells me you don't have the training.”

“Course nowt,” Kraber said. “But I could… I could dae some heavy lifting. Maybe use it to pay for a new magnum.” He looked down at Hauser’s gun case. “Like that thing.”

He pointed to an almost inordinately large revolver sitting in the case, just below the glass. It had a long, wooden grip that reminded him of a single-action revolver from the old movies, a black frame, and a silver cylinder. A bizarre ventilator rib, full of triangular holes (of all things) lined the top of the barrel. The cylinder was strangely elongated, making it look almost like a prop.

He’d seen that sort of thing from a gunsmith that’d been fleeing the Khyber Pass and been ~~smart~~ fokkin’ dof enough to join with the HLF. It’d been able to shoot .410 shells as well, though he hadn’t gotten it in his head he needed one yet.

It looked big, sleek, and mean enough to stop fights just by pulling it out a holster. Perfect.

“Ruger Osprey,” Blackpowder said.

“If you’re going for something that big, why not go for my cousin’s gun?” Yael asked, vaguely amused. “Honestly. Americans and-”

“Ah’m S… Scottish!” Kraber interrupted. Fok! Nearly said South African. He paused. Wait. ‘South African’ sounds like ‘Seth Effrican’ in my accent? How did I never notice this?

“Besides,” Amber says, “Nny’s gun looks more like a chopped-up rifle than a pistol.”

“Though…” he looked down. “How long have you not been wearing a shirt?”

“How did you not notice that?!” Kraber yelled.

“About an hour,” Aegis supplied. “Enjoying the view, by the way.”

“You and me both,” Orzala said.

Yael pretended to have a cough, and was curiously hunched over the table.

‘Oh, fokking siff,’ Kraber thought, then realizing from the looks he was getting that he’d said it out loud. Fok. “...Ah, fok. Sorry, it’s just, I… uh…” he looked down. “I’m not… I have…”

‘Apologizing to a pony?’

“What’s wrong with an old woman liking you?” Orzala asked.

“No, you’re fine. Look, it’s just… ponies being attracted to me feels weird, is all,” Kraber said.

“Like being straight… mostly... and having a gay man come on to you?” Blackpowder asked.

“Hey,” Hauser said, ruffling his friend’s mane, “It worked out, didn’t it?”

“Actually, I’m bisexual,” Kraber said. “So I’m not sure how that feels.”

“A bit like you do right now, I’ll bet,” Aegis said, scratching behind his head with one forehoof, a little sheepish. “I don’t mind… Lyra kinda got me interested in asking about it, so I wondered...”

“Well, you did mean it as a compliment,” Kraber said, “So… thanks. For that.”

--Vinyl breaks into an abrupt, choking, coughing fit.

“Can’t promise I’ll end up like… ya two,” Kraber said, looking over at Blackpowder and Hauser. “But the least ah kin dae is take a compliment.”

“Small steps,” Sixstring said, nodding. “Small steps.”

“Anyway, I believe ah wis getting a magnum revolver?” Kraber asked.

“Well,” Hauser said, uneasily leafing through the strips of blood money. Again, this was literal - the blood from the various PER members he’d shot had oozed into their wallets. It was the point that Kraber was wishing for a normal job, even if it was something menial like janitorial stuff, just so he didn’t have to make transactions with dollar bills covered in blood. “Seems you’ve got enough for the gun. Though…”

“There’s one question I have to ask,” Blackpowder said. “We maintain a strict business ethic - I went into this knowing that I would not sell to HLF. And no matter what, I’ll know the truth.”

“He has a lie detector spell,” Rivet explained.

“Go on,” Blackpowder asked, shifting from hoof to hoof like a boxer, or an overexcited child. “Ask me how I got it.”

“Just… just humor him,” Aegis sighed. “He lives for the l-”

“Won it in a poker game on one of the Last Ships,” Blackpowder muttered, scowling at Aegis. “You just gotta suck the joy out of everything…”

“Well, I’ve heard that about hundred times,” Aegis said.

“You did not,” Yael said, looking over a selection of shotgun ammo.

“He hasn’t, but I have,” Orzala said. “He does that literally every time I see him with a new customer. And he never actually says how he went about winning it.”

“I can weirdly relate,” Yael said. “Heliotrope was watching Dead Leaves once, and she’s never forgotten the line-”

“Have you seen my heliotrope?” Kraber and Yael chorused.

“But explaining it ruins the magic,” Blackpowder protested to Aegis, as Yael and Kraber bonded over their shared enjoyment of Hiroyuki Imaishi.

“There’s no magic,” Aegis said, “In something that’s been done about a hundred times. Weren’t we… kind of, you know, done?” he asked, sighing.

“He’s got ya there, Blackpowder,” Hauser chuckled. “Besides, Rivet’s nearly done.” He typed in something on a computer keyboard. “The saddle should last awhile. Might have to call you back in, Rivet, but otherwise… we’re done. You’re a big colt-”

“You thought I was dad’s brother the first time,” Rivet chortled. “Anyway. No more fittings?”

“Nope,” Hauser said.

“Yay! The real thing!” Rivet cheered.

“I can hardly wait,” Amber muttered.

“Anyway,” Blackpowder asked, his horn glowing. “Are you HLF?”

Kraber started to speak.

“Francis?” Aegis asked. “Do me a favor… tell the truth. I know you haven’t told me everything.”

“I haven’t,” Kraber agreed.

Blackpowder nodded, a little surprised. His horn was glowing blue. “You’re telling the truth.”

“Can that thing…. I don’t know, make me give specific answers?” Kraber asked, uneasily.

“No,” Blackpowder said. His horn glowed blue. “It glows blue whenever someone tells the truth. And it also glows blue when you lie, so there’s no way for you to tell if you’ve lied.”

Blackpowder’s horn glowed blood-red at that. “So, did THAT lose its magic, huh, Aegis?”

It works on him, too? Kraber wondered. Interesting…

“Only the 18th time you led us on like that,” Aegis said, visibly bored. “Come on, just get it over with.” He pulled closer to Kraber, bending over and curling one foreleg over his shoulder. “For the love of God, don’t let him press you too hard,” Aegis whispered. “He hasn’t had much power since he was kicked out of his chemistry lab in Fillydelphia for asking too many questions.”

“Why’re you telling me this?” Kraber whispered back.

“Because we’re friends now,” Aegis said. “And I know you weren’t telling me everything.”

Blackpowder’s horn glowed blue again. “Aegis told the truth about something again,” he mused. “Huh.”

“Daddy’s very honest,” Amber said matter-of-factly.

“There’s just one thing I want Blackpowder to ask, though,” Aegis said.

Blackpowder’s horn glowed red. “Aegis, what’re you-”

“Let me have my damn privacy,” Aegis said, not unkindly. “I’m trying to… to talk to a friend.”

Blackpowder’s horn was still glowing blue.

“...I’m beginning to wonder if that counts as an invasion of privacy,” Rivet said.

“Heh, it’s worse in the bedroom,” Hauser chuckled, and Rivet chuckled along with him.

“...Ha… ha… I don’t get it,” Rivet said, head quizzically cocked to the side, wild mane of fur obscuring his eyes.

Hauser ruffled it out, Rivet smiling up at him at the return of his vision. “Your dad will tell you later, kid.”

“Maybe he’ll tell me today?” Rivet asked.

“No, I won’t. Anyway,” Aegis said. Blackpowder’s horn still glowed blue. “I want to trust you, but I would like to have him ask a question? I…” Aegis dug at the floor with one hoof, like a zebra would. He looked uncertain, which was completely at odds with his stiff, formal tone. “I just want to be sure you’re safe. I hope you are not offended, or something.”

“A mysterious man comes ootae naewhere, an’ kills a fokton ae PER,” Kraber said, picking his words carefully. “I can understand the worry. I like your house, I like your family-”

“True!” Blackpowder called out.

“Wait… that’s… thanks!” Aegis said, a big goofy smile, the icy stoicism cracking like a meteor had smashed into it. It was kind of adorable, really. Kraber wasn’t really one to say whether a pony was handsome, but there was something about the smile on that giant st - on Aegis’ face - warmed his heart. And, even if he was probably considered a musclebound giant by his race’s standard, there was something about him that still made him look like a living plushie.

He’s one of the good ones, Kraber thought. Definitely/ “-An’ I’m rais’nably sure ah’m so far below the poverty line ah’m fokkin subterranean. So, whil Ah’m trying tae find a job, and be a baiter person, trying tae let go ae the HLF... I think there’s nae better place than your hoose, with yuir family.”

“So are you going to have me ask the questions or what?” Blackpowder asked, annoyed. “True, by the way.”

“...I don’t know, this is nice to hear,” Amber said. “...He helped comfort me after a nightmare. And read a bedtime story.”

Yael saw Blackpowder’s horn glowing blue.

Interesting, she thought. How many HLF men do that?

The answer: Not many. Probably a Reaver, if the chance ever came. Had she been suspicious of him? Yes.

--I’m not mad.

Of course she’d been suspicious. She was suspicious of anyone that called themselves HLF. But there was something unmistakably different about Francis Strang. Or at least, the man who’d called himself Francis Strang. He wasn’t telling the whole truth - anyone could tell that. The way anything he’d said about his past was vague and unverifiable, for example.

But whatever he was doing, it was atypical for HLF. She was tempted to have Blackpowder ask if he regretted it, but that… Yael shook her head. Clearly he had.

But whoever, whatever he’d been, it was clear he had mental issues.

It’s for the best, Yael thought, that I don’t try to recruit him. Though I’d say he made it pretty clear he’s not PER...

“Huh,” Hauser said, looking at Francis approvingly. “These are promising answers. I just have one… one question. Are you HLF?”

Yael could see Francis squirming a little, sweating heavily. Why should he be? He’d just told most of them he was ex-HLF, anyway. Unless he’d done downright monstrous things with a smile on his face, there wasn’t anything to worry about.

“Yes,” Francis said.

Blackpowder’s horn glowed blue.

“But… as of yesterday, I’ve deserted, an’ good fokkin’ riddance,” Francis said.

Blackpowder’s horn glowed a steady blue.

“I want nae more fokkin’ things tae dae wi’ the HLF,” Francis continued. “As far as I know, most ae thim are dead or in jail. Ah’ve done fokkin’ terrible things, and if the HLF ever take me back, I will-”

Francis paused.

“On second thought, there’s ki… there’s foals here,” he said. “You don’t want to know what I’d do.”

Blackpowder’s horn glowed a steady blue.

Amber winced. “Ooh… Not even gonna ask.”

“I. Am. Fokking done,” Francis said, “With the HLF. No more war crimes. None of this pointless aggression, I am going to do something right or die trying.”

“You’ve made a good answer,” Yael said, noting with satisfaction the blue of Blackpowder’s horn. I wonder how Heliotrope’s doing.

And, with that said, they finished up the transaction.

“Be seeing you, then.” Kraber said. He then bent down, rubbing his hands on Musarrat’s neck. “And goodbye to you… It was nice to meet you, you giant puppy!”

Musarrat just licked Kraber’s face.

Later…

They were all sitting at a watering hole sandwiched between the back of one of the shops and some refugee housing, composed of shipping containers and various prefabs. All of which had seemingly been crammed in between trees, leaves and tree branches poking out from the spaces between buildings like swimmers surfacing, gasping for air.

It made a weird group. A traveling musician. A hardworking, blue-collar stallion and his colt and filly grown up before a chance to really savor their foalhood. A war hero who’d been called a war criminal by her enemies. A war criminal who’d been called a war hero by his allies. A crossdressing, augmented man and his marefiend.

Though at the moment, the man in the latter pair was slumped back in a chair. Fiddlesticks, in turn, was lying against the side of the chair, lazily strumming her fiddle.

Though the speakers, scavenged from who-knew-where and hooked up to what Yael had identified as PHL-made solar panels, were playing decent music of their own. Fiddlesticks was trying to make music in time.

Regulations would’ve dictated that the cafe was demolished to make room for a prefab that’d serve as the new location for the business. However, the regulations were rather hard to enforce, given that this was northern New Hampshire and it was the middle of nowhere. Where nothing interesting was supposed to happen.

Though the impressive array of wanted posters on one wall, just beside a stall with the sign “John Peters / Moonshine” displayed above” put the lie to this.

There wasn’t much to say about the wanted posters. Not much was different from back where Aegis lived. A few posters different, some in different places, notes on missing family members. The only really different thing was Johnny C looking over at the picture of Fairbairn, almost wistfully.

“Nny….” Yael said, a warning edging into her voice.

“Huh,” Nny said, looking at a wanted poster of Fairbairn. “He looks like Freddy Krueger facefucked a topographical map of Utah now. Amuruq got him good.”

“What’d Amuruq do, anyway?” Rivet asked, Kraber leaning in along with him as the two of them waited for an answer.

Nny looked at the wanted poster. “An eye for an eye, I guess,” he said, tapping the side of one of his eye sockets. “Or… An eye for most of the face. You bought the book, right?”

“Sometimes he forgets people can’t read China Mieville novels in a day like he can,” Fiddlesticks said.

Nny and Fiddlesticks were on break from whatever they were selling at their stall.
“Yeah, I did. Where are you going with this?” Kraber asked.

“Finish the book,” Nny said. “Let’s just say, if Fairbairn is here, for hurting my friend, I want that fat fuck to die so bad he will be dead and then he will stay dead… they’re not listening, are they.”

“Look at youuuu!” Amber Maple cooed as Kraber played a video out on one of his stolen phones. She was leaning so far forward on her forehooves that she almost looked like a pointer dog. “ You’re so cute…”

“She’s so fluffy!” Kraber agreed. “I…” the words died in his throat. ...Dammit, lying to foals fokkin’ sucks. I met Tanja Askani once! I brought an African wild dog to Wildpark Luneburger Heide! I saw puppies! I told her I wanted to be a vet!

‘Well, you were technically....’

I’d rather be a desk sergeant than have some of the experience I do.

“I love puppies so much,” Kraber finished.

“Sounded like you were gonna say something else, Mr. Kraber,” Amber said, and fear stabbed up through Kraber’s heart, straight into his brain. Oh, oh fok! Oh no! She knows?! She can’t fokkin’ know!

That’s it, Kraber thought, improbably calm. Grab her. Use her as a hostage. I can-

That train of thought abruptly derailed in a calamity reminiscent of the Tay Bridge disaster. The cast iron holding up the rails beneath it shattered. It was a mess.

Why the fok would that be a good idea? one of the (many) personalities in Kraber’s head wondered. Look, I can-

“What’d you say?” Kraber asked, confused.

“Sounded like you were going to say something else, Mr. Francis,” Amber said, confused. “What’s… what’s wrong? Did I do-”

“Nah,” Kraber said. “I fokked up. And I’m sorry for that. I was gonna say something I’d regret. And that reminded me of…. things I also regret.”

“What was that?” Amber asked, looking up at him. Nobody seemed to have noticed the look on Kraber’s face, so the other conversation was going on as normal.

“Kid,” ~~Kraber~~ Francis said, running some fingers through her mane, “You really don’t want to know.”

‘Remind me again why you…. I…. why we didn’t go with being a vet?’

Being a doctor paid better, and I wanted to… y’know… be a correct ou, Kraber thought back.

“Anyway… how’d the sales go, cousin?” Yael asked, with a long-suffering sigh. “I’d say you get used to this, Aegis, but it’s usually my cousin doing that.”

“...I plead the fifth,” Amber and Nny said at once.

“Oh, I know,” Aegis said, nodding. “I know. I live about half an hour away from him.”

“And he and Fiddlesticks sleep upstairs all the time,” Rivet added. Then, seeing the look on Kraber’s face: “Why do you think we had the mattress?”

“Spares?” Kraber shrugged.

“Anyway, cuz, I’m doing pretty good,” Nny said, sitting legs crossed, in a slightly unladylike pose. “Cousin Sarah’s working the stall at the moment as we speak.”

”As it happened, Nny meant his other cousin, Sarah Callista Ruyter, a bounty hunter,” Heliotrope explains. “Met her awhile back. She’s alright.”

“She tried to kill me once,” Verity mutters.

“Sorry to hear about that,” Kraber says. “I had bounty hunters come after me once. It was kind of awful.”

“That was nice of her,” Sixstring said.

“Hey,” Johnny C shrugged. “Family’s family. I’d do the same for Fiddlesticks if she was the one asking.”

“But she’s a mare,” Kraber said. “You’re not related.”

Fiddlesticks cocked her head, almost like a dog. “Your point?”

“Couldn’t’ve said it better myself,” Nny chuckled, running a hand through her mane.

“Are you a little unnerved by the fact that it looks like you’re petting a dog?” Kraber asked.

“Well, do you like it when people run their fingers through your hair?” Fiddlesticks asked, adjusting her hat with one foreleg. Kraber wondered how she could do that without hands.

“Yes?” Kraber asked.

“There you go then,” Fiddlesticks said.

“You’re asking a lot of questions,” Yael said, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m…” Kraber thought on this. The easy thing to do wold be to defensively whine. Say: “I’m sorry, but…” Or deflect. Either way, some pretty damn immature stuff was coming to mind. The kind of profanity-laden kak he would’ve said when he was angry. Which had been all the time, now that he thought about it. Had he really been that much of a-

Kraber braced himself for the answers his hallucinations would give. When they didn’t reply, he shrugged, and said, blunt as possible: “Ma eywis said only stupid bawbags wir racist.”

Like many of the things Kraber had said so far, including his father’s advice that you should fight to make sure the other guy wouldn’t fight back-

“This explains so much,” Verity says.

“Yeah, and my dad also took me out for mil-” Kraber starts, eyes narrowed, possibly about to yell.

But Aegis steps in, rearing up and placing one giant foreleg across his friend’s chest. “Verity. Do not bait my friend, or-”

“Or what?” Verity asks.

“Or you will stay a pony, in this hospital,” Aegis says, his gaze steely through his coke-bottle goggles, “Much longer than you have to. Calm down, Viktor…”

Kraber takes a deep breath.

this had actually been very closely related to the truth. Maybe the truth’s stepbrother or something. His mother, knowing a lot about the workings of the human brain, had said that racism was the province of stupid people.

“This explains way too much about HLF membership,” Sixstring said.

Yael chuckled on that one, then saw the look on Kraber’s face. “Sorry about that.”

“Nah, no apologies needed,” Kraber said. Though it kind of was - He could barely imagine the looks on the faces of Idle or Yarrow if he told them that Yael’d apologized to him. Yael Ze’ev! She who was like a wolf that raveneth in the morning, and divided the spoil in the af-

‘When.’

Huh?

‘When. You’ll be seeing them very soon. I read ahead.

“We were fokkin radges. And Ah’ve bin real stupid th last 3 years. So I figure - I’ll stop being such a radge. Ask about PHL. How they work, how it is tae be a pony’s friend,” Kraber said. “I’ve done awful fokkin’ things, Ms. Ze’ev-”

“Segen Ze’ev, actually,” Yael said. “But, we’re here, you’ve seen cousin Nny in a dress, and fought with me. I think we’re on a first-name basis by now.”

“I’m tempted to ask why that first one happens,” Kraber said.

“Well, sometimes you just don’t want to be you,” Johnny C said.

“Don’t I fokkin’ well know thit,” Kraber said. “Much too well. So, Z… Yael… I’m doing something else from now on. I want to do something better.”

“Okay,” Yael said. “If an HLF man wants to try and change his tune… then I’ll help.”

“Wait, really?” Kraber asked, his train of thought derailed.

“Well, yeah,” Yael said. “I don't hate everyone in the HLF just for the sake of it, y’know. Some of them might even be ok.”

“Like who?” Aegis asked.

Yael shrugged. “I dunno. Maxi Yarrow’s lot maybe -”

“The Reavers?” Kraber asked. “You mean the Reavers?

“Yeah, those are the ones,” Yael said.

“Funny,” Kraber said quietly. “I think Yarrow thought you’d happily gun ‘em all down if he ever met you.”

“If I had to, absolutely,” Yael said with a shrug. “But I hear they're not bad enough for that.”
She chuckled mirthlessly. “Hell, if I hated them as much as they probably think I do, they'd probably be dead already. People… exaggerate how much I hate the HLF.”

Kraber threw her a look.

“A little,” she added. “They don't all deserve the flamethrower tank…” She trailed off, a slightly sickened look on her face. “No. Not joking about that again. Not happening.”

Amber shivered a little. Rivet looked almost unhealthily fascinated.

“Come on, there’s foals here,” Aegis said.

“Aaaaand yet nobody’s said anything about him using the word ‘fuck’ like a comma,” Fiddlesticks pointed out.

“Believe it or not,” Kraber said, “This is an improvement.”

“He’s not kidding,” Sixstring stage-whispered in accompaniment.

“Besides, we hear worse at school,” Amber added.

“Aw, buck. Really?” Aegis asked.

Rivet nodded.

“Well, that’s disheartening. Wait, you were with Reavers, Francis?” Johnny C asked, confused. “Well, why didn’t you say so? Seems like an interesting story.”

“If you ran with them, were you at Agua Caliente?” Rivet asked eagerly.

And it was at that moment that Kraber decided honesty was not the best policy. If he said then and there “Yes, I was at Agua Caliente,” then this cover of Francis Strang would be as good as gone. It’d be almost trivial to find what specific HLF had been there. It’d been a small number anyway, and most of them - Yarrow’s men aside - were probably PHL at this point.

“I’d be surprised if he was,” Yael said. “Not many people were there, and I know most of the HLF that were there.”

As a matter of fact, he had been there. AWOL from the Menschabwehrfraktion, making his way across a struggling America by car, train, and foot, once word had come that the PHL and HLF alike were preparing an assault on the PER’s fokkin’ Grand Wizard. It was an interesting story, involving thievery, assault, pressing a few amenable women, riots, and a bar fight. He… didn’t want to think about what he’d done to most of the ponies he’d seen along the way. Some had been PER, hopefully, but the majority hadn’t.

The bar fight - which was also another story for another day - had occurred in Durango. Not too far from a narrow-gauge railroad. The little steam engine trundling by had been converted to run off of waste vegetable oil. There was a lot of it most days. This had been where Kraber met Tom Yorke. Who, after the bar fight, as they patched up their wounds, had presented Kraber with his little 1911 frankengun, the one he could cock by pressing down on the trigger guard. The one that had saved his fokkin’ life against Reaper.

One thing had led to another, and then, all of a sudden, Kraber was there in the Reavers. He’d lied to them about his identity - again - but followed along until Maximilian Yarrow discovered his ruse. And, surprisingly, he’d let Kraber in, on the proviso that if he was going to run with the Reavers, he would follow the principles of the Reavers.

A long time ago…

"I’ll put this simply, with as few big words as I can,” the man said, folding his arms. “The PER and the Empire are our enemies. You kill them. The PHL and regular civilians aren't our enemies. You don't kill them."

Maximilian Yarrow was a stern enough presence that Kraber didn't laugh in his face. The shaven head, covered in Norse tattoos, mixed with the bristling beard and the long green army coat, made a formidable image. Added to that, of course, were the two heavily armoured men stood either side of him, each holding what Kraber might have described as ‘kwaai’.

Still, the words themselves, especially when applied to PHL (fokkin’ horsefokkers) were laughable.

“You want me to not kill horsefokkers when I get the chance?” Kraber asked, raising an eyebrow.

“What does it accomplish?” Yarrow asked.

“It's fun, and more of them are dead?” Kraber shrugged. “Not as satisfying as PER I guess, but -”

“I want you to follow orders,” Yarrow said with finality, cutting off that train of thought with a proverbial tree on the line. “We’re a military force, little Vikki Kraber. That means there's a chain of command - and not that joke of a chain that lets Lovvie rule after murdering his CO. That isn’t military. That’s what barbarians do.”

Kraber raised an eyebrow again. “Ok. So what else?”

"You don't kill civvies,” Yarrow said. “You don't hurt civvies. You don't as much as touch one with a feather duster without my say-so.”

“What? So I can’t randomly tickle people?”

Yarrow narrowed his eyes. “Take this seriously, boy. You of all people should know that this business is not a game.”

“Oh, I know,” Kraber said, and his smile vanished. “I know. But I want what’s fokkin’ mine out of Defiance. If I have to follow your rules for that, so be it.”

Yarrow nodded once. “Understandable. Next up. You keep to the law where possible. HLF are not exactly in the law’s good graces, but I've kept my people as straight and narrow as a violent paramilitary force can be - which is, surprisingly, more than you'd think - and I don't want a wildcard like you fucking it up.”

“Me? Why, I’m the fokkin’ picture of innocence.”

“And I have a full head of hair,” Yarrow said, before smirking. “Final rule. You never run from a fight. You kill your enemy or you die standing.”

“Sounds kwaai enough. Besides, if I got potioned, I’d do that anyway.”

“I mean it,” Yarrow said with a scowl. "You do anything cowardly, you'd better be prepared to fight your way to Valhalla the next time you get a chance."

Kraber blinked at that. “That's… fair, I guess.”

“I want to make one thing perfectly clear, Viktor,” Yarrow said. “Right now, I want to kill you.”

Kraber stared at Yarrow for a second. “Um.”

“You're a mediocre swine. You've butchered innocents. You've helped make the HLF a laughing stock - worse, you've helped make them an enemy of humanity. When people see HLF like your bastards guarding their town in Maine, they don’t sleep easy. They wonder where they’ll scrape together the money for protection, or if they’ll wake up with their house ransacked or their family dead.” Yarrow took a breath, before continuing. “But I’m a great believer in redemption.”

“I… suppose I should be grateful,” Kraber said, uncertain.

“You're goddamn right you should,” one of the armoured figures said, the first time one of them had spoken.

“You won't be sworn in, not yet,” Yarrow said. “You've got a six month ‘probation’ to impress me with, or at the very least not to fuck up in. If in that time you piss me off, you're either kicked out or Blood-Eagled, depending on just how badly you fuck up. You pass that time, and you're a sworn in Reaver. As of now, this is your second chance, and you are already very close to the end of my rope. The fact that Yorke was the one that brought you here is not helping.”

To what little credit he had, Kraber didn’t seem perturbed.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Kraber said, “why not?”

“Because he’s the closest we have to you,” Yarrow said. “There’s rumors about him. Nothing I can prove, but he makes me worry.”

“Why do you keep him around then?” Kraber asked.

“Because he’s a good shot, and he personally volunteered to take out Valentin Velichkov in Spain,” Yarrow explained. “Velichkov was a nasty son of a bitch. Had taken over a city in the chaos. Would sit on a tall building and shoot civilians for laughs with progressively esoteric weapons, just to test his marksmanship, and even potioned random civilians to show them just why he was so much better than the PER. Some even say that because the potion made them loyal to him, Velichkov would -”

“Fok that fokkin aborsie-baba wat uit die asblik kon klim!“ Kraber said. Nobody in the HLF, even the PHL, ponified people. That was… That was worse than rape. That was the worst kind of fokkin’ violation. And for somebody to take advantage of the potion’s…

Kraber suddenly felt like projectile vomiting.

“Exactly. Yorke,” Yarrow explained, “was the one that volunteered to take him out. He waited hours for the right time to make the shot, perfectly still, and fired a .308 round into Velichkov’s balls, knocking him off the roof. He died of the bleeding and broke his spine. At the moment, you, Vikki, have nothing like that to you name. Nothing that I could consider anything beyond happenstance. So what makes me want to -”

“You’re going to keep me because I will kill so many fokking PER,” Kraber said bluntly. “When I skeur their fokkin’ scalps or cutie marks off, human or pony regardless, when I leave them hanging from trees with branches through their fokkin throats, PER will whisper about me. I as sure as fok didn’t come down from fokkin Germany and cross 5000 miles of water and file my way through most of the US to jump out of an airplane to teach the PER lessons in humanity. PER ain't got no humanity. Ponies got more humanity than them. They’re kontgesigs that’ll sell us all out with smiles on their fokkin’ faces cause the stumps I’m going to leave at the ends of their arms as I rip their fokkin hands off aren’t going to be hooves. They’re the foot soldiers of a human-hating, human-killing mass murdering maniac. And they need to be so fokkin’ destroyed that when we win this war, PER are a child’s punching bag to be killed off in anyone’s story. And that’s why each and every varknaaier using potion, they’re going to die. Now I’m the direct descendent of some damn wily partisans that garrotted collaborators, means my PER-strangling hands are damn well itching. I’m gonna be so fokkin be cruel to the PER, and through my cruelty they will know who the fok I am, and that they’ve made their own fokkin’ monster. And they will find evidence of my cruelty in the disembowled, dismembered, disfigured bodies of their brothers that we leave behind us. The PER wont be able to help themself but imagine the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, and our boot heels, and the edge of our knives. And the PER will be sickened by me. And the PER will talk about me. And the PER will fear me. When the PER closes their eyes at night and are tortured by their subconscious with the evil they have done, it will be with thoughts of me they are tortured with. When I post videos of PER like Jorge Bender being eaten by wolves on the internet, they will stop ponifying because they’re more afraid of me than their higher-ups. When the PER pray to Celestia for her to save them, they will realize she can’t help them, because I. Am. Fokkin. Coming. I will get to see Catseye bleed out on the ground, trying to stuff her own organs back in her stomach as I stand over her and…. fok it. I’ll just sit and watch with some kettle corn.”

Yarrow stared at him for a second, perplexed.

“Inglorious Basterds?” one of the armoured soldiers said dryly.

Kraber nodded. “Jewish partisans killing Nazis. What’s not to like?” he looked around. “You got any good baseball bats? I haven’t had a good PER-crushing baseball bat for years.”

“I had wondered what happened to that,” Yarrow said.

“I broke it over the head of some PER bastard in Tunisia,” Kraber explained. “Then stabbed the splintered remains into his eye. Then his throat. That was Kate’s bat…” he sighed. “I don’t think she’d like that I broke it.”

Yarrow chuckled. “Little Vikki Kraber, you fight the good fight, the right way, and you'll get to piss in Celestia’s skull.”

“I say I rip it off first,” Kraber said. “Wit vlam gonorree. Anyway, when do I get the cool kak?”

“‘Cool kak’?” Yarrow repeated.

“Yeah, the armour and the rayguns,” Kraber said. “I heard you had that stuff.”

Yarrow folded his arms. “Even if we do, what makes you think you get it?”

“Well, I -” Kraber began, then he stopped and blinked as his brain caught up with his mouth. “Good point.”

Kraber’s time with the Reavers did not work out, as one could infer from Kraber not having ripped off Celestia’s skull and pissed in it, as well as his lack of gonorrhea. Though that last part probably counted as a good thing, and Kraber seriously doubted anyone in the HLF could possibly get within sight distance of her without being simply vaporized.

Agua Caliente had been the most fokkin’ satisfying thing Kraber had done in the war. It’d been fokkin’ kwaai to work with the Reavers… but, inevitably, eventually, things had gone south, and Kraber had been cast out in shame.

At least he’d been able to do something to bliksem Reitman for what the fokkin’ PER had done to him and his family.

“No,” Kraber said, shaking his head. “Almost wish Ah hud been just so Ah could tell people I hud some fokkin thing ta dae with Reitman. And… Ah wouldnae be a good contact wi’ the Reavers. They… dinnae like me.”

“Why?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Kraber said.

“Hold on a second,” Aegis said. “Just… who are the Reavers, anyway? I mean, I’ve heard a few scattered things, but nothing really concrete.”

“Not surprised,” Fiddlesticks said. “They’re very reclusive.”

“Basically, there's a guy called Maxi Yarrow who likes to think of himself as a Nu-Norse cultist,” Yael said blandly. “Way I heard it, he's big on Valhalla and the idea that dying in battle is ‘the way to go’. His people generally tend to be more of the same.” She looked at Kraber. “That fair?”

“Yarrow for Valhalla! Yarrow for Valhalla!”

“Ah think you're underselling how devoted they are,” Kraber said quietly, his accent softening almost imperceptibly into something else that was clearly not Scottish. “Maxi Yarrow saved a buncha people - civvies mostly - from gettin’ ponified on the HLS Purity, one o’ those jury-rigged pieces of shite that HLF folks abandoned Britain on. Way John Idle tells it, there they were, about to get slaughtered or ponified or both, and then boom. Out steps Yarrow, leads a defence and blows that bastard Potioneer outta the sky.”

Aegis raised an eyebrow. “Huh. Still doesn't explain why people talk about them like they're different from most HLF.”

Yael sighed and folded her arms. “There's a bit of debate about that. A lot of folks in PHL upper-echelons don't see a difference -”

“And a lotta them do,” Fiddlesticks interrupted. “Me and Nny got a lecture offa - offa a guy named Doctor Bowman, an R&D guy, about judgin’ Reavers without meetin’ ‘em. Ah hear him and Colonel Hex get into arguments ‘bout that all the time. And other things.”

“You’ve met him too?” Sixstring asked. “Huh. That guy gets around.”

“No argument there. Anyway,” Yael said, waving a hand dismissively. “Consensus from those people who think they are different tends to say that you never hear of any atrocities they committed. ‘Course, they might’ve committed some we don’t know about -”

“No,” Kraber cut in. “I’ll believe anything of any HLF man you ever point me at, but I'll never hear a word against Yarrow when it comes to anythin’ you call ‘atrocities’. He was very clear about that, and I remember what happens to those who don’t stick to his rules.”

“I said might,” Yael said. “I never said I believed that.”

“All the same, if you knew the man there’d be no bloody ‘might’ about it,” Kraber said. He paled slightly, which for him was surprising. “Only two fellas ever did anything under the board with him. One… one was Viktor Kraber.”

Civilians, screaming, begging for mercy. Preston hitting him in the face with a rifle, a look of disgust on his face. Yarrow eyes, hard and cold and full of resignation, disappointment… but tellingly enough, no surprise at all.

“I always wondered how he got in there,” Fiddlesticks said.

“Eh, shite recruiting standards,” Kraber said. “Ah think Yarrow was being nice or something. Anyway: the other guy was called Tom Yorke. Ya… might've seen that video.”

“Oh God,” Johnny C muttered. “That was… that one was kinda fucked, and I saw a friend of mine bite off Fairbairn’s nose and stab the fuck out of it with a broken bottle.”

“Well, between that and the fact that most people Yarrow gets are good folks who just want to fight the good fight, his people are about the cleanest you'll get in the HLF,” Kraber said quietly. “And they've done a bit of stuff - they were at Agua Caliente, they helped chase down Amadeus Cain -”

“That bastard,” Sixstring muttered.

“And I hear tell they helped fight off that guy Imperial Creed, whatever he was,” Fiddlesticks added.

“I thought he was a myth?” Aegis said with a frown.

Kraber shrugged. “Before my time, and I wasn’t around there at the time.”

“Where were you, though?” Yael asked.

“Eh,” Kraber said, “Bit up north in Canada. I got tired of the cold, so I moved down west. Then ended up back here.”

“You'd think we’d know more about them if they'd done so much,” Aegis said with a frown.

“Well, the guy Nny and I talked to a while ago says that Yarrow figures since their legal status is questionable enough, and HLF protection rackets don’t exactly make people feel safe, it’s best to just stay out of the way,” Fiddlesticks said.

“Also, a lot of stuff doesn't get reported,” Yael added quietly. “Half the reason the world’s morale isn't down the pan is because there's… some liberal omission of facts from news reports.”

“What?” Aegis asked. “You mean the PHL lie?”

“It was a mandate decided early on,” Yael said quietly. “‘Focus on the good news’, or something similarly saccharine. We tell people about some of the more horrible stuff we hear about and they’ll just lose all hope. We keep some stuff back, focus on our wins when we get ‘em…”

“It’s… a little unnerving, though,” Kraber said.

“Would you be able to fight if we did just what Celestia said and beat ourselves down?” Yael asked.

“So it's worse than people think?” Aegis asked.

“Of course it is,” Yael said, chuckling mirthlessly. “I mean damn it, half the planet’s gone or going. The Barrierfall Fronts in Europe and Africa were nothing short of hell, from what I hear, and when it makes landfall here it’ll be worse. I… really don’t like thinking about what’s happening in Asia. There’s stories about people being sold off for human experimentation, and Warlord Feng Gui Zhou all but taking over swathes of territory...” She paused. “If people get to live in hope for a little while longer… well, I’m not going to complain, lie of omission or not.”

“The upshot being, I take it, that Yarrow and his men get conveniently left out of the news reports, since he's not someone the PHL want to be doing good?” Aegis asked, raising an eyebrow.

Yael shrugged. “I guess so. Must fit command’s… I dunno, their agenda of making people believe in the PHL. Too many people still want to be HLF, or support them.” She sighed. “I… don't agree with it.”

“You don't?” Kraber asked.

“I told you, I don't hate the HLF to the point where if people are good people what they do should be ignored,” Yael said quietly. “If they've done all the stuff you say they've done, then they should get to be treated like heroes. Not pariahs. It's not like I’m any better in a lot of ways.” She shrugged. “Not my call, though.”

Kraber chuckled. If Maxi Yarrow had heard about the PHL suppressing information about the stuff his people had done… actually, he probably wouldn't have been surprised. Man had been cynical as hell for an optimist, and had only got worse as time had progressed.

It was only a matter of time before the PHL went to war with the HLF and outright exterminated them. And by then, it’d be likely that they’d do something so horrible that even Yarrow couldn’t refute them, if it wasn’t already Portland.

He didn’t want to see how Yarrow would be at that point.

“I met his daughter, once,” Yael added.

“His daughter?” Kraber repeated. “Maxi Yarrow has one?”

“Samantha Yarrow, Sergeant in the PHL,” Yael said quietly. “Big tester for Armacham gear and other experimental stuff. Took to walking around in Armacham heavy armour.” She paused, frowning. “She was… in my unit. At Nipville.”

“And?” Kraber asked.

“And after that, she… decided she didn't want to be,” Yael said with a heavy sigh. “She transferred somewhere else. That was the end of it.”

“She ever talk about her dad?” Aegis asked.

Yael shrugged. “She didn't know anything about his HLF activities before she left my unit. I know that her having his name got her treated… badly, but I never thought that was fair. I only learned stuff about him after. I don't know what she’d think.”

“Damn this war,” Aegis said quietly after a moment. “Just tears families apart.”

Kraber nodded silently, lost in thought for a moment.

“So what did you do to piss them off?” Yael asked. “Since you mentioned only Kraber and Yorke ever went against their rules?”

Kraber blinked, thinking fast, and then shrugged casually. “Well, I dinnae usually count myself. I guess I’m lucky number three.”

Yael nodded. “Well then. What did you do?”

“Well-”

It was almost fortunate at that point what interrupted.

“ -lo? He-hello?” a voice whispered over the radio. “This is Gestalt. My slave number is P-405. Crystal Empire aviator. Night Mare. Is anyone out there? Am I the last one left alive? I don’t know who can hear this. I… I’m deep below Equestria at the moment.

I suppose I should explain. I am a Night Mare. An Umbrum. A Phantasm, as the ponies call me. Well, part of one. There is… there is a fractal nature to my mind. Sombra’s overseers judged me necessary, and. Um.

There’s something that needs to be explained. Sombra, our leader… there are rumors. That he was not quite a real pony. Well… I suppose we are not, either. Not anymore.

Sombra implanted shards of umbra ponies into us. We could simply phase through cannonballs. We could drop into cities and become mist. Go intangible. I am not sure if I am the same… the same… the same… the same…”

It sure as hell sounded like there was a pony recording this from somewhere, but it was repeating “the same” in the exact same terrified tone as before.

“I know that we can’t rightly say we’re heroes. I know that my home has done terrible things in the War. But I’ve seen what they’re planning. I’ve seen experiments. Awful, awful things on these… things. I can’t… My authority doesn’t allow me to say so. Not just the authority Sombra gave me. That is meaningless here.”

There was a pause, and a quick, wheezy laugh.

“Believe me,” Gestalt said, “I don’t like it any more than you. I am sitting on information that could save earth in the coming month, and yet, our authority… the things they’ve done to us… are limited. My previous messages, earlier drafts, have been incomprehensible. Awful work. Awful writing. Hack writing, hack and slash, slash and stab, they can’t keep getting away with it, they bucking can’t, there’s things out there that’ll eat the Solar Empire for an appetizer! You have to… we don’t care who’s listening to us. But if you can hear me, even if you’re PER-”

And at this point, Gestalt’s voice softened into something female, with something vaguely resembling a low, Bostonian drawl that-

Kate?! Kraber wondered. “Kate?! Is that… who… how the fok…”

“Smash. The. Bucking. Teleport. Spikes,” Gestalt said in Kate’s voice. “I… There is one receiver out there that could give the real message. All I’m able to convey to you through the radio is the slush, a soup of words that I only hope has meaning. Imagine you are in a great, vast desert otherworld. Imagine that you are scattered in the desert, huddled in shelters and hidden in wreckage and what you have managed to take while fleeing a terrible, all-devouring light.

Imagine that there is a blinking light atop the mountain.

Imagine that the jury-rigged recievers you have are overloaded with static. Except the static is the pleas and begging of countless many, and my… our…. our message struggling to be heard above all others. Our message is full of information, but it leaves something to be desired for consistency.

You do not know what the message contains. The message does not allow you to know. The message is not allowed to know its contents.

There is a blinking light atop the… no, that is not quite right. There is a blinking light, a bright beacon in the empty forest.

It would be easy to say there’s wolves, but Kraber would say he doesn’t like the comparison. Some part of me agrees with him.”

“Okay, what the fok,” Kraber said. “What…” ‘How the fok did this fokkin thing know?! How could it speak for me?! What the fokmotherin fok was going on?! Something cold crept up his arms, and the hair on the back of his neck prickled. Though it was late summer, he felt like he’d been confined in one of the… special freezers in Defiance.

“So imagine it is guarded by monsters. Their favorite has left the pack and gone astray, they’ve all fallen to disarray. They’re scared. They’ll do stupid things. But they know they have a prize.

They guard it jealously. They know not what they have.

There is not a blinking light surrounded by mountains, in an empty forest.

The blinking light is a doorway barred shut and broken.

There is something behind the door.

There is something behind the door that only wants to help.

Behind the occupant is another door leading to a smiling goddess of great and terrible power. Behind her… something dark. An evil so dark it scorns all other evil. You have to make this terrible smiling goddess pay. Make. Her. Pay. Make her pay make her pay make her pay make her pay make her paaaaa”

The broadcast devolved into static, and squeals and pops that sounded unpleasantly like screaming. Suddenly, something else popped into existence on the static.

“...ispel some of the rumours that Solamina's drones have been spreading," the voice was saying. "Firstly: the HMS Dauntless is confirmed to have destroyed a Royal Guard transport attempting a covert landing at the beaches of Scarborough, much to Solamina's annoyance no doubt. Her attempt to rework the loss to be Resistance ponies is typical: just to reiterate, no Resistance refugees have been killed by Royal Navy forces since the Blue channels were set up, and that's a Pinkie promise."

“Cousin Tavi?” Fiddlesticks yelled. “What the hell is this?!”

The radio fell into static once more, before flaring out into more static.

“…Grey Ten - Dice Gods be with us…”

“…the Long Watch of Britannia have vehemently denied accusations that members of their organisation are responsible for the spate of pony murders that have occurred over the last five weeks. They insist that any HLF in their organisation are loyal members of the Watch and do not break their code, which prohibits illegal activity…”

“Get them back for me - and tell the Doctor, please?"

“What the hell are we hearing?” Kraber pondered aloud, as the static returned. “What the fok is a ‘long watch’?”

“Somebody takin’ notes?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Yes,” Nny said. “Anybody know how to spell ‘Solamina’?”

“S-O-L-A-M-I-N-A,” Kraber said. “One ‘L’.”

“So… how do you know how to spell that?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Good question. I have no fokkin’ idea.”

“...to go now. You're carrying all our hopes, remember that. And all our love. Keep fighting, and those of us still waiting will see you when you get here."

Everyone sat in silence.

Kraber looked around at everyone, and promptly headed over to the stall to get a beer.

“Well,” Heliotrope said. “That’s… unpleasant. Wonder if I know her?”

“How long have you fokkin been there?!” Kraber gasped.

“Awhile,” Heliotrope shrugged. She looked somewhat weatherbeaten, and was panting heavily.

“Heliotrope? Are you okay?” Yael asked. “You look kind of rough…”

“I’m fine,” she said. “But…. I was following that truck for awhile. And something weird is happening.”

“Something weird is always happening,” Kraber muttered.

“He’s got you there,” Aegis said.

“That’s… not the point,” Heliotrope said. “The HLF said they’d found some way to predict PER. That there was some…” one foreleg scratched behind her ear… “Some of them called it a Hotline, some of them called it an angel.”

Kraber burst into laughter.

“Francis,” Aegis sighed, disapprovingly.

“What?” Kraber asked. “That sounds really sill-”

He saw the look on Heliotrope’s face. Clearly, she wasn’t happy hearing that from him.

“...Sorry,” he said.

“You have to admit that the HLF having something like that sounds crazy, though,” Fiddlesticks said.

“More than what I just heard?” Heliotrope asked. “They didn’t exactly… well, succeed. But they seemed to have faith in it.”

“You think HLF could predict this? Thoughts on this, Mr. Ex-HLF man?” Yael asked. “Francis?”

“Beats the fok ootae me,” Kraber shrugged. “Bit that kak’d better fokkin’ stay as far oot the hands ae Lovikov as fokkin possible.”

“Oh, definitely,” Nny agreed. “Cousin Yael, you gotta tell me we end up shooting that guy.”

“Viktor Kraber is around, the HLF have no idea where he is,” Heliotrope said, “And you want Lovikov dead.”

“Call it a promise to a friend,” Fiddlesticks said. “Besides, Kraber’s not the one that burned an effigy of a horse on my lawn.”

Actually, Kraber had done that before. But he couldn’t specifically remember which lawn, and trying to specify at the moment would probably get him killed. So no.

“Trust me when I say that around here, there is literally nobody that likes Lovikov,” Johnny C said. “And this was before Portland. He keeps his camp on the move, he disguises it so people can’t see it from the air, and he sent assassins to kill me and Fiddlesticks once. Lovikov is the man who always means ‘Why wasn’t it me?’ when he asks why he didn’t recieve a gift.”

“Wait, really?” Sixstring asked. “Assassins?”

“Eh, they’re dead now,” Fiddlesticks shrugged. “What can ya do.”

“Hold on,” Heliotrope said. “One of us is ex-HLF. What does Francis think they’d do if, hypothetically speaking, they had something that could predict PER?”

“I really don’t want to know. Honestly…. probably more protection rackets. A lot of collateral damage. PHL and refugees dying…” Kraber looked over at Aegis and his foals. “And I’m not fokkin letting that happen,” Kraber said, surprised at the conviction in his voice. And when it came down, it was what he wanted, wasn’t it? “I’m tired of good ponies getting hurt by a bunch of scared bawbags. Aegis and his foals, Heliotrope, Sixstring, Fiddlesticks? They don’t like the war anymore than I do.”

“Nope,” Fiddlesticks said.

“Good answer,” Yael said, smiling at him.

With that in mind, Kraber decided to just lie back and listen to the song playing overhead.

Well, wasn’t that a good song for today. Cause from now on, Kraber… nah, fok that bawbag, he was going to be Francis from now on. He was going to be a better person, maybe even a hero.

He was going to be someone good.

Night, White River Junction

Yael and Heliotrope sat in some quarters just above a warehouse the PHL had repurposed.

“Tired?” Reclaimed Beauty asked, trotting up to Yael as she lay spread-eagled on a long bed, head buried in a large set of pillows. Meanwhile, Heliotrope was fluttering over a desk, puzzling over the device Tia had dropped.

“Depends who you’re asking,” Yael asked. It was weird, she thought, though she realized she had come to this conclusion so many times that it had almost lost meaning. She almost looks like one of cousin Ben’s horses.

An assortment of young dogs followed the coffee-brown mare.

Heliotrope just sighed, her wingbeats decreasing in frequency until she simply found herself sitting Lyra-style in the chair. One of the dogs, a male with ears that flopped into a triangular shape who looked to have a little German shepherd and a little of some spitz breed walked up towards Heliotrope.

She cast down one of her wings and ran the feathers along the dog’s back. His tongue hung down between his two front canines. He looked happy. Carefree. Heliotrope envied that.

“Going to go with yes,” Reclaimed Beauty said. “Something on your mind?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Yael said.

“You don’t know what’s on your mind?” Reclaimed Beauty asked.

“She doesn’t know what to focus on,” Heliotrope explained. “...I don’t either.”

“So much of the past 72 hours makes no goddamn sense whatsoever,” Yael grumbled. “Goddamn it. Where’s Roasted Blend’s shitty coffee?”

“Whoa,” Reclaimed Beauty said, mock-aghast. “Whoa whoa. Hold the phone, and the mayo. You actually want Roasty’s coffee.”

“I know,” Yael said, making a face that would’ve been a smirk if not for the fact that she was clearly so tired. “Clearly we are dealing with a terrible situation.”

“Clearly,” Reclaimed Beauty said, returning a less tired smirk. “What’s so terrible?”

“Like I said, so much of the past 72 hours makes no sense,” Yael said. “Kraber disappearing. Gestalt. The PER…. what you heard-”

“You don’t believe me,” Heliotrope interrupted.

“I believe you told me what you heard,” Yael said. “Believing the HLF could predict things like that is not the same thing. Besides, we haven’t seen any actual proof that they can do it.”

“What happened, anyway?” Reclaimed Beauty asked. “What’s this I’m hearing, anyway?”

“After that crazy Scotsman beat up the PER woman that got us this haul,” Heliotrope said, “Some HLF came in. Yael asked me to follow them, and they said... some nonsense about being able to predict PER.“

“So why’s it bothering you two if you think it’s nonsense?” Reclaimed Beauty asked.

“They were so… I don’t know. Certain,” Heliotrope said.

“Honestly, I’ll believe it if I see it,” Yael said. “But, well, I’m not here for that. I’m here because, putting it simply, fuck the HLF.”

Reclaimed Beauty qualied a little. Yael… was not, by any stretch of the word, foulmouthed.

“Fuck Kraber. Fuck them for Portland. Fuck Defiance. Fuck them for using women and children and wounded as shields to provoke us, attacking us when we were talking them down, then calling foul when we do exactly what they provoked us into doing.”

“You don’t mean…” Reclaimed Beauty said.

“I didn’t. But they had child soldiers at the front, one of them shot us, and…” Yael shook her head, making a concerted and valiant effort not to spill tears. If she had any left. “It was a clusterfuck. Let’s leave it at that. Fuck American militia thought. Fuck this thought process that militia… no, idiots that think happiness is a warm gun. Fuck the motherfuckers over my bended knee right into their breaking spine, before they can fuck us, because they comfortably can, have, and will. Fuck them for how they are going to fuck us during Barrierfall,” Yael said finally. “People in America don’t believe me. But they haven’t seen what HLF will do, how they’ll clamp your genitals in a vise when barrierfall hits.”

“Sometimes literally,” Reclaimed Beauty said, and winced. “Seriously. Fuck Velichkov.”

She’d been in Spain.

“Well,” Heliotrope said, fluttering upwards and looking down at the two of them. “That illustrates the diversity of the word.”

“Reminds me of something,” Reclaimed Beauty said. “We’re doing a screening downstairs. Want to come?”

“Nah,” Heliotrope said, picking up a tool that looked like a set of needlenose pliers tipped with crystal straight from the Crystal Empire. “Too much to do.”

“C’mon, Heliotrope,” Yael said. “Tomorrow, there’s HLF-busting to d-”

“Hello?” something asked.

The voice was coming from the device. It was unmistakably Gestalt’s weird, distorted, androgynous warble.

“What?” Reclaimed Beauty asked.

“Guess I have more work on my hooves,” Heliotrope said, her flight patterns shaky. “You two… go watch the movie.”

“You kidding? Whatever this thing is?” Reclaimed Beauty asked. “Not missing this for the world.”

That night, while every pony in the house slept, Viktor Kraber headed out into the woods with a large sack of PHL tech, and a teak box about as big as a coffin. He’d kept the most concealable bits for himself, namely Sylvia’s ACR and its grenades.

Not so much for the armor, PHL hand grenades he’d kept on a belt, and the MG2019. That was Kraber stuff. He wouldn’t need it till something forced him to be Kraber again, perhaps during barrierfall. And by then, with everybody panicking, they’d have no choice but to accept it.

But who would want to know someone like Kraber? Nah, ivray punter liked Francis.

The woods out here were thick. Enough that he could barely see the stars through the leaves. Before the War, before years of misadventures, of fighting newfoals and Celestial Shock Troops in the desert with a stolen STG44, before hiding in forests like an animal, he would have been completely out of his element. But by now? It didn’t matter.

He squinted through the darkness, trying to look for a landmark, then flicked on his phone’s flashlight function. Hmmmm…

There was a tree just ahead of him so covered in burls that it took him a few seconds to realize it was a tree, not a weird rockpile. That would, that would do. So, taking out a knife, Kraber scratched a Star of David into one burl. Then, turning on the phone’s compass and heading directly north of the burl, he walked forward 7 meters to the base of a birch tree.

He took out a shovel. The one that he’d ‘borrowed’ from one of Aegis’ neighbors had a serrated edge in case of newfoals, which he found vaguely funny as he broke ground.

He pressed down on the shovel, the force of his legs driving the blade into the forest floor, below layers of dead leaves and little shoots of plants.

There was something refreshing about this act of simple labor, digging this grave. Plunge and bring out the blade, the dirt behind him.

He’d dug graves plenty of times before, one time after breaking a man’s arms and legs and unceremoniously throwing them into the hole. He hoped they’d been PER. But then, by now he hoped everyone he’d beaten up at least half as bad as Sylvia had been PER. He’d…

There’d been a blue pegasus once, hadn’t there? There was a dam breaking somewhere, it was hard to recall. Kraber had put a bullet through each appendage save for one wing, and left him in a room soon to flood. He’d been crying for somepony named Snowshoes… he’d been PHL, almost certainly.

For a moment, Kraber saw that pegasus staring up at him from the grave, its glare burning into him. But he was used to these things by now. So, ignoring the drowned, purple, bloated dead pony under him, ignoring the squelch of water under his boots, he kept digging.

Was it just him, or did the dirt seem a bit muddier as his shovel cast it out of the hole?

Finally, after having managed to dig down about six feet, he climbed out, then, as best he could, lowered the box into the hole. He’d filled it with his grenades, his unloaded fostech, and what few .338 Lapua Magnum HEIAP rounds he had left, and this small arsenal would stay in the box until he needed it most. Then he lowered the sack, full of his armor, into the hole. It was plastic-lined, so it’d probably be safe until barrierfall.

He’d considered marking a board, a little dramatic touch, possibly marked with a downward-pointing finger like he’d seen in Whitefield once, but he nixed that idea. Nah. What would he say? ‘Full Fathom… one… Peter and Anka’s father lies, of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade,?”

Nah. That didn’t make any sense. Or even ‘Here lies Viktor Kraber. Good fokking riddance.’ It was tempting, it really was, he knew there were people out there that’d actively celebrate his death. But that’d lead people to the weaponry, which would probably lead people back to him. Best to keep it simple.

And, with this stash made, marked with context only he would comprehend, he had buried himself. There was little left of Kraber, save for a few remnants of his… no, Francis’ family.

He could see them now. ~~Peter and Anka~~ Anna and Patrick, still married to an American named Kate, still having bought the same stuffed animals.

Kraber was a failure, the worst person he knew. But Francis could be, would be, had to be better. Though it wouldn’t be hard. Francis was a good person, after all.

With that task done, and Viktor Kraber dead and buried, ~~Viktor Kraber~~ Francis Strang headed off towards his new home for some rest.

Francis awoke the morning after, a new man.

Author's Note

Ah. 29k word chapter... gone! The interview here is actually pulled from an upcoming chapter. I was gonna make one spur of the moment, but going behind the backs of your friends and making a Secret Thing isn't the spectrum spirit. So, I'm leaving that for Jed or Rhys to help with, and splitting this in half for your reading pleasure. And if you think this is huge, just remember: The first chapter update for this was 40k words.

So compared to that, almost anything I do is small.

Didn't Know I'd Love You So Much

Chapter 17: Didn’t Know I’d Love You So Much

Editors/Co-Authors
Jed R

Sometimes I'd stay up all night,
Wishing to God that I was the one who died
Sometimes there's not enough time...

But I didn't know I'd love you so much...
I didn't know I'd love you so much...
I didn't know I'd love you so much,
But I do...
Nathan Wallace, Repo: The Genetic Opera.

Wubba lubba dub dub
I don't give a fuck
Let's dance, bitch
Do The Rick

Let's get schwifty

Someday we will die
let's party tonight
(riggity riggity wrecked son)
let's get wrecked all night
Allie Goertz, Dance Bitch. As inspired by Rick and Morty. WUBBA LUBBA DUB DUB!

Automatic surveillance activates on the interview chamber. Two figures are inside, identified as Doctor Richard Bowman (D) and Chalcedony (C).

D: “Right, have you got the crystal?”

C: “I’m still not sure we should be doing this.”

D: “Nonsense. This is a healthy prank. Healthy pranks are healthy.”

C: “Is that your professional medical opinion?”

D: “Yup. Absolutely one hundred percent.”

C: “I don't know why I hand around with you.”

D: “Lack of options?” (Pause) “Alright, so we’re clear on what we're doing. Right?”

C: “I am an expert on crystal tech.” (There is a pause) “The surveillance is on.”

D: “Good for it.” (Addresses surveillance camera) “Hi Colonel! Hope you're well! Just leaving you a prezzie. Hope you don't mind the sound of Jazz.”

C: “Why he picked this song, I’ll never know.”

D: “Because it swings. Duh.” (He brings out an unidentified tool. Music begins playing.) “There.”

C: “Does this really have to play every time the Colonel comes in?”

D: “Hmm. Let me think about that for a moment.” (Brief pause) “Yes. Yes it does.”

C: “Just so you know, when he comes knocking on my door -”

D: “This was all my idea. I know. Don't worry, I’m used to idiots being annoyed at me.” (To the camera) “Don't worry Colonel - I’ll leave you a schematic as a ‘sorry’.”

C: “What schematic?”

D: “Now, if I told you that, that'd be cheating. But first… I’d like to just say… well. A thought occurs. Colonel, it’s not often I say this, but I’m glad for what you’re doing for… our New Researcher. I suppose I have to go with that appellation?”

C: “Yes. We all do. Anyone that knows about aer does, the general public, anyone who might read this… are not ready. Wait. ...Who are you and what have you done with the real Doctor?”

D: “...Oh, I won’t do anything with me yet! But our New Researcher, well, I thought you’d exploit aer. Ae’s a marvel! A sad, horrifying marvel, but one deserving of our kindness. And you give it! Thought you’d be awful about aer. That, and it pains me to say it…”

C: “Too sarcastic even by your standards."

I: “I’m not! I genuinely am sorry for thinking you’d be another slavemaster. Ae’s had enough of them in too many Empires. But… I read a certain interview you were conducting, and it turns out you care for aer. Truly. Like an uncle to a favored niece. I was afraid, what with the PHL being focused on efficiency and results, that you’d use aer as a resource. But no, ae’s a fellow researcher. A heavily medicated researcher that needs plenty of TLC to function, which it’s greatly obliged. We may have our differences, but in the end, that’s truly laudable. In short - congratulations, you just proved you aren't a completely reprehensible idiot.”

C: “Such high praise.”

D: “From me to him? You kidding? That's the equivalent of a declaration of love by these standards. Now, let me just finish this off.”

White River Junction, Hartford, Vermont…

Trains from Canada, Concord, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York clattered through the small town that had crept up around the four-way railroad intersection. The town had been a railroad hub, dried up when the rails left, reinvented itself as an art town, found itself both with the influx of refugees, and coped as best it could. Somewhere, a little north of here, according to Nny, was a school that taught how to make cartoons. He’d taken courses there, though now it was dedicated mostly to propaganda.

Everything flowed through here. Artists trying to ply their trade in a world breaking down hour by hour, valuable foodstuffs, weaponry and supplies en route to PHL bases, and refugees. Most of whom enjoyed it here during their layover if they had to switch trains - buy a snack, stop by the PHL building for whatever reason, visit the planned gardens planted in a former brownfield by earth ponies, maybe see some performance. It was nice, in a way.

One such refugee who had decided he was a Scotsman named Francis Strang who had certainly never been anyone else, was standing in front of the trains out by the food co-op.

He certainly wasn’t an Afrikaner war criminal and psychopath with a long list of mental issues and a ridiculous body count who had moved to Germany. And, as he was staring at this train, as Aegis’ foals were using the bathroom in the local food co-op, Francis Strang, who was most definitely not Viktor Marius Kraber at all, was not practicing a workout for his denial skills, which he would say he had to keep sharp through constant practice, and which also did not exist. This was clearly mentally healthy.

In essence, the Kraber that the world knew and hated was dead. To much rejoicing. And, in a bizarre turn that would surprise Kraber if he knew, at least some mourning between his parents, sister, and brothers.

"I was projecting, Kraber says sheepishly. "Of all the fokkin’ awful things I’ve done, that was one of the fokkin’ worst.

"Really, Mommy says bluntly. "I mean, really.

"Aweh, maybe not. But who the fok hates themselves enough or did anything bad enough they’d claim their parents would rejoice at their death?” Kraber asks.

"In bird culture,” Rivet says, "This is considered a dick move.”

"I love you, Rivet,” Kraber chuckles. "You’re a great colt.”

"Thanks, Mr… Mr. Kraber,” Rivet says, chuckling a little.

And Aegis smiles at this.

“Even by my standards that’s fokked up,” Kraber says.”I probably have enough mental illnesses for a book series-”

“He does,” Aegis says.

“Would it be the length of Game of Thrones?” Verity asks. “Wait, why are you even in the PHL if-?”

“Probably?” Kraber asks, brushing her off. “Also, PHL counselling is fokkin’ lekker! And even then, if someone was that fokkin broken I’d tell them they needed help.”

“Seriously, do you have tourettes or something?” Verity sighs.

“Blame his upbringing,” Aegis sighs. “We’ve been through this.”

As far as he knew, nobody in the world other than Kagan, who was probably dead in Asia, would miss him.

So.

Again.

Here he was.

The mighty warrior. The man who’d said himself that he was the man Celestia would fear for years afterward, the man that had killed Reaper - and created her, in some sense - and been present for countless massacres, killed more newfoals, Imperials, and PER than he could count, and also PHL, refugees, innocent ponies, been part of wanton murder of other people as scared as them, and no no no no no stop

fokkin STOAP

Francis considered the freight train below, likely bound for a factory somewhere. It had stopped, for some reason. The diesel locomotive was faraway enough he couldn’t see it. He coud see signs of people catching rides on the hopper cars. He’d done much the same back in Africa. People had thought he’d been possessed by an orisha when he’d killed all the newfoals…

Where was he going with that? Right. All the things he’d done, and he was here, in the parking lot of a food co-op, waiting for two of the pony spawnli - no, foals, children. It was…

It was nice, actually. No killing. No anger. A bit of booze. He had a few bottles of some homebrew in his backpack, didn’t he? He unslung it, irritated at the sling for Sylvia’s assault rifle being vaguely entangled in his backpack’s strap. Much as he missed the MG2019 he’d buried in the forest, this was just easier. And that massive fokkin’ thing was too conspicuous.

He unzipped a pocket, only to find that all three bottles of homebrew he’d been given by Moonshine and John Peters - you know, the brewer? - were empty. He idly wondered when he’d imbibed all of it. Had it been on the train here? He drank like a fokkin’ fish.

He considered the train below him. Most people didn’t see all that much wrong with survivors hitching rides on trains, on account of most people being incredibly poor. He wondered if he could do that right here and now.

Just run up and grab onto the ladder of one of the freight cars with what little money he had. Find work in a big city where nobody knew his name, or end up somewhere remote. There was a railroad to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, maybe he could start over somewhere up there…

He imagined it. Working far away from the war, away from any of the geldos or the horsefuckers. He briefly chastised himself for thinking that, as he imagined himself somewhere remote like the oil fields of Alaska near Prudhoe Bay, the depths of a Dead End on the coast where he was one drifter among many in a ghetto somewhere, doing simple, menial work, until...

Until what? some part of him wondered. Look over at the fokkin’ wanted posters.

Not exactly flattering pictures. The same ones of him, and…

Huh.

A few new ones were posted on a nearby wall, just by the side of the co-op. The usual ones for ~~him~~ some bawbag named Viktor Kraber, and…

John Rumlind:
Wanted for collusion with anti-government movements such as sovereign citizens, terrorism, mass murder, breaking & entering, theft, theft of government property, torture, assault of a civil officer, and desertion.

William Warrens Kraft
Criminally insane, hoarding of food, war crimes, murder, kidnapping of pony refugees, torture, littering, impersonating a military officer

Asa Bowen
Theft of military property, murder, terrorism, squatting, conspiracy to commit murder, assault...

Kraber studied Bowen’s face. She looked… bitten. Bowen was some HLF woman who’d kept a VES Advanced Rifle. She’d looked… bitten, if that was a good descriptor. One ear burnt and deformed, covered in thin white scars.

She hadn’t looked happy back then, either. Asa was scowling in the photo, as if threatening to flay the photographer alive.

He remembered the other two from some half-forgotten expedition down in Appalachia against a PHL camp that they’d claimed was ‘hoarding’ medicine. Kraft was fat, with a walrus-like mustache folding into sideburns that he probably thought made him look distinguished, (it didn’t) and tiny spectacles, who claimed to be a marine, but quite obviously never was.

Dad hated people who pretended to be ex-military, ~~Francis~~ Kraber thought. ‘Bliksemed the fok out of that junkie with the missing leg.’

Rumlind… well, he was, in fact, ex-military, but his rampant misogyny, interrupting a woman then yelling at a pony recruit, had gotten him kicked out of the army before he’d even gotten out of basic. He’d painted this as oppression, but by now, Francis wasn’t so sure. The two of them had hated the vaguely socialistic policies that wartime governments had adopted, seemed almost obsessed with antiquated methods. They hadn’t gotten along with Lovikov. Seemingly, nothing could make them.

...What the fok was it with HLF and being deranged ideologues, anyway? Atlas Galt, a sociopathic Objectivist with delusions of grandeur that Kraber knew had left him to die on the rig. Lovikov, a downright awful communist on the verge of a mental breakdown who made Kraber look downright sane. Yarrow, being… well, Yarrow. Say what you like, a man who believed he was going to Valhalla probably wasn't all there.

Although, knowing Lovikov - with his delusions running on the normal order of things in Defiance - he was probably doing something even more deranged by now. Good riddance to bad fokkin’ rubbish. Whatever Lovikov would be doing right now, it would without a doubt be accomplishing fokkin’ kak.

What a fokkin’ awful environment, you need to leave, Francis told himself, You’re barely a fokkin’ step above a bergie, you’re practically penniless, and you’re among ponies. What could possibly make staying here possibly fokkin’ worth-

“Mr. Francis!” Amber Maple called out. Galloping towards him. Smile - a wide, honest, foal’s smile, a child’s smile - on her face.

Well alright then, Francis thought. That works too.

“You watching the train?” Amber yelled over to him. “Hope you’re not gonna get on…”

Fokkin’ seriously? Francis thought.

“There is that party down at the main street museum,” Amber said. “And you and dad said you’d be there. So... you coming?”

Apparently there was going to be a party down the street? Francis had been unclear on the details. He was, as a rule, skeptical of parties in what was practically the middle of the woods, but it was PHL-funded and the first chance he’d had in far too long to enjoy himself, so he’d figured he’d go. Why not?

“Yeah,” Kraber - no, Francis said, heading to the colt and filly with whom he was now sharing a house. He banished the images of work in Prudhoe Bay, or living in some colony somewhere, like what Johnny C had called Point Rotgut in his book. “. Jist… thinking about before.”

Rivet just rolled his eyes. He knew how Francis could be. Very… opaque.

”You never talked about the war,” Amber points out. “I mean… all we knew was you’d been married.”

Meanwhile, Kraber had realized that he had no choice but to be Francis. For them. For Aegis. For his own sake. Kraber was a remorseless sadist ruled by his temper and worst impulses, with no emotional control, and usually went by his surname. Francis was more likely to hang back, a blank slate on which he could imprint what little of him remained from Kraber before the War. Francis might just be him from six years ago, before the War had crossed anyone’s mind.

All that Francis said about ‘before,’ as if it was a mystical place, some rumored human colony away from the Barrier, was almost punishingly vague. He’d said as little about it as he possibly could.

That said, Amber still had to ask the tall, lanky bearded man one question:

“Anything in particular?”

And:

“Not sure,” Francis admitted. “Just…” he sighed. “Ah came oop here wi’ some mates once. Jist rememberin’... I once went oan a train up here. Whin wi could still dae tourism an’ stuff. Thir wis a Heissler loco nearby. Jist… rememberin’,” he repeated. “Ah wis happier back thin.”

“With your family?” Rivet asked, confused.

“An a bunch ay other mates,” Francis said. “So…” he looked down at the bags of rations that had filled up their saddlebags, and the few that he himself was carrying. It felt weird actually being domestic after all this time. Not on a murder spree. But again, it was, well, kwaai. “What kin we dae while yuir da’, Nny, Fiddlesticks, an’ all them are at thit PHL-ASF meetin’? Groceries’re here, so...”

He scratched his stubbly chin. He was working to keep himself at least somewhat clean-shaven, before his beard grew in thick, and some enterprising bounty hunter like Nny’s cousin Sarah realized it made him look like Kruger from Elysium, and then…

“Well,” Rivet said, a mischievous look on his face, “Nny did say there was a museum around here…”

“Oh, great,” Amber muttered.

]Meanwhile
PHL base ‘Roundhouse,’ West Lebanon. NH.

'Of all the odd bases the PHL has in New England,' Aegis thought, looking across the connecticut river towards White River Junction, 'this has to be the weirdest.'

It wasn’t. But it was hard to blame the abnormally large earth pony for thinking so, given that he was standing guard duty alongside a motley crew of National Guard, PHL, and PHL-aligned ‘volunteers’ in a roundhouse that’d been decrepit and disintegrating until a month after Aegis got to Portland, Maine.

He remembered the indignation on their faces as the New Hampshire official had given them the roundhouse as housing, forcing them to sleep on rotted ground.

After hearing about it, humans all over had opened up their doors to ponies like Aegis - this was how Aegis and Johnny C had met, and eventually how Aegis neighborhood had been built. But humans, zebras, and ponies had taken the official’s insult as a challenge, and cleaned up the old brownfield that had been given to them. They’d used earth pony and unicorn magic to draw out the chemicals in the ground, then steadily rebuild it. Of course, the near-boundless supply of human contractors helped too. Within a year - by the time the official’s defeatism and tendency to trip up the PHL in favor of HLF ‘protection’ efforts had left his approval ratings below 40% - it’d turned into their home. Always made Aegis happy to see it. He’d helped add on prefabs, a small manufacturing facility, offices, PHL wind turbines, and small plots of land, for one of the station’s resident earth ponies to try and grow in the brownfields. Sometimes, he’d have to turn your head and squint a little to see what it used to be.

The PHL stationed here were often little more than glorified famers, repairmen and security guards. Civilian organizations like the ASF, and independent contractors like Nny’s cousin Sarah Ruyter, would gather here to be assigned jobs. Earth ponies, with their minor agrimancy, were especially valued, and were welcomed. Aegis in particular would often be assigned to a farm for a day, with his status as an earth pony.

The inside of the roundhouse, now given over to offices and at least one massive loading bay, was abuzz with activity. The PER attack on Portland had been…

Well. Odd, to say the least. People had come from all over to help guard this new delivery, containing some of the materials and… ‘artifacts?’ ‘evidence?’ found in both Portland and Bethlehem.

Massive crates, on loan from PHL bases, lined with orichalcum and nullifying spells, one emitting a distinct ticking sound, had turned the loading bay into a maze of a place. There were a lot of odd characters here, standing by, guarding today’s… well. Delivery. Fiddlesticks and Johnny C, his cousin Sarah, Jack Weiss (and some of his ‘special constables’) and Burt Gransvoort from Gorham, and a thestral nuzzling a yellow unicorn mare with a green mane. Nkiruka, the roundhouse’s resident Zebra (she lived out back) was wearing her assault saddle, pacing back and forth. A mare with a purplish pink coat (like Heliotrope but darker) and electric blue mane streaked with pink - Popover from Linda Branwen’s pub over in Littleton - also looked like she was helping… maybe? it was hard to tell.

And most bizarrely, Colonel Ambrose Hex and his strange, scarf-wearing, staggering-under-the-tech-she-was-harnessed-to bodyguard. Getting visited by the two of them was always a momentous occasion.

“Something about you,” Fiddlesticks said, looking up at Hex’s bodyguard, “Looks familiar.”

Then she looked at a strip of blue fabric encircling the bodyguard’s neck.

“…Fiddlesticks,” Nny said, “Didn’t we find a scarf just like that?”

“It’s classified,” the bodyguard said, prompting Hex’s jaw to go strangely taut.

Up above the loading bay, Aegis could see Rachel Womack, leader of the Appalachia Security Force - a militia that’d gotten smart and decided that the PHL had the right idea - directing the workers towards a section of the loading bay piled high with crates.

As Aegis followed Womack’s idle glances towards the doorway, he could see Nny’s cousin Sarah, a shortish woman with reddish hair and brown eyes, who was pushing a dolly loaded with strange-looking boxes. Behind her, Aegis could see a red-orange pegasus mare pulling a massive crate through the doors to the loading bay, a ~~sarcophagus~~ crate big enough to hold a decent-sized unicorn.

‘What the hell is… eh, it’s better not to ask, Aegis thought.

He nodded to her.

“Summerwind,” he said, nodding to the heavyset red-orange pegasus mare. “You doing okay after Portland?”

“...I guess,” she said, setting the ~~coffin~~ crate down as she rubbed the back of her head with one foreleg. “I’m just…”

Following her was Nny’s cousin Sarah, a shortish woman with reddish hair and brown eyes, and M16 derivative on her back. A woman who Aegis might just consider his type, he’d met similar human ma… women over the years.

“Confused,” Summerwind said.

“Heard it was pretty bad,” Sarah said, casting a sympathetic glance to Summerwind.

It was, wasn’t it? Aegis thought. But he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to get involved. Have people press him, make him question, make him worry. Still… some less-antisocial part of his brain urged him, might be interesting to know. There’s a lot of weird stories around-

But Aegis didn’t act on the latter. So he kept on moving, pushing what felt like a third of the loading dock’s workload.

“It was goddamn nuts, Sarah. First, the HLF starts shelling us. I don’t f…. bucking know why. I heard someone say their hostage operation-”

Johnny C, carrying a crate bigger than him, snorted audibly. His eyes lingered a little too long on the… crate that Summerwind had been carrying.

“Yeah!” Summerwind said. “I know, right?”

“I thought the point of a hostage operation was ‘don’t piss off the other guys,’” Fiddletsicks said, carrying a cartful of crates taller than her from outside the loading bay.

“It’s what Spoony referred to as ‘the code,’” Johnny C said solemnly, nodding slowly.

Everyone but Fiddlesticks rewarded this observation with blank stares.

“I don’t know that pony,” one of the thestrals said, with all the subtlety of a hammer.

“No, no. It’s a username. You know, ‘the code?’” Fiddlesticks asked. “It’s, uh… look, there was this story this guy told about this game, and there was a…”

“You don’t know either, do you,” Johnny C said.

“Oh, no, no… noooo…” Fiddlesticks said, visibly racking her brains, shifting her hat around. “Yes.”

“Oh god,” Johnny C groaned, facepalming. “I’m OLD!”

“Wait, was that the one where those assholes ruin a mission that’s like stealing candy from a baby, then the DM ruins their shit as violently as possible?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“YES!” Johnny C crowed, a massive grin on his face. “I’m not old!”

“But you told it to me and you’re the only one that got the reference! “ Fiddlesticks protested.

“FUCK! I’m still old!”

“I got it,” Sarah pointed out, raising an eyebrow. Nny’s eyebrows raised, his face formed into smile as he drew in br-

“Don’t. I just… you… I… no. I had a sentence here, but I don’t,” the batpony (was that Nebula?) interrupted.

Johnny C and Fiddlesticks fistbumped. Or, fist-and-hoof-bumped.

I knew it was gonna be a weird day, Aegis sighed internally. Then, before he could stop himself: “So what happened, though, Summerwind?”

“Oh shit, he can talk,” Sarah murmured. Fiddlesticks glared at her.

“Just… don’t, Sarah,” Popover sighed, blowing her electric blue and pink mane from her snout.

Aegis gave Popover a nod of thanks.

“We had a big counter-offensive planned against the Bureau,” Summerwind said. “Then… this guy. He’s not part of the offensive, he comes in and shoots everything up. Everything goes to hell, our plan is doomed, there’s a traumatized colt screaming his lungs out at the top of his lungs, people are running everywhere… Raya Caveney rams a truck full of bombs into the Bureau. And that guy, Ivan Bliss, he starts screaming violently. Bliss is… he’s an asshole.”

Aegis cast Johnny C and Fiddlesticks a Look. One that practically screamed ‘which one of us tells her?’

“He says ‘my kind,’ we have a little chin-wag about what an asshole he is. Weird thing is? He listens. And goes into the hospital to clear it himself, saying how he was ‘oaf tae practice medicine’.”

“What,” Burt Gransvoort said, “The hell. That’s just…”

“I think he was trying to kill himself?” Summerwind suggested, confused. “It didn’t work. And that,” she said, tapping one foreleg against the box that reminded Aegis of a sarcophagus, “is why we have this thing.”

A yellow unicorn with a green mane - Aegis remembered that her name was Caduceus - stared at Summerwind with a look that was not quite hatred and not quite sadness.

“Wha…” Jack asked.

“Let’s not go into it,” the yellow unicorn - definitely Caduceus said. “Please."

“Isn’t it classified?” Aegis asked. He didn’t know if it was, but whatever it was, whatever horrible thing inside didn’t concern them.

“You okay?” Johnny C asked, as he turned away from a conversation with his cousin Sarah.

Ah, crap. “I’m fine,” Aegis protested.

“You sure?” Fiddlesticks asked.

Nny looked down at Aegis. “...He’s not okay.”

“I’m fine,” Aegis sighed.

“You know,” Fiddlesticks said, visibly trying to swing a hoof over Aegis’ neck and failing miserably. As Aegis was even larger than her cousin Big Macintosh, this was completely understandable. “Bottling up emotions isn’t healthy,” she said.

“Mmmm-hmmm,” Popover nodded, an oddly forlorn look in her eyes.

“Last time I did that, I ended up beating up my roommate,” Nny said.

“Well, least you didn’t eat them like Kraber…” Aegis said.

“Bruh, who do you think inspired me?” Nny asked. “Told him as much when we were doing a performance of Repo: The Genetic Opera just before Terrance Zdunich came. I was playing Graverobber, Kraber was Nathan Wallace. It was my job… to steal… and rob…” Nny’s voice grew quiet.

Fiddlesticks held her hooves to her ears, and Aegis groaned. Goddammit, he always does this.

“GRAAAAAAAAVES!” Nny yelled.

Caduceus just stared at him. As did Hex, Gransvoort, and just about anyone in the room. Sarah fell off her crate, laughing hysterically.

“…Really,” Rachel said, after the laughter had settled down.

“Do you mind?” Hex asked.

“I ain’t complainin’,” Sarah said.

In response, Johnny C shrugged noncommittally.

Aegis’ jaw dropped. Nny was not necessarily a liar. In fact, he was honest enough Fiddlesticks had said he’d be a better Element of Honesty than her cousin. However, more often than not, he would say things simply too absurd for the logical response to be anything but:

“You’re shitting me.”

Or something like that.

“He’s not,” Fiddlesticks said, facehoofing and groaning.

“Trust the fiddle pony!” Sarah called over, her legs sprawling up over one crate. “It… really happened.”

“That’s just silly,” Aegis said, shaking his head.

“And it happened,” Nny said, rubbing a hand through Aegis’ mane. “Think about that. What’s on your mind, big guy?”

“You ever wonder if you’re doing enough?” Aegis asked. “Home wasn’t perfect, what with the monster attacks… and the Crystal War, but… I took my foals here. And they’ve gotta deal with all of… this. Fuck’s sake, my colt wants to go out there and die.”

“I don’t think he wants to-” Fiddlesticks started.

“He was our messenger during the Crystal War,” Aegis said. “Crystal Empire ponies occupied the town, and he remembers the glory of it. He thinks it’s like playing hide and seek. And most of the war - ponies charging with pikes and flintlocks - was far away enough he doesn’t get it. Amber… seems okay, but given she’s told me people try to kill her on the schoolyard and make jokes about horse hospitals, I don’t know.” He sighed, running a hoof over the tufts of mane that poked out from between the scar tissue concealed under his red bandanna. “I gotta wonder. Am I doing enough?”

Sarah stared over at him. As did Summerwind, and Caduceus, and anybody in the room that wasn’t Gransvoort, Nny, or Fiddlesticks. It was in all likelihood the most words they’d ever heard him say in one go.

“Aegis,” Fiddlesticks said in her thick Appleoosan drawl. “I wondered that awhile ago. When HLF came after me for the… benefit concerts-”

“No need to soak,” Nny said, adjusting his friend’s (Marefriend’s?) hat.

Poor Fiddlesticks, Aegis thought, but he bit it back. She’d been a Conversion supporter before the war. But then, the Three weeks of Blood and the realization Equestria never intended to make peace had destroyed her emotionally. She… wouldn’t want me to pity her. Downright condescending

“And when food went low, when we were freezing during the winter, when things got rough, when I kept getting beaten in self-defense training, I’d ask myself about that. Then I’d remember… the billions of newfoals that’ve gone into Equestria. The totem-proles. The secret police. The Return Act,” Fiddlesticks said. “And I’d say…. yes. I’d think so. In another universe. Surrounded by wonders. Even if we die, this has been the greatest adventure. Aegis, we’re on an alien planet!” she crowed, face flush with joy.

“And yet we were nearly killed by terrorists a couple days ago,” Aegis pointed out. “Why… I mean, I see your point, but why call this an adventure?”

“Because otherwise you’ll get really depressed and begin a slow descent into alcoholism and bizarre kinky sex?” Nny asked.

Sarah looked at everyone in the room, trying not to either throw up or laugh.

Fiddlesticks looked at Nny coyly, trying not to laugh. “Well, yes but no. It’s chaotic. It’s confusing. But at least we’re free. At least your foals aren’t being indoctrinated into hating others. It’s not a great place… but it’s better than the other, Aegis. ”

“Yeah,” Aegis said, looking over the other ponies and humans in this room. “I guess so. I still… don’t quite like this.”

“Hey,” Popover said. “It’ll be fine, Aegis. Don’t worry about it.”

“...It’s kind of the middle of the apocalypse, and I was supposed to be with the foals at the Main Street Museum. And have lessons with Miss Nkiruka.”

“You don’t even know if you can do zebra magic,” Nny said. “Can… can earth ponies even do it?”

“I’ve tried,” Fiddlesticks said. “It hasn’t worked out.”

“But I have to,” Aegis said. “For the foals. I have to.”

“You’re still hung up on that one, eh?” Popover asked. “Argonite is a jackass, don’t let it get to you.”

“Still kinda sad you broke his jaw,” Fiddlesticks said.

“Horseapple-eating prick said earth ponies were useless to the PH-” Aegis started.

“Well, I know that,” Fiddlesticks. “I wanted to do that! Why would you even do that without me?!”

“You broke his jaw without me?!” Popover asked, indignantly.

“Does anybody here actually like Argonite?” Hex asked, breaking his silence.

Nobody answered.

“This explains why his mouth got wired shut,” Hex mused.

“Now I don’t have to hear him insulting my friends,” Sarah sighed, collapsing back on one crate. “Seriously, though - listen to Popover. He’s not worth it.”

“So you keep telling me...”

...Is what Aegis wanted to say. What he actually did was say something monosyllabic and noncommittal, like “Yeah, mmmhmm, sure.”

Because being told he was useless had really stung. So Aegis had gone for lessons in Zebra magic with Nkiruka. It hadn’t been easy, but he’d figured he could give it a shot. It’d be time for lessons by the time the train came in, and Hex headed off to Montreal to work - apparently, Hex was always working on something. A running joke in the PHL was that Hex didn’t sleep, he just had planning time.

Judging by his reaction to what they’d picked up, Hex wouldn’t have much ‘Planning Time’ for awhile. PER tech, Aegis reflected, Is weird. It lay somewhere in between HLF pipeguns and PHL devices - often made from scrap, but with downright weird modifications.

Case in point: The things they were guarding, waiting to transfer onto a PHL train heading up from a PHL facility in Boston.

Usually, they didn’t require so many personnel out and about. Aegis could usually be given time off with his family (Foals needed a daddy. Or at least a parent) or off guarding the farms. Not wearing this painfully heavy saddle. But this… was not the usual.

For starters, it turned out the PER that had been shot actually did have sacs of potion sewn into their bodies that could be remotely detonated. This was not exactly standard. It had been for the best Francis was off foalsitting when Yael had learned about that.

“Motherfucker! He… we could’ve… that…”

“But it worked.”

“I’m sure that would’ve been a big comfort if I’d been ponified. Oh right, it wouldn’t be! Cause then I’d be a zombie!”

Yael had then thrown a chair across a room.

Currently, Yael and Heliotrope were in Burlington, intervening in a PER-HLF battle. This was probably the reason for the high security. Then again, according to Rachel, nobody had found things quite like this.

The weird, weird guns and other gadgets below. They were staring down at the various other things taken from the PER at the synagogue. There was a set of body armor that had been durable enough to withstand rifle rounds at near-point-blank range, and yet light enough to hide under a hoodie, (hadn’t been much help when Francis stabbed him in the balls and stomped out the man’s neck) which would go to PHL R&D for reverse-engineering. There was a squirt gun that had somehow been customized to fire the potion at incredibly high pressure. That would… well, whatever had been used to maintain the high pressure might go into making better machinery, or something. Maybe engines? Heliotrope had been interested in its applications, wondering if they could use it to improve the average car’s engine.

All of it had Shieldwall’s mark - it looked like a shield splattered with something, engraved on the device’s metal casing.

But then, they’d had to leave. Yael and Heliotrope were off “pacifying” various HLF.

There was the usual bounty of arcane materials to be worked into new PHL guns. A few vials of potion that’d be sent to Decontamination, and some odd devices that had been sealed in orichalcum-lined safeboxes at Heliotrope’s highly vocal insistence. There was the teleport spike. There was the box Aegis could not stop thinking of as a coffin.

Evidently, Popover had been confused as well, before asking the question out loud.

“It was my friend,” Caduceus said “Now she’s…” the mare looked down, saddened.

“Ponified?” Aegis asked.

Caduceus nodded. “Yeah. But here’s the thing: She ended up one of the weird newfoals.” The mare snorted. “Yeah. Go ahead. Say what you will. Oh, an Annie, a Abomination, a PP, she’s PER, she deserved it. But this. Was. My. Friend.”

Nobody had a word to say to the mare.

“She died as herself, y’know,” the mare said. “Begging us to kill her.”

“...Wait,” Aegis said, looking confused, head cocked almost doglike. “I have literally never heard of that sorta thing.”

“She was a bit of a special case,” the mare said. “Died regretting it.”

“Fascinating,” Hex said, earning a dirty look from Caduceus.

“How awful,” Popover said, both hooves to her mouth. She wasn’t gasping. Just silently begging, silently asking why?

“Dark. So… what does this thing do?” asked Jack Weiss, who’d been called in with some of his once-homeless ‘special constables’ for extra help in guarding. He was pointing at one of the orichalcum-lined boxes.

“I… don’t really know,” Blackpowder admitted, pointing to a photo he’d taken of the device. It looked like some kind of aerosolization bomb, “But, it has Shieldwall’s signature on it. Literally.” He pointed with one hoof to the kiteshield-like cutie mark scratched on the bomb’s casing.

“I’m so confused,” Rachel Womack sighed. “Summerwind… They flew damn Hinds into the city, yeah?”

Summerwind nodded.

“You don’t just waste that spur of the moment. so I have to wonder: what are they planning? If Shieldwall was around here, and so are PER that can field Hinds...”

She paused, lost in the thought.

Everyone had heard of Shieldwall. A friend of Yael’s had seen him before, while helping to evacuate people down through Northern Africa. He’d stumbled into a refugee camp, parched, unable to speak, then exploded all over the camp. He’d been turned into a living bomb full of potion.

“You think conspiracies are everywhere,” Hex sighed.

“And? I was right about there being a conspiracy in medical organizations all over the world,” Rachel said.

“Anyone could’ve seen that coming,” Hex retorted.

“Except,” Rachel said, “The people that were-”

“Guys,” Nkiruka said, trotting up between them. “Please. Let’s not fight over this, alright?” she pointed with one foreleg to the yellow-coated, green-maned mare. “Caduceus here lost a friend. We’ve… all lost people to ponification. Let this one go?”

“Agreed,” Caduceus said. “I’m not letting you argue over Sylvia’s corpse.”

“Sylvia?” Johnny C said. “Wait, you’re Caduceus, right?” he asked, looking over at the yellow mare.

She nodded. “We’ve met.”

“...Okay, wait,” said a National Guardsman with a mechanical arm that looked to have at least a few weapon modules installed. “Seriously, Heald? How many people do you know? Your congresswoman, Hex, your cousin, Heliotrope... ”

“A lot,” Nny said. Then, lamely, with a shrug, “I get around.”

“He does,” Fiddlesticks confirmed. She looked at Hex and his bodyguard, who confirmed it with nods of their own. “Whoa. Hold the phone, and the mayo. Is that… If that’s Sylvia, then is that...” she pointed down at the box. “Reaper?”

“We have that thing’s corpse here?!” Rachel gasped, staggering back.

“Well, damn,” Aegis said, raising an eyebrow behind his thick goggles. “No wonder you requisitioned the synthetic orichalcum, Colonel.”

Hex nodded. “Precisely, Mr. Aegis.”

They were the only two people in the room that managed to keep completely straight faces.

“Son of a bitch!” Fiddlesticks yelled, among the exclamations of PHL, ASF, and others who had signed up to guard the delivery while they waited for the train. It’d be repetitive to list what everyone had said, and kind of boring for all involved, so just assume that everyone said the same thing.

“Come on,” Aegis said, surprising Hex, making himself about the only calm person in the room. “It’s dead now. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“It’s dead as far as we know,” Johnny C pointed out. “This is Reaper! Could it really, resurrect, y’know, the dead?”

“Yes,” Hex said. “Information suggests that Reaper could. However, the horn was shot off, so the possibility of self-resurrection is limited. Assuming nobody gets a unicorn horn aug and places it on her for shits and giggles. At which point…” Hex shook his head.

“Don’t go there, Colonel,” Popover said.

“Good idea, Pink… Popover,” Hex said, ignoring the look of horror on Popover’s face as he barely avoided misnaming her.

“And it’s also in an orichalcum-lined box,” Aegis pointed out.

Hex blinked. “Impressive composure, Mr Hammer. Might I ask… why you’re back here?”

“The foals,” Aegis said. “I’ve been away from them before, and I’m keeping them in my grasp as long as I can.”

“Which is why you have a foalsitter,” Hex said, vaguely sarcastic.

“He prefers ‘bodyguard.’”

“I’ll bet he does,” Hex said. “Physical strength. College education. Excellent marksmanship scores with assault saddles. You really could go far, Aegis.”

“I’m happy where I am, sir,” Aegis said, saluting. “Keeping the foals safe.”

“I can respect that,” Hex said.

“Incredible,” Popover breathed, trotting a little closer. “I… was it…”

“It was fuckin’ horrible to watch, if that’s what you mean,” Caduceus said. “She kind of got what she deserved.”

...So which of them am I supposed to be scared of? Aegis wondered. At the same time, Nny and Fiddlesticks shared a Look that Aegis had little doubt meant the same thing.

“That’s… shockingly cold,” Aegis said, tensed up a little.

“I’m with the stallion-mountain on this one,” Popover said. “I don’t mind how you react, it’s just that’s a-”

“I don’t know how to react,” Caduceus said. “She was my friend… but she was a traitor… but she was my friend.”

“An anomalous newfoal,” Blackpowder said, and whistled. “We have one. Actual proof they exist… Honestly, I’m a little scared of what R&D will do with the body.”

“I thought you were scared of the spike?” Fiddlesticks asked, pointing over at the teleport matrix spike on the table, a peach-and-amber colored obelisk about twice as long as a railroad spike, softly glowing and marked with odd designs. It had proven an enigma to all of them.

‘We don’t use teleport spikes anymore,’ Heliotrope had explained. ‘When the Crystal Empire’s artillery… nasty stuff, we’re lucky the Solar Empire haven’t been able to make it work with ponification potion…’

“You guys do know how weird this thing is, right?” Nkiruka asked for the umpteenth time, looking down at the teleport spike, which was emitting a vaguely peach-colored glow.

“Enough to think it’s like finding someone in a military unit equipped with a Mondragon rifle?” Johnny C asked.

“I have no idea what a mondragon is,” Nkiruka explained.

“Before he says anything - It’s really old, and obsolete,” Fiddlesticks explained.

“I was going to say that!” Nny protested.

“In as many words?” Aegis asked sarcastically, raising an eyebrow.

Nny looked downwards. “Okay, fair enough.”

“Nkiruka? How long till the lessons start?” Aegis asked, tapping one hoof on the ground.

“Not too long,” she said. “Just… be patient.”

“All I’m doing is standing around, looking intimidating,” Aegis said. “I’m not even doing anything.”

“Trust me, we’re happy to have you around,” Rachel said.

I wonder if the foals are having a better time out there, Aegis thought. ‘I hope they’re looking after Mr. Strang.

Main Street Museum of Art, White River Junction, Vermont
About an hour before a party

”Those’re the severed testicles of Elvis Presley,” Rivet said, pointing matter-of-factly to a pair of objects in a jar.

“Oh fok, why would you even do that?!” ~~Kraber~~ Francis said, laughing at the sheer absurdity of it all. “Oh, hey. A sea monster!”

This was beyond a doubt the weirdest babysitting (or, well, foalsitting) he’d ever done. Apparently, the museum also had a small theater. If that was the word. Sometimes movies would play. And sometimes, as was happening today, there’d be live music. Today’s event was some one-man-band called ‘Mucous Membrane, with a list reading ‘In memory of Ben Digby, Gary Lester, and Les’.

Whoever ‘Les’ was had been obscured by a poster for The Lost Children, a pro-HLF band that’d play in HLF shantytowns like Defiance. ~~Kraber~~ Francis hud bin tae one ay their gigs. It wis awright, actually.

He sincerely hoped they wouldn’t play here. Eh didnae want more ay his past tae come up.

“Ooh, a Jackalope!” Rivet said, staring up at a strange creature in a jar. “I didn’t know you had those on Earth!”

“We dinnae,” Francis said.

“Really? We have jackalopes back in Equestria,” Amber Maple said, confused. “Earth is weird.”

“And from mah perspective,” Francis said, “Yuir a talkin horse from another universe.”

She looked up at him, and Francis was caught aback by just how much her mane resembled human hair. It… seemed to behave like human hair. And…

There was something weird about most ay it, actually. I’ll do something Kraber wasn’t capable of, Francis thought. Protect her and her brother.

“Saying it twenty times,” Amber said, “Doesn’t make it funny.”

“Like Blackpowder!” Rivet called over from another section of the museum.

Francis and Amber looked at each other. “Definitely,” the two of them said, and chuckled.

“Blackpowder’s kind of a jerk,” Francis said.

“Well, every pony on Earth’s been through a lot,” Amber said. “Rivet and I have. You just gotta…” she looked up at him. “You are really unforgiving, aren’t you.”

“Yes,” Francis replied bluntly.

“I know Blackpowder can be overbearing-”

Francis raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, he’s a jerk,” Amber admitted. “But he’s been through a lot. We all have. Just… ”

“I got it, kid,” Kraber said, bending over a litle and ruffling her mane. “I’ve been… pretty fokkin awful at forgiveness.”

“Hold on, Rivet,” said a slightly short (but then, a lot of people were short next to Francis) man with a receding gray hairline and thick black glasses. “You actually have jackalopes?”

This was Mr. Ford, owner of the museum. Apparently, he was a friend of Johnny C, thanks to him having once posted on the Museum’s page “You guys are crazy as balls! I love it!”

Two small dogs that looked somewhere between Jack Russell terriers and Rottweilers with black fur around the head, and orange eyebrow markings trotted around his feet. One was sniffing Rivet, clearly not sure what to make of this bizarre, vaguely horselike alien.

Mr. Ford had taken kindly to ponies of Equestria, having sponsored examples of art made by various ponies and PHL displayed nearby, even spilling out onto the street. Even now, the entrance was guarded by a huge statue of Lyra, made out of flags and now-priceless objects of barrier-eaten nations. Apparently, Sixstring would also be playing here tonight.

“We do,” Amber confirmed.

“Well, how about that…” Mr. Ford said. “What, does Celestia use them as lubricant?”

“Why would she even do that?”

“Considering what your daddy and Johnny told me about Celestia’s regard for life nowadays, I don’t doubt it,” Mr. Ford said. “So gratuitous. Who could even say Celestia’s a hero if she does so many gratuitously horrible things?”

Francis’ stomach grumbled. “Mr. Ford? Will there be food at the party later?”

“There will be, some of it made by Popover, but I do hope that’s not all you’re here for,” Mr. Ford said. One of the dogs barked, and licked Rivet’s face. He giggled a little.

Good tae see one ay the wee foals gittin a chance tae be a bairn, ~~Kraber~~ Francis thought.

“Nah,” Francis said. “The daddy ay these two foals told me tae look eftir them, last time I saw him-”

“Is he okay?” Mr. Ford asked. The dog at his feet, the one that was not currently licking at Rivet’s fetlocks or trying to get a horseback ride from him, looked worried. Its eyebrows would have looked narrowed and concerned, if not for the fact that its eyebrows were just markings that naturally looked like that.

~~Kraber~~ Francis chuckled.

“Nah, he’s just over at the PHL building,” Amber said.

“So,” Mr. Ford said, looking Francis up and down. “You’re their foalsitter.”

“What?” Francis gasped, looking confused. “Ah’m nowt… ah mean…” An’ what’s wrong wi that? He thought. No, someone, something that sounded for all the world like the notorious HLF terrorist Viktor Marius Kraber thought. Not him. Could never be him. Fokkin’ enjoy it. “Ah prefair th’ boadyguard,” he finished lamely.

“Don’t sugarcoat it, Mr. Francis,” Amber said. “You’re the foalsitter.”

Francis shrugged. “Awright. Ah’m th’ foalsitter. Braw wi’ that.”

“Besides,” Rivet called over, “What with mom being a bit…” he shuddered, and suddenly looked very sick. “Y’know.”

“I don’t know,” Mr. Ford said, and Francis leaned in, nodding.

“You… really don’t want to,” Amber put in.

“Anyway,” Rivet said, looking over a sculpture that looked like a mix of old, broken rifle parts, a few musical instruments, and odds and ends cobbled into a vaguely gunlike shape. A lump of rock - Chalcedony, if the label was correct - was the only signature. “You’re like another daddy!” And then, with a questionably innocent look in his eye that understood love, but not the mechanics of it: “Maybe you can get man married and I’ll have two daddies!”

Amber just fell on her back guffawing hysterically. Mr. Ford looked at Francis, shrugged, and said: “What works, works.”

The surprising thing to ~~Francis~~ Kraber was that he didn’t really mind. What the fok did he care? Aegis was the nicest gl - stallion he’d yet known. Something about him, about his foals, seemed to make him more Francis, less Kraber, and just all around a better person. Aegis was everything that HLF claimed ponies weren’t. Kind. Loving. Actually… Well, in short, not a monster. And he wanted nothing to do with Equestria.

“I guess I’m open to that,” Kraber said, shrugging. “Sure. Yuir dad’s a great stallion.”

“When’s the performance, though?” Amber asked.

Mr. Ford looked up at a wall clock. “Pretty soon.”

“Aw, ponyfeathers. I wanted to be with Dad for it,” Rivet sighed. “I thought the train would be leaving by now.”

So did Aegis.

“Sir?” Aegis asked, saluting. “Wasn’t the train supposed to have…”

“I recieved a message from Yael and the National Guard detachment responding in Burlington,” Hex explained. “They said the skirmish is being…” a look of discomfort crossed his face. “Neutralized.”

“So they’ve got it under control?” Rachel asked.

“Yeah,” Hex nodded. “There’s enough time for the train to be diverted up there in the aftermath. For us to pick up whatever they recover from the site.”

“Makes sense,” Johnny C nodded. “More PER in the area, with more Shieldwall gadgets…”

“Well, it’s not just that,” Hex said. “There’s word that the HLF might have… something. I don’t know what.”

“What, this ‘Hotline’?” Fiddlesticks asked, rearing up for the sole purpose of making airquotes with her forelegs.

“You know,” said Popover, “You could just roll your eyes while doing that.”

“Nny does airquotes all the time,” Fiddlesticks pointed out.

“Nny has fingers,” Popover replied.

“Huh. I guess that does throw a wrench in things,” Fiddlesticks admitted.

“You’ve heard of it, then,” Hex said. “I must admit, usually R&D works on pony stuff. But this has them a little unnerved. I... ” Hex ran a hand through his thinning hair. “I need to go back. Besides, we…” He looked down at Aegis. “We have a transmission. From the Resistance. And they need me to help work on the data we’ve received.”

Aegis’ ears poked up a little. As did Fiddlesticks, who barreled into him.

“What’d… what’d they say?” Aegis asked. Fiddldesticks was practically clinging to him, begging Hex for answers, pleading…

“That a highly-placed Ministry of Supply plant-”

To put it lightly, Fiddlesticks was enraptured. Aegis rarely saw that kind of joy - her eyes had gone starry, (literally) and she had a smile on her face from ear to… well, that didn’t quite work, more from eye to eye. “You mean my-”

Aegis stuck a hoof in front of her mouth.

“CMRMPHRN FMRMRMPHTMPH!”

“Thanks, Aegis. And yes, yes, that one,” Hex said. “Please don’t do that.”

“Sorry,” Fiddlesticks said. “But… what’d they…”

“Simply put, he said that something’s got the Ministry of Supply on edge. That they’ve been funneling supplies into what used to be Reykjavik, and he has no idea what it is, but he’s guessing they’re building something. Big. He says it’s been labeled under ‘Colony supplies,’ but Reykjavik isn’t exactly known as a prime colony location.”

“How… how are things back home, though?” Popover asked, her eyes wide.

Hex shook his head. “Not… not great.”

“My mother’s still there, though,” Popover said. “I… I know we’re not on good terms, but I have to know if she’s fine.”

“Then I hope she’s alright,” Aegis said. “But just don’t worry about it right now. It’ll… I saw the last batch of photos. I couldn’t sleep at night, Poppy.”

“I guess… wait, Poppy?” Popover asked, scrunching her snout a little.

“It sounded cute,” Aegis mumbled, blushing slightly under his thick white fur. “Just… Resistance Reports are usually kind of grim.”

“You damn right,” Fiddlesticks said, nodding. “By the way, Colonel, do the Resistance know what Gestalt is? Cause, well…”

“We’ve been worried,” Johnny C interjected.

“Yeah. We’ve been worried,” Popover added. “It’s scaring the customers back in the bar.”

“Why do you work there, anyway?” Rachel asked, confused. “Everyone likes having an earth pony on the farm. They add a bit of…” she smirked. “Color.”

That, and apparently we make healthier food, Aegis reflected. Only academics just barely above Lyra, Laconic, or Shriek’s status had been invested in studying earth pony magic for most of Equestrian history, and only a few years before the return of Luna had it been a very serious subject. It’d been a welcome addition to see it written in the forestry publications Aegis (and, surprisingly enough, Nny and Fiddlesticks) enjoyed.

“By which I mean, he liked reading Earth forestry publications,” Aegis explains. “Something about managing the family land.”

Aegis had been pleasantly surprised to hear all the benefits that earth pony-grown produce had on humans. Apparently, it’d made them all-around healthier, and humans found consuming them had been found to be less susceptible to diseases made common by exodus from the Barrier. Including, appropriately enough, feather-flu.

Suck THAT radish, argonite! Aegis thought.

“Well,” Popover said, then froze up. “I see what you did there,” she chuckled. Aegis, Nny, and Fiddlesticks chuckled along with her. “Anyway, though. Someone’s gotta do the cooking, but the broadcasts are scarin’ the customers.”

“Same with mine,” Sarah agreed.

“How could you not be?” Aegis asked, shivering a little at the thought of the last broadcast. “That’s weird.”

“The Resistance has no idea what it is,” Hex said bluntly. “All they know is that it’s a security risk, and they’re scrambling to find out what it is.”

“So nobody knows what’s going on, the world’s ending, and everyone’s scared to piss,” Aegis sighed. “What else is new.”

It wasn’t gallows humor. It was paralyzed in the crematorium humor.

“But there’s still the Museum,” Fiddlesticks said. “There’s still music. There’s still…”

“We’re all here?” Nny finished.

“Yeah, that,” Fiddlesticks said. “Come on, big guy, lighten up!”

This being summer, the concert wasn’t upstairs in the museum. It was out back, under a tent. Someone was setting up stalls, and Rivet and Kraber were sitting on the back porch, watching the sun set. Amber was just behind them, a cheap pen somehow affixed to her hoof as she scrawled out a few letters on a piece of paper. A bottle of root beer that ~~Kraber~~ Francis had bought her sat nearby.

“What’re you doing?” Francis asked.

“Dad wants me to try some exercises for writing,” Amber explained. “He can type on a keyboard or use a game controller, so he wants me to try my hoof at it.”

“Yuir da’ is a freak,” Francis said, approvingly, affectionately.

“He’s our daddy,” Amber said. “He’s thinking someday I can hold up a pistol with a hoof.”

“That is crazy,” Francis said, whistling a little. “Damn. Can yuir da’…”

“No, he has an assault saddle,” Amber said, and chuckled. “Too big for Rivet, he could get lost in it.”

“I’ve seen motorcycles smaller than your dad, I can believe it,” ~~Francis~~ Kraber chuckled. “How’s that root beer?

“Pretty good,” Amber said, sliding it over with one foreleg and placing her muzzle over the straw.

~~Kraber~~ Francis reflected on this. It felt… nice.

Except for the sculpture on a pedestal nearby, a stylized skeleton with what looked like a horse skull placed above a human one, with shreds of rubbish arranged into the shapes of bones. There were purplish-pink lights fixed into the eye sockets. It looked like it was looking down at Rivet, who didn’t seem to mind.

There was that same signature marking it, lump of chalcdeony and all.

“I’ve seen worse,” Rivet says.

You nod at that. “I’ll bet. Chalcedony’s sculptures are weird, but when you take a boat to America...”

Rivet just nods. “That was awful.”

“The less said, the better, son,” Aegis agrees.

Two ki… foals… children, ~~Francis~~ Kraber thought to himself. Me looking after em… for their dad. Being their friend.

Couldn’t have planned anything better.

”Didn’t most of your plans involve going to the flank-crack of the world and hiding till everyone died?” Vinyl asks.

“Yeah, they were shitty plans,” Kraber says. He looks over at Aegis, and ruffles his mane. “Glad I went with this big lug.”

“Thanks, you gaunt mental patient,” Aegis laughs.

“I had a mate,” ~~Francis~~ Kraber said. “Back in uni whin ah wis here. Eh eywis said artists wir crazy. Seriously, I goat tae wonder a bit there.”

“Who, Chalcedony?” Rivet asked, jerking one foreleg towards the sculpture. “Nah, she’s alright. You really gotta worry about Daddy.”

“What?” Amber asked.

“Kid,” Francis said, “Yuir da’s massive. Why wouldn’t be be awri-”

“He gets… sad, sometimes,” Rivet said. “Maybe it’s cause of ma. Maybe… it’s not me, is it? I hope it’s not me.”

“Come on, don’t be like that,” Francis said. “Amber, Rivet, it’s not… your dad loves both of you. I’ve spent the last few years beating what little fokkin empathy I have tae death wi’ a basebaw bat, and even I can see it.”

“You’re sure?” Rivet asked.

“Trust Amber on this one,” ~~Kraber~~ Francis said, “Yuir da loves you. Anyone can see it. He’s… he jist needs… a pick-me-up. Something. Trust me, he loves you a lot.”

“You’ve barely been with us for a week,” Rivet said, confused.

“He brought you here, he put a roof over your head, he made sure neither of you are PER,” Francis said. “I think that’s a passable way to say you love your kids. Dad was…. dad was the same, sometimes.” ~~Francis~~ Kraber paused and continued on. “He changed, of course. Got more open, after awhile. The war, his bastard of a father, taking on his wife’s name just to piss him off… Did a fokkin’ number on his head. Dad wisnae dumb. Just hurt.”

“I wanted to ask - How much of that was true?” Rivet asks.

“Every fokkin’ thing except what I said next,” Kraber says.

“What happened to your dad?” Amber asked. “You don’t talk about him often.”

What would dad think of me, anyway? ~~Francis~~ Kraber thought. Killed a lot of people… too fokkin’ many of ‘em weren’t PER or Imperial. Been an all-around kontgesig.

“Yeah,” Rivet said. “What about your dad?”

“...He probably thinks I’m dead by now,” Francis said finally. “Bet he’s happy about that.”

“...What,” Amber said.

“Dad, uh…” ~~Kraber~~ Francis said. “He… Ah went tae the HLF. He went PHL. That pissed him oaf.”

As a matter of fact, ~~Kraber~~ Francis hadn’t paid attention to any interviews with his dad. The old man had been in radio silence, and auld Paul Strang wouldn’t have anything good to say about his son.

Paul Kraber, on the other hand, would restrain himself from being anywhere near like his own father, and simply beg his son to turn himself in.

“I’ve done things he’d disown me for.” He ruffled Rivet’s mane. “No, Rivet, you’ve got nothing to fear from yuir da.”

“He… he can’t hate you, can he?” Amber asked. “What could you have possibly done in the HLF that was so terrible? If you were in the Reavers…”

“I got kicked out, remember?” Francis asked.

“He did,” an unfamiliar person said from behind him. “Something of an inauspicious day.”

~~Francis~~ Kraber twisted around, one hand on that new Ruger revolver he’d gotten from Orzala, Hauser, and Blackpowder. Nobody that didn’t know him as Francis could’ve known that he’d said it.

Which meant this person knew him as Kraber.

Which meant…

There was a train leaving soon. Trains were always heading through here. It was White River Junction. He could jump on and leave… Nobody would know which train. He could leave. He’d kill the fokkin’ kontgesig, it’d be fokkin kw-

“There goes the good Colonel,” Johnny C said, snapping off a salute. The train would just be passing by the Main Street Museum now. The work was long done, Popover had left to plan the party, and everyone was just beginning to filter off.

“Godspeed,” Rachel Womack said, wincing. She’d lost part of her leg in the Three Weeks of Blood, and had never quite recovered.

“Why was he even here?” Aegis asked, and everyone - everyone - including people that outranked him. “No… seriously. Why was he here? There’s no research stations for miles, so we might as well be Alaska. The most interesting thing with PHL R&D that happens around here is installing yet another turbine.” He winced. “That I usually carry.”

“Ignoring the fact that there actually is a research station in Alaska,” Fiddlesticks said.

“It was the remotest place I could think of,” Aegis explained. “So… why us, of all people?”

“We have been getting a lot of attacks lately,” Rachel sighed. “Why, dear-god why, does it have to be us?!”

“I’ve been asking that question a long time,” Aegis said, sighing. “I need a drink.”

“No,” Rachel said, looking at a map of New England. “I mean, why does it have to be here. What’s the advantage?

There were thumbtacks in a pattern spreading upwards from New York and Boston, out to eastern Canada, with most of them concentrated in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

“PER attacks are in purple,” Rachel explained. “HLF are in red. Blue means a battle. Counting Portland and the clusterfuck at that abandoned quarry, we have five so far. It’s… why so many PER? Here?”

“Well, fuck,” Johnny C sighed. And yawned. “Great. Maybe they’re all looking for something?”

“Well, we were in Portland,” Fiddlesticks said. “I… don’t think they were looking for anything in particular.”

“Probably not,” Rachel said. “But I can’t help but wonder.”

“You’re still hung up on the Hinds, aren’t you?” Johnny C asked.

“No, it’s that time of the month what do you think it’s about?” Rachel snapped.

“...I feel like I should make some sort of witty comment here,” Johnny C said.

“Don’t. But Nny, everyone’s hung up on the Hinds,” Reclaimed Beauty said, and Aegis was uncomfortably aware that she was staring at his flanks.

“Beau,” Aegis sighed, facehoofing. “Stop being hung up on mine.”

“I’m not apologizing!” Reclaimed Beauty said, beaming.

“...Why did I expect anything else,” Aegis said, but everyone could see him smiling as he said so. Reclaimed Beauty, Nny, Fiddlesticks, all this lot, they were his friends. “But yeah. I am too. PER are supposed to be subtle. Then, all of a sudden, two choppers full of soldiers, ponies, and stocks of potion.”

“They came for Reaper,” Fiddlesticks said. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Kind of,” Rachel said. “Which raises the question of how they found her. But the thing that bothers me is…. Jacky, what did we decide?”

“They were preparing for something beforehand,” Jack Weiss said, nodding, a little irritated at Rachel’s nicknaming. “The teleport spikes, for one thing.”

“But there weren’t enough to bring in a battalion,” Reclaimed Beauty said, confused.

“Yeah,” Aegis said. “But we only found two spikes on the PER in Bethlehem. Who’s to say there aren’t more out there?”

“Isn’t that right?” the man asked. “‘Mr Francis?’”

...Wait, so is he calling my fokkin’ bluff or what? Kraber thought. He held one hand to his revolver.

Standing behind the three of them was an older man. He looked almost genial - his kind old features and warm smile, hazel eyes twinkling from behind worn half-moon spectacles, were entirely incongruous with the body armour he wore and the pistol in its holster. He wore two necklaces - one was of a Norse-style runic symbol, and one was a crucifix. This man was Tom Richardson, more often called Preacher, from back in the Reavers. Dark, curly, thinning hair topped off his head.

“It’s Mr. Francis,” Amber said, suspicious. “Who’re you?”

“An old…” Preacher said, scratching his chin. “Well, I wouldn’t call us friends, per se.”

“I fed a man tae wolves while you guys weren’t looking, once,” ~~Kraber~~ Francis said.

“I’m still not clear on why you did that,” Preacher said.

“It was for the environment! PER have no fokkin regard for trophic cascades and the effect of wolves on streams and fish populations,” Francis complained. “It’s all ‘oh, hey, we hate humans eating meat and being so cruel!’ But show them wolves eating animals, and they can’t handle it.”

“If you say so,” Preacher said. “If you’re trying to shock me, it won’t work.”

FOK! “Obviously fokkin’ not, Jesse Custer.”

“My name isn’t Jesse Custer,” Preacher sighed.

“Well, everyone calls you Preacher, so you’ll have to forgive a slip of the tongue,” Francis said. “Why’re you here?”

“The children back in Bastion-”

“Where?” Francis asked, frowning.

“...Needed maple syrup,” Preacher finished, not answering him. “Or they wanted it, which amounts to the same thing to some of them. So here I am. Meeting a friend who said he’d help.”

“So I nearly killed you in a botched fokkin’ maple syrup drug deal,” Kraber chuckled. “How about that.”

“There would have been less embarrassing ways to go,” Preacher said with a shrug. “My name’s Tom Richardson, by the way. Unofficial Chaplain to Maximilian Yarrow’s Reavers, a Human Liberation Front group, though I should probably say you needn’t worry.”

“You’re HLF?” Amber yelped, looking towards the gun in Francis’ holster.

“You say that very openly,” Francis said with a frown.

“What would be the point in lying?” Preacher said. “Besides which, I don’t have a very high bounty on my head for being brought in dead, and I’m certain it’s not much higher alive. In fact, I reasonably doubt I have a bounty - Ah, anonymity. Lovely thing.” He turned to Amber. “And you needn’t be concerned, young lady. I am not here to hurt anyone, or indeed anypony.”

“...But you said you were HLF,” Rivet said, confused.

“Did he tell you he is?” Preacher asked, jerking a thumb towards Francis.

“Retired,” ~~Kraber~~ Francis said.

“Oh? Finally left working for… well, those types?” Preacher asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Retired,” ~~Kraber~~ Francis growled again.

“I can’t say I blame you, though I can say I’m surprised,” Preacher said. “Pleasantly, though. Did someone offer to pay you more than-”

“Well, I did make more money when I left, but I retired cause I was….” ~~Kraber~~ Francis considered this. “I ever tell you about my dad, Preacher?”

“You’re going to tell a long meandering story about him,” Preacher said, folding his arms. “I can tell.”

“Not really. Da’ wis a smoker, once. Wis drivin from Kru….” ~~Francis~~ Kraber stopped himself. Naw, naw, nowt Kruger, somewhere else. “Somewhere bout 15 hours away from home. Smoked th’ whole way. When eh got oot the car, eh realized it smelled awful in there an eh couldnae take the fokkin’ smell. So eh stoaped. That’s what I did,” Francis said. “One moment ah wis…. Next, before ah ken it, ah wisnae. Nae much tae tell. Some people dinnae huv a speech break em intae shape like ya tried tae get me tae ken. Some people jist look at themselves an’ ask the fok they daein.”

Preacher nodded slowly. “An… interesting metaphor, and apt, I shouldn’t wonder.” He unfolded his arms, looking at Rivet. “To answer your query, young sir - tell me, did you ever hear of the Redstripes?”

“The who?” Amber asked.

“I’ll take that as a no. What about Rickard Thomlinson and the Rangers of the North?” At the blank looks, Preacher smiled softly. “How about Soren’s Skydivers? The Kraken Grenadiers? The Sternguard? Weller’s Boys? Any of those names ring a bell?”

The ponies shook their heads.

“Ah, I see,” Preacher said. “Now here’s a different question - have you ever heard of Atlas Galt?”

“That k… fokkin bawbag... was responsible for Portland!” Francis spat.

“I thought that was Lovikov?” Rivet asked.

“If you didn’t know Galt was responsible, then he’s doing like he eywis did,” Francis said. “Cat’s-fokkin-paws ivraywhere. Someday, that bawbag wi’ be naebody in th’ grand scheme of things, an’ naebody will ken or care.”

“I wasn’t asking you, Mr Francis,” Preacher said idly.

“But ah’m right,” Francis said.

“Perhaps. Though I would admit it would be ironic, in an evil sort of way. You have likely heard of more HLF units than any PHL affiliated individuals. I was asking these young ponies whether they’d heard of Mr Galt. Since you’ve mentioned him to them, they have, and Mr Lovikov, it would seem. Even so, they’ve given me answer enough.” He looked at them. “The only HLF you’ve heard anything about seem to be the ones who are… shall we say, the loudest and nastiest. Most of the others I mentioned are decent enough types. A little… eccentric.” He paused, a slight, sad frown crossing his face. “Or they were. Most of them are gone now, of course.”

“...Wait, really?” Francis asked. “You’re… what happened to them?”

“What do you think?” Preacher asked, perhaps a little harsher than he would have wanted. “They fought PER and Empire and they died, while you were off killing children and refugees with Lovikov and his thugs.”

Rivet looked like he was about to cry. Amber was staring at Preacher with raw hatred in her eyes.

“Excuse me,” ~~Francis~~ Kraber said, resisting the urge to strangle Preacher, “Kids? I’ll be right back.” His voice sounded cold, and strange even to him. “Jesse Custer here and I need to have a friendly conversation.”

His fingers were twitching as he motioned for Preacher to come with him. A moment later, the two were standing between a building and the railroad tracks.

“Well,” Francis said, surprisingly calm. “I consider myself a generous man. Not often I reply to people asking me to shoot them.”

Preacher frowned. “Repentance starts by admitted you did something wrong, Mr Francis, and if you aren’t prepared to accept what you did, you -”

“It’s not about that!” ~~Francis~~ Kraber interrupted. “The fok was with that?! Are you saying that to me? To them? I am fokking done with that kak. I all but wrote a resignation letter in the blood of other HLF!”

"Please don’t remind me,” Mommy says, looking a little sick.

"Sorry,” Kraber says, a little sheepish.

"You went way overboard,” you say.

"Ja,” Kraber says. "I did. I overdid it, but I’m not saying they didn’t deserve it.”

"Fair enough,” you say, and you are surprised at the venom in your voice. That sheer, raw, hatred for the men that would’ve held a "Oh. I’m sorry. I was too…”

"Trust me, they were all bastards. And the loss of Ides is… actually, no fokkin’ loss at all. There’s nothing wrong with wanting revenge,” Kraber says. "Just don’t-”

“LOSE YOUR WAAAAYYYY!” Amber abruptly belts out. Verity cringes. Kraber and Aegis just stare at each other, shrug, and enjoy it in the way that only a parent can enjoy their child’s first, halting steps towards genuine talent.

“Ja,” Kraber says, nodding. “That. Don’t lose that.”

“Good going, kid,” Vinyl says, “But you’re trying a bit too hard. Worrying way too much.”

“I thought it was a good start, Amber,” Kraber says.

"Did you really say that to Preacher, though? Mommy asks.

"Nah,” Kraber admits. "It just slipped out at the time.

“I have fokkin’ napalmed my bridges!” ~~Kraber~~ Francis continued. “Who the fok says that in front of kids?! Oh, by the way, kids, your foalsitter-”

There was a brief look of confusion in Preacher’s eye.

“-is a homicidal, bosbefok, mass-murdering kontgesig! Feel better now?! I’m their foalsitter, I can’t let that happen to them! I owe everything to their dad for giving me a place to stay, and for the last! Fokkin’! TIME! I! AM! RETIRED!”

“You seem to be happy enough sharing other parts of your history, considering your language and the fact they know anything at all about Lovikov and Galt,” Preacher pointed out. “As well as threatening people with death, or certainly severe injury, if they say something nasty.” He scowled.

“Oh, I wasn’t going to,” Kraber said. “I know you well enough to know you wouldn’t provoke me in front of kids for the sheer hell of it. And I wanted somewhere quiet so we could talk this over without getting each other woedend.”

“You can be surprisingly insightful when need be, but it doesn't change the facts,” Preacher said. And then he sighed. “But then, ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone’. What I said was nasty. I’m sorry - it was unbecoming. But the fact remains - I had friends with the Redstripes and the others. Good people. A cousin even. And while they were dying against the enemy, your superior officer was garrotting his superior officer-”

“Helmetag died when I was with you,” Kraber interrupted. “Gregor… was a good man. He deserved better than what that…” he paused. “I ever mention I grew up near a greek family back in Cape Town? They made the best baklava. Lovikov is what they would have considered a malaka.”

“I wouldn’t consider Lovikov spoiled,” Preacher said. “And I didn’t know you knew greek.”

“Not much,” Kraber said. “Here and there. But he was spoilt. Like a wolf with rabies.”

“Which led him to be the kind of monster the worst of the HLF seem to actively cherish, and then led him to encourage you. Because he didn’t like leaving ponies alive, and loved killing innocents. And this doesn’t erase the time you were with him, killing innocents, instead of fighting the enemy.”

Francis sighed. “Fok. Damn you for being… I dunno, right about something. I should have been better then. But… I am damn fokkin’ well going to do better now.”

“That I suppose, remains to be seen,” Preacher said quietly, “though I must admit, you seem to be making a sincere effort.” He sighed. “In any case - we have most of the Redstripes with us now. Some of the others too, those who could make it. Not enough, of course.” Preacher chuckled. “I’m starting to think most of the HLF who aren’t with the increasingly radical ‘program’ that Galt and Lovikov peddle are starting to come to us, which if nothing else is wonderful for learning German or French - or Chinese, would you believe. Most of it is swearing, but still.”

“How are you guys doing?” Francis asked.

“Well enough,” Preacher said evenly. “We’ve somewhere to be, and as you can tell, we’re a little better equipped than most.”

He motioned to his armour. A big, shiny Armacham logo was on the armour.

“I’d ask, but you’d give a circular answer or just something vague. So no.”

“What makes you say that?” Preacher asked.

“Ah, howzit my bru, I think feeding people to wild animals is funny and I’m dangerously unreliable! How about telling me where you got better gear than the rest of the varknaaiers!” Kraber said sarcastically.

“A friend of Yarrow’s in fairly obvious high places,” Preacher replied bluntly.

“You don’t say,” Kraber said.

“What?” Preacher asked, shrugging. “He’s some R&D type, high hitting. He makes deals and gets the gear, and we’ve been fortunate enough to have him give us some of this equipment.”

“That’s… a lot more information than I’d expect you to give me,” Kraber admitted.

Preacher chuckled. “I didn’t give you his name. Even if I did, I doubt his position is so fragile that one man who’s currently running under a false name for fear of probably having that rather excessive bounty collected on would run to tell on him. Wouldn’t you say?”

“I would say,” Kraber agreed. “Besides, if he’s in R&D, he’s probably in a city with lots of PHL. I’m not going within a mile of one of those places if I can fokking help it.”

“... and in retrospect that is the funniest thing I said all week.”

“Not saying much,” Verity points out.

“Most ironic thing?” Kraber suggests.

“That works,” Aegis says, nodding.

“So who is it, anyway?” Verity asks. “Which officer?”

“Fokked if I know,” Kraber shrugs. “Not my business. Besides, if I did know, I wouldn't tell you.”

“That is, perhaps, a wise position to take,” Preacher said with a shrug. He glanced at Amber and Rivet. “I believe your young friends are concerned about you.”

Kraber considered that. Ponies, foals… being concerned. Caring about him. Children trusting him. Nice change of pace. “I think they might be. Better head back.”

“You’ve certainly changed from the man who we threw out,” Preacher said as they walked back. “It almost makes me wonder if what you told me about having too much was true.”

“Well, we both oversimplified some things,” Kraber said. “All you need to know?” He looked around to make sure nobody was listening. “Lovikov had us do… y’know. A checkpoint.”

Preacher nodded. “I… see. Extortion.” He shook his head.

“Ja,” Kraber nodded. “But does shooting a man’s car up for no reason, stripping it of everything, killing the occupant, and leaving some kids orphaned count as extortion? Because Lovikov did that. And if I hadn’t just broken the fok down at that car trunk, I would’ve done it because he would’ve fokkin’ told me to do it.”

Preacher blanched. “Dear Lord, we should have come here from the start. Maxi said as much.”

Kraber nodded. “Aweh. It’s bad up here, and I could sleep drunk and happy knowing you were killing everyone in camp with smiles on your fokkin’ faces.”

“You know that’s not how we operate,” Preacher said.

“I know,” Kraber said. “But. I also know someone has to kill the fokkin’ varknaaiers before there’s a town burning to the ground, people lined up against walls and living hand-to-mouth in conditions that make this-” he swept his arm around, gesturing to the vaguely organized squalor that surrounded them- “look like fokkin’ prewar.”

“Are you sure that’d happen?” Preacher asked. “There’s enough PHL military presence here I don’t feel safe myself.”

“There’s people that’d want that just to spite the PHL,” Kraber said. “Guns taken, forced to depend on kontgesigs that’d soon as shoot them for the sheer fokkin’ hell of it as protect them. Not standing for that kak. Not. Anymore.”

Preacher nodded slowly.

“But… the thing you need to know about the checkpoint, is that… Say, have you heard of this? Up by Berlin, New Hampshire bit north of Milan, along the Androscoggin, some HLF guy doesn’t kill a mother and foal? Reavers hear a lot of things. I know that much.”

“We’ve heard tell of an HLF man letting ponies escape, yes,” Preacher nodded. “I also heard tell of a man with a rather impressively advanced weapon taking on a super Newfoal with only another unicorn as backup, but that’s something of an urban myth. You wouldn’t know anything about that, though, would y-?”

“Yeah, that was me,” Kraber said. “Both counts.”

“I am hardly surprised,” Preacher chuckled. “Well, Mr Francis, I can’t say you’ve not made your mark. Many things you were during your time with us, but hardly a dull character.”

“Well, that is the closest thing I’ve recieved to a compliment in a long time,” Kraber said. “it’s been… interesting, Preacher. But I have foals to-”

“Oh, hey Preacher, what’s up?” Johnny C asked, wearing his PHL-augmented National Guard armor, Fiddlesticks trotting behind. “See you’ve met Mr. Francis Strang. Didn’t know you two, y’know, knew each other.”

“I knew all the Reavers, living and otherwise,” Preacher said quietly. “Six hundred and ninety nine come under that second count. Mr… Strang was something of a problem case while he was with us, but it’s good to see he’s finally made something of himself. Threats of GBH aside.” He gave Francis a pointed look, and he had the decency to look abashed. “I’d hoped it’d happen, but here, with ponies… some things beggar belief.”

“What’d he do?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“He ended up foalsitting,” Preacher said. “Obviously.” He cast a knowing glance over to ~~Kraber~~ Francis Strang. “Tell me, would you be up for a drink before I see to my business?”

He took a small flask out, holding it up with a knowing smile. ~~Kraber~~ Francis raised an eyebrow - among Reavers, offering a drink of that stuff was a mark of respect, one he had hardly expected to ever receive from a Reaver again.

“Ah, what the hell. Why not,” Francis shrugged.

“Well, if we’re holding out mysterious liquids, here,” Fiddlesticks said, reaching into one of her saddlebags and pulling out a brown plastic bottle. “Tapped it ourselves over the winter.”

“‘You have your poison, I have mine?’” Johnny C asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I feel safe in presuming yours is not as… unpleasant as mine,” Preacher said with a wry grin, before taking a swig and handing the flask to Francis. The slight grimace was one of a man used to a foul taste.

Francis gulped his flask down. “Still tastes awful… But then, I’ve had every kind of rotgut on the east coast, so I’ve had worse.”

“Lord above,” Preacher sighed. He took the flask back and screwed his top on, before sighing. “Do me a favour, though, Francis. You didn’t know them - the Kraken Grenadiers, the Redstripes, Rickard, Soren… but you knew of them. And you know us.” He sighed. “Dare I ask - don’t forget us, when it all ends, one way or another. When they write their histories, don't forget any of us.” Before Francis could reply, Preacher turned and sighed. “So, Mr Heald. Syrup?”

Johnny C and Fiddlesticks nodded.

“Mmmhmm,” Fiddlesticks said. “No additives, preservatives, what have ya… an’ a little earth pony magic. Tell the kids I worked hard on it.”

“They’ll certainly appreciate it,” Preacher said with a smile. “Oh, and Joe says to thank you for the dress - his daughter looks lovely in it.”

“He still just callin’ her ‘the Kid’?” Johnny C asked.

“Ah, yes,” Preacher said with a chuckle. “Joseph Rither is many things, God bless him, but a man of imagination is possibly not one of those things.”

“Some things never change,” Johnny C said. “But… y’know, I heard Mr. Francis say things are getting bad around here.”

“Are they?” Preacher asked.

“They are,” Fiddlesticks confirmed. “Two PER bombings in the last week. Nny’s cousin’s dealing with the second one.”

“I stopped the first one,” Francis said. “Well. I helped.”

“And your list of pleasant surprises for me grows,” Preacher chuckled. He sobered slightly. “I would ask if you’d like me to ask Maxi to send some people, but somehow, I doubt they’d be a welcome sight.”

“I was thinking more… someone to keep an eye on things,” Johnny C said. “I mean, look at me. I’m not exactly inconspicuous. I’m singing on stage later, for God’s sake.”

“Neither are most of our people,” Preacher said. “And Maxi stopped sending lone scouts for the most part when the PHL shot Wolfgang. Still, I can ask for nothing - he’s always valued my opinion.”

“See what you can do,” Fiddlesticks said. “Cause… well, no matter what, we do value your opinion.”

Preacher smiled. “Appreciated. If you see a jeep with some chaps in Armacham armour around, you know who we are. And if someone’s head conveniently explodes near you when you need it most… well, then you know who we are.”

“...I don’t know, I see people’s heads exploding a lot,” Francis said. “Even cause some of it now and then.”

“You’ll know when it’s us,” Preacher said. “Right, Mr Heald, Ms Fiddlesticks, shall we go confer with my driver? I think Erin is probably getting antsy by now…”

“Come on, there’s no reason for her to be that paranoid,” Fiddlesticks sighed. “This is Vermont.”

“Wolfgang would disagree about paranoia, I think,” Preacher said. “And with all due respect, you’re not the one with bounties on your heads.”

“He has a point on that last one,” Francis admitted. “Anyway… I’m heading back to watch the foals. Nny, where’s Aegis?”

“Lessons with Nkiruka,” Fiddlesticks groaned, one hoof to her face.

“Now? Seriously? It’s about tae start!” Francis groaned. “His foals want him here.”

“You know how Aegis gets,” Fiddlesticks said. “Maybe you could bring them over to the roundhouse. Talk some sense into him.”

Aegis wheezed out, fur dripping through his fur.

A common misconception about Zebrica was that it was all deserts.

This was not even remotely true. There were plenty of forests all over the country. Zebras, particularly shamans, dibia like Zecora of Ponyville (who now worked in PHL greenhouses on most definitely harmless projects)-

Verity snorts in disgust, and gazes around, mortified and just how horselike she sounds.

“I’m sorry about what happened to you,” Yael says.

“I’m sorry for laughing,” Kraber adds.

“I’m not,” Vinyl said.

“Why would you laugh?” Yael asks.

“Because it’s ironic,” Kraber explains.

“He’s got you there,” Heliotrope says.

“Mmm, true that,” Vinyl says.

“I said ironic, not funny,” Kraber said.

“One day, you’re going to be surrounded by people who hate everything you stood for and laugh at your pain,” Verity says.

“What? Again?” Kraber asks. “Twice was enough. It was awful.”

She snorts. “Yeah? Well, you’ve got a better deal than me. Fuck you, and fuck the dice gods while I’m at it.”

Anyway, zebra dibias, medicinemen… medicinemares… medicinezeb…

"Trouble with tenses there, Aegis?

"Yes…”

"Just go with ‘Medicinezebras.’ “

"Thanks, Vi.”

...Medicinezebras that used herbs and the power of God to heal their patients, enjoyed the forest. It was an excellent place to grow medicinal herbs, you would be surrounded by nature, and the trees were shady, making it very relaxing.

As such, Nkiruka had taken the space behind the old roundhouse for herself. This being what some would call a brownfield, a chemically polluted area of land, some would call it stupid. But Nkiruka, through her talents, had been working her magic on the land. She’d built a home out of one of the shipping containers, and if Aegis looked closely, he could just make out the buffers against one of the flatbed railcars through the trees. According to Rachel, they’d use those flatbeds and an assortment of refurbished locomotives to pack up the base and leave at Barrierfall. He could see the town through the woods, too.

Still, in between two towns in two different states, alongside a river, it made a passable oasis.

The lights and the clotheslines strung with ikenga charms above the shipping container were against regulations, somewhat. They’d be hellish to pack up, as would be the canopy extending outwards from the container.

The bottles stacked on the cheap patio furniture under said canopy, however, probably would not be hell to pack up. This was because they were labeled ‘Nuka-Cola’ and that shit is delicious.

Could really go for one, Aegis thought, panting.

From what Nkiruka had told him, zebra magic wasn’t too complex. Every being of Equus had magic - it was a part of them and their planet. Earth ponies and zebras didn’t have horns to superconduct a planet’s latent thaums, or wings to glide on them like pegasi.

What they could do was serve as conduits.

At the moment, Aegis was trying be a conduit between earth’s thaums and a small pear tree Nkiruka was trying to grow. It was exhausting - like learning to use a new muscle. Soon (in theory) he’d be able to raise trees.

Provide for his foals. Defend them with his life. Make sure they had the best damn life possible even here. Even now.

At the moment, Aegis could not even do that for a pear tree. He was staring at it, wishing desperately he had what humans had called psionics. There was a roaring tempest beneath his hooves. He was channeling his magic, pouring his heart and soul into the earth, begging for it to do something!

Come forth, thaums! Imbue this tree with life so I can give my foals the most delicious of pears!

Aegis burst out into wheezing giggling at the thought of that. Then he coughed. Aegis could feel the earth roiling beneath his hooves.

There was so much below him. It was like he was standing above a reservoir of energy, a veritable typhoon. If magic came from the soul, then all those scientists - scientific racists, pseudoscientists, more like - had their heads so far up their flanks they were at risk of imploding into a black hole.

First off, humans were no more soulless than him. Second, there was magic on earth. You just needed to know where to look.

Aegis stared at it like a unicorn might grasp an object. Gazpacho, from over at Linda’s pub, had told Aegis he focused on objects with his eyes, and imagined himself using his eyes to pick them up. It was the horn, of course it was, but his horn was close enough to his eyes that it didn’t matter.

Aegis did not have a horn. So he imagined a path directly from where his hooves met the earth. Imagined a system of roots spreading from the keratin, probing into a leyline.

Come on Aegis half-thought, half-grunted. “Can do this.”

He imagined touching the plant. There was so much energy thrumming through his body. It felt uncomfortable, his body felt like it was shaking from this Power. He could feel his hooves hurting. He could feel something like a fire in his throat.

He could feel it!

“Let the energy out,” Nkiruka said softly. “Do it now.”

So much power! SO MUCH RUSHED THROUGH THE EARTH BELOW HIM, HE COULD DO THIS, HE COULD WIN! HE COULD PROTECT HIS CHILDREN, HE’D NEER WORRY, AND HE’D BE HAPPY, HAPPY AT LA-

And then Aegis farted.

“...Good?” Nkiruka asked, uncertain. “Not quite what I meant.”

Aegis sighed, and resumed.

Animate it. Make it dance.

“Mr. Aegis,” Nkiruka said. “I believe you need a rest. All this work in your state, when tired, is not for the best…”

“Can do it,” Aegis wheezed.

“Mr Aegis, you seem overstretched,” Nkiruka said. “Continuing as you do might leave you quite wretched.”

“That… was… terrible,” Aegis coughed.

Preacher stepped out, waving at Erin - the girl was sat in her jeep, looking oddly incongruous in her armour. He took out his phone, frowning at it slightly.

Worth doing? he wondered. Wolfgang Brennan had been shot by PHL for the crime of existing: Preacher had spoken to his brother Heinrich about the whole thing. The two had been scouting near the site of a PER attack, and an overzealous PHL guard had found them and, upon realising who they were, shot at them. Heinrich had escaped with a graze.

Wolfgang hadn't escaped at all.

Their ‘backer’ had pulled strings and got the body returned to the Reavers where it belonged, but it had been a solemn reminder that - as much as most of them wanted to help - they weren't wanted out here. The well, as many of their members had said, was poisoned, and they were better staying away and staying safe. They had focused on putting Bastion together, focused on other things, and only Yarrow’s best men - Preacher himself, Erin, Preston, Theo and Idle - were allowed out scouting anymore. The PHL wouldn’t do this for them.

But then, Preacher thought. We’re not them, are we?

Still.

He pulled his phone out and started to text.

PER in Vermont and New Hampshire area. Threat to friends. Two attacks recently. Requested any help we can offer. TR.

After a moment, a reply buzzed back.

They need our help?

Preacher typed his reply.

They ASKED.

There was a long pause, and Preacher wondered whether the other man was thinking it over, or whether he was just wondering how best to say no. After another moment, the reply came.

It must be bad. Safe for deployment?

Preacher clucked his tongue, wondering whether he should be honest or lie. Then he dismissed that idea - Yarrow trusted him. Lying would jeopardise that trust, and he was a leader Preacher respected, unlike many (well, since the last of the old Sternguard had been killed off and the Redstripes and Kraken Grenadiers folded in, all) other HLF.

Uncertain. PHL presence in area. Possibility of ravenous wolves and mad dogs. High risk.

He paused before sending, hoping the response would be a favourable one. Finally the text came back.

Vermont area being scouted by JI.

He looking at Bowen?

She thinks she’s being a reformist, but she insults us so often I think it’s a verbal tic. Still, he’s not too far. Will dispatch Odinson group to back him up. Their lives on your head.

Preacher sighed, but he felt a wash of relief.

Understood. YfV.

Putting the phone away, Preacher hoped that he'd done a good thing today. He guessed it was all in God’s hands now.

“Dad promised to be there,” Rivet sighed.

“Well, then I’ll convince him tae fulfill that,” Francis said as they headed over the river. The PHL and ASF had built this bridge from their roundhouse to the other side of the river. According to Amber, some people had questioned the bridge’s usefulnesss, but payment was payment. Be it money or rations.

The sun was beginning to set, and yet another train was clattering along the nearby railroad bridge. The wind whistled against Francis’ hair, and Amber and Rivet’s manes. There was an appreciable amount of traffic - that side of town was a short walk from the Main Street Museum, and government-enforced rationing discouraged driving such short distances. It was the whole spectrum of people that the three of them were flowing past on their way to find Aegis.

There was a steady babble European and African languages that Francis couldn’t help but hear.

And plenty of ponies as well. Earth pony farmers and workponies like Aegis who must’ve been tired from long days. One unicorn stallion, not quite as large as Aegis, had a filly bouncing in his back. Pegasi were flittering overhead.

And was that….

“A pony made of crystal?” ~~Kraber~~ Francis asked, confused. There was, indeed, a crystalline pony walking along the bridge nearby, clad in an old Homestuck hoodie.

“Oh, that’s Brighthoof,” Amber explained.

“Hi,” Brighthoof said, waving over at them. She had an odd accent, somewhat more formal, a little stilted. Like Nny’s vaguely, lazily southern accent, like the place where a British accent was starting to run into a Southern American one. Like from South Carolina. ~~Kraber~~ Francis had been there before. “I… I’m used to th’ stares.”

“Dinnae make it right,” Francis said. “Ah nivir thoat ah’d meet a crystal pony. Thoat they wis just stories.”

“Where have you been?” Brighthoof asked.

“...Naewhere good,” Francis said.

“Ignore it,” Rivet sighed. “He’s always conveniently dodging questions and giving vague answers.”

“Because the actual answers are awful,” Francis said.

“Fair enough,” Amber admitted. “Have you seen dad?”

“Yeah,” Brighthoof said. “He’s over with Nkiruka. Trying to do zebra magic. I think he wants to impale newfoals on tree roots or something.”

“...Does it even work that way?” Amber asked. “I mean, I know Nkiruka, I’ve met Basimah from over in Portland, and that doesn’t really seem… y’know… possible.”

“Who knows,” Brighthoof shrugged. “Either way, he’s devoted, I’ll give him that. He better get back soon, though. Or he’ll miss the better parts of that block party.”

“Why do you think we’re trying to find him?” ~~Kraber~~ Francis asked.

“....Oh,” Brighthoof said, nodding a little. “You three go and find him. He’s just pouring out thaums, Amber, it’s not going to end well.”

“...Is he going to explode?” Francis asked uneasily.

“No, he’ll just be really tired and sick,” Brighthoof said. “He’s not going to really be hurt-”

“We’ll be hurt!” Rivet interrupted. “Emotionally.”

“Wait, why didn’t you say anything?” Amber asked, confused.

“I was going to,” Brighthoof said. “But… I think it’s for the best if I head off with the three of you.”

She gestured to the narrow spit of forest along the east side of the river with one foreleg. Near West Lebanon. Near the roundhouse that had become a PHL building, meant to administrate this transportation artery.

Anything could come through here. Anyone.

“Ah, why not,” Francis said.

Brighthoof cast a curious eye, one that shone like a ruby and almost seemed to glow over the tall, lanky scottish stranger. “Mr. Strang?” she asked. She looked…

Grateful?!

~~Francis~~ Kraber’s mind reeled for a second. A pony, grateful. Happy to see him. Safe. It was a rare experience, and so far he’d had it only…

He counted. Maybe once in Agua Caliente, Rime Ice… I wonder how he’s doing after it was my fault, my fokkin’ fault he got bliksemed, maybe Caduceus, those people from the Sorghum, Nebula… Aegis and all that lot who are my new chommies…

He looked down at Amber Maple and Rivet. So small, so tiny… so cute! and for all the world, not all too different from children. Just tiny horses, or, well, foals. That weren’t zombies or fokkin’ Celestia Jugend, just children.

Aweh, by the standards of the last week or so, it wasn’t all that uncommon, but by the standards of his fokkin’ wasted excuse of a life, it was pretty fokkin’ kwaai.

“Whit’s tha’ look fir?” ~~Kraber~~ Francis asked, curious.

“I’ve heard good things about you is all,” Brighthoof said. “People say you’re…” she held one crystalline foreleg up to an equally crystalline face. “Dependable. We had three military-”

“Three?” ~~Kraber~~ Francis asked.

“Dad’s military,” Amber explained. “Not very high-ranking, though. Most ponies outside Equestria are. Unless they’re out in the wilderness and just want to be left alone.”

“I can respect that,” Francis said. “Wanting to be left alone.”

“Who wouldn’t? Just get away from all this...” Brighthoof asked, earning a shocked glare from Rivet.

“I wouldn’t,” Rivet sulked, looking down through the bars of the bridge. Which, some fatherly instinct left in Francis’ mind noted, were thankfully too thin for him to go through. Thank God!

“Keep away from the side of the bridge,” Francis said. “Ah ken ya’d have tae try pretty hard tae git through those bars, but it’s makin’ me nervous.”

“Okay,” Rivet said, practically beaming up at Francis as he trotted a little further into the bridge, closer to his sister.

Amber flashed ~~Kraber~~ Francis a worried look. What was that about?

“Wha-” Francis asked.

“Later,” Amber said, as they neared the edge of the bridge. “The forest is coming up.” She pointed with one foreleg.

“Not much ay a forest,” Francis said, a little skeptical.

“Well, it’s the closest thing for awhile,” Rivet said.

They were both right. It was more like a narrow spit of overgrowth. There were buildings in the middle, like PHL R&D, but nobody really wanted to do anything there. It’d require too much work to do anything there, so the overgrowth remained.

Thanks to close proximity to both the PHL building and Lebanon’s airport, the overgrowth was used for plenty of things. More often than not, it seemed that PHL or anyone working with them would use it to relax. This was why the trees had been strung up with weird, recycled lights. They were all made of recycled glass, either jars or bottles, and they glowed in all the colors of the rainbow in the late-afternoon shade. A small plot of Equestrian plants, lightly glowing pink in the late-day shade that you could mistake for nighttime, sat nearby.

They headed down the river, southwards, towards the hut where Nkiruka made her home. The rainbow-colored lights gave an eerie cast to the shadows between everything, but it was…

Lekker, ~~Kraber~~ Francis thought. Things seemed to flitter between the trees. Weird flashes of light and shadow that could have been the branches moving. Or could they?

Victory was trotting through the bushes nearby. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked. Almost wistful. “When Barrierfall comes, this’ll remain. You won’t.

Huh?

“You really think that you’ll be safe, don’t you?” Victory asked. “Look. Something like that other you, something like me… we’re inevitable. Just make sure it’s me, yeah?

Jy is vol kak, Kraber thought. We already went over this! I did a Gurren Lagann reference and everything!

‘You want to bet on that,’ the Dark Kraber said, looming over them.

“...Is something weird about that tree?” Amber asked, pointing to the space where the Dark Kraber was standing.

“Kind of?” ~~Francis~~ Kraber asked. “Let’s just ignore it. We’re looking fir yuir da, nowt playin’ manhunt.”

You know that you can’t ignore me forever, the Dark Kraber said.

Why not? Kraber thought, an irritated look in his eyes. ‘You ignore you all the time. And Ek is siek en sat van sy nonsens. Saying I’ve ‘Forgotten.’ He flicked an eye to the unfamiliar pistol at the Dark Kraber’s hip. ‘How does that old saying go?. I do not shoot with my hand; he who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his fa-”

I remember his face perfectly we-

“Stop that,” someone snapped. “All of you. Even one such as him deserves a moment’s peace.”

The Dark Kraber promptly shut up. For a moment the armoured figure simply stood, looking almost indecisive, then he vanished.

“Ha!” Victory laughed. “I thought he'd never -!”

“I was talking to you too,” the voice said sternly. “Go. Away.”

Without even having a chance to react, Victory vanished too.

“Hmmm?” Brighthoof asked, clearly more confused than anything. Her eyes seemed to glow. “I can… I can…”

“Can you see them?” someone unfamiliar asked.

“Good question,” Brighthoof said. “I could sure as Tartarus see something around, but…”

“It’s for the best that you didn’t, then.”

They could see an albino mare sitting at a table in between two trees. It was a shadowy little nook, one that you could have missed if you didn’t look hard enough.

“Shades of shades,” she said, sighing. “Not worth your time.”

“Sooooo…” Amber said, head cocked to the side, “Do you mean the trees, or…”

“No,” the albino said. “In any case, they’re gone now. They won’t bother your friend for awhile.”

“Mr. Francis is haunted?” Rivet yelped. “That’s… really cool, actually!”

“In a word, yes,” the albino said. “He is haunted, but I doubt he is so… enthusiastic about it.”

“Who would?” Brighthoof asked. “You don’t want to bother with ghosts, trust me.”

“Trust me,” Francis said, abruptly finding himself saying: “It’s not cool. They’re fokkin’ assholes. It’s all ‘The only way out of the pain is through a bullet in your head! Your body is the anchor keeping your from flying! Over the stars!!’ And then if I die, I’ll say ‘This isn't pleasant... I'd rather not be dead... Don't want to die... Don't... Geez... This is worse than goth poetry... Agg…’"

“Actually, I believe you’d make a gurgling noise,” the albino said.

Why do I keep thinking of her as an albion? Kraber wondered. “What, really? Ah, crap. I always wanted those to be my last words. That, or go out playing ‘The Light Depondent’ at full blast while apologizing.”

He squinted at the albino. She looked to be playing a game of chess. There was no visible other player. Whatever cutie mark she might have had didn’t show up against the pale fur unless you really squinted to see the discolouration, and in this weird, algae-lit sunset, you were lucky if you could make out as much as a discoloration. Her mane was long, tied back into a ponytail (ha ha, there was irony) and she wore a loose white robe. The strangest thing was the small sword at her side, golden-hilted and set with a small jewel in the center of the pommel. It was impossible to tell what would be able to hold the sword. Mouth? Horn? It was hard to tell if she had the latter, on account of a thick mane.

“You’re a stranger,” Brighthoof said. Matter-of-factly.

“Aren’t most of us?” The albion - no, albino - asked. “None of us are native to this world. We’re strange to everyone else. Pony, human, zebra, diamond dog, all others that are.”

The albino had a point. ‘Strange’ was relative here. Everywhere had played host to odd drifters. Nobody had questioned a strange, lanky scotsman with no past, a poor shave, military training, a mysterious duffel bag, and skill at cooking shrimp and grits walking into town and shooting up PER. Nobody really batted an eye at Johnny C for long.

“Fair enough,” Brighthoof said. “But I don’t mean that. I mean, I can feel there’s something odd in you. Something otherworldly.”

“I’m just a passerby,” the albino said innocently.

Maybe the weirdest thing of all was that she looked familiar. Not in a way Francis could place. But something about her - something about her tics. Her eyes. Her fur. The, the cadence of her voice. Something about that felt like a fragment of something half-remembered from awhile ago.

~~Kraber~~ Francis brushed it off. Somehow, it seemed unlikely he’d get any satisfactory answers. This is why Aegis is a real china, he thought. He’s fokkin… honest.

The irony of that sentence crashed down on him. Note to self: Never tell that to anyone else, you lying fokkin’ kontgesig.

“Scuse me,” Rivet said, with the well-meaning social obliviousness of a child, “But have you seen a large pony! Looks big as a small horse, kinda whitish-tan fur, wears goggles? He’s got purple eyes, wears a red bandanna?”

“Rivet!” Brighthoof hissed.

“Sure,” the Albino said. “He’s over there, Rivet.”

“How did you know that?” Amber asked, suspiciously. “Are you… I don’t know, creeping on us?”

“No, I’ve just been around,” the Albino said. “Much like your friend, Mr Francis.”

~~Kraber~~ Francis’ skin crawled at the edge she put on his ~~assumed~~ name. She knew. She fokkin’ knew!

His heart was pounding. Who was she? The sister of one of the people he’d killed? At the end of it all, he’d killed more PHL than he’d like. Not as many PER as he’d like, as evidenced by Shieldwall not being dead yet. Still, he’d fired at least one of the shots that left Catseye to die death by exsanguination, so there’d been that.

Focus.

He’d killed PHL in Vermont not even two weeks ago.

He knew what he’d fokkin’ well done.

“I knew this day would come,” he sighed, the calm of his voice, his natural accent showing through. Amber looked up at him, alarmed. “Can’t blame someone for wanting me dead. I probably deserve it, anyway.”

“Okay, now I know you’re screwed up,” Amber said to the Albino. “Mr. Francis, what, what’re you…”

“How’d you know Mr. Francis?” Rivet asked, confused.

“I could have used my mysterious cosmic powers,” the mare said quietly, not looking at the three of them. “Or alternatively -” She cracked a smile. “I could have just read a newspaper. Forgive me for not using your real name. You don’t like it - and I don’t like lying.”

~~Kraber~~ Francis blinked. “Wait, do you -?”

“It doesn’t matter,” the mare said softly. She was looking up at the sky, now, her red eyes wide and full of… what could only be described as conflicting emotions.

“What are you doing?” Kraber asked, frowning at her.

“Looking at the sky,” she replied. “I’ve seen the sky before of course, but I haven’t. There’s other worlds than these, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Kraber said. “Equestria for one.”

“You would know,” the Albino said with a grin.

Kraber frowned slightly, confused. "What do you mean?"

The Albino shrugged. “The multiverse… it’s an infinitely confusing place. If there’s a possibility for our choices, do our choices matter? Do our choices create the divergence, or does divergence simply breed choice?"

Kraber went slightly cold. "What do you know about the multiverse?"

She smiled slightly. "Probably a great deal more than you do."

"How do you know I know anything?" Kraber asked.

"Apart from the fact that you asked?" the Albino asked. "I know you." At ~~Kraber~~ Francis' sudden scowl, she smiled. "There’s many places the events that led you here have happened. This is not the first, nor will it be the last. Much as such things matter. But that it all continues, that so much can, will, and has happen… there’s beauty in that.”

“...Francis, what’s going on?” Amber asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Good question,” ~~Kraber~~ Francis said. “Nae fokkin clue.”

“Buuuut… but she’s talking like she knows you,” Amber said, clearly expecting an answer. There was an edge to the beginning of that sentence.

“Is this normal for you?” Brighthoof asked.

“How the fok would I be in a place to decide normal?” Kraber asked. “Something surreal and horrifying happens to me all the time.”

“Of course,” a voice said from behind Kraber, and he turned to see a man in an incongruously white suit, a little badge - a Star Trek badge of all things - on his lapel, “our choices matter on the linear level. And ultimately the philosophical debate does nothing at all.”

Kraber turned back to the mare, only to see that she wasn’t there. He frowned, turned back to the man - but he was gone too.

“Wait… what?” Rivet yelped, staggering back, all hooves whipping back at full throttle.

“Confusion is understandable,” a different voice said quietly. Kraber looked up again, and another mare, blue with a white and blue mane, was looking sadly at the sky herself. “I’m confused myself.”

“I hate my life so much sometimes,” Amber muttered.

“I feel your pain,” Kraber said, nodding.

“I see it all,” another voice added, and a young woman sat on a porch step. “I see all of the suffering around me, and I know it could be ended in one wave of His hand… but then, He never would. He has not said it, not to me, nor would he - but He does not need to.”

“Perhaps it is choice,” another voice said, belonging to a dark haired, bearded man in a white trenchcoat, arms folded as he stared at a rock. “Perhaps for choices to exist, there can be no guiding hand. Or perhaps it is a game and He is watching for the outcome.”

Kraber looked around. “Who… the fok... are you? What are you?”

And the Albino was staring at the sky again. “Ask me who I was.”

“...Jacob Marley?!” Amber asked, shuddering. “My dad? Lyra Heartstrings?”

“The last two are at least partly correct,” she said with a smile. “I could even look like her if I wanted. Although I doubt seeing her would be wise.”

“Why?” Amber asked.

“Meeting your heroes almost always disappoints you - or them. Or both,” the Albino said. She looked at Francis and smiled. “Good people are my purview and my parts, my fathers and mothers, my memories and my faces.”

“So you're… like a gestalt?” Francis asked, his blood running cold.

“If you like,” the Albino said. “I am the sum of good people. Many good people. Maybe you knew some. Oddly enough, you’ve never been one.”

“A good person?”

“Oh, that you’ve been - I mean, you’ve never been me. An infinity of infinities, and none of you became me. You’ve never been the sort to give any regard to destiny. Which is admirable. If someone told you it was your fate to be ponified, you’d threaten to… ‘rip off their head and piss in their skull’.”

“It’s true,” Francis said, nodding. “I would do that.”

“...I’m confused,” Amber said.

“Preachin’ tae the choir,” Francis said, nodding slowly.

“Everyone is,” the Albino said simply. “It’s strange though - you’re everywhere, and yet you are so rarely the man who ends the game. Perhaps that is your purpose - to remind us that the game is not the whole game. That even the pawns, the bishops, the rooks… the knights… have their place. Gods and monsters all around, Sun Tyrants, puppeteers, and you’re the human face. Or, alternatively… maybe you just are, and we should not try to explain it.” She smiled. “It does not matter either way.”

“It didn’t seem important, did it?” Kraber asked.

“Everything and nothing is,” she said. “Because everything is, nothing is. And because nothing is… everything is.”

“... did you just come here to spew this philosophical kak?” he asked. “Because it really, really makes no sense. Still… it’s kind of relaxing in a way.”

She shrugged. “I came here to see. To knock on the sky and listen to the sound, and other well-meaning cliches. I have, unfortunately, a lot to do.”

“Don’t we all?” Kraber asked.

“Perhaps. I don’t know what you’ll do, but… you have a lot of work ahead. At least another ten chapters, and that's this arc alone - it has to be said, there's a lot to say. That’s at least one constant,” she said. “By the way, my little ponies. Your father is down a little ways south. He is attempting to use zebra magic.” She smiled. “Remember you soon.”

There was a train rattling by, a flurry of shadows and tympani of wheels on rail, and in that moment, the albino walked behind a tree.

Rivet trotted around to the other side, scratching the back of his head with one foreleg. “What the crap was that?!”

“I have noooooo fokkin’ idea,” Francis said, as they headed through the trees, along the river.

“Did you… did you know them?” Amber asked.

“Yeah, she talked like she knew you,” Brighthoof said. “They were… they were weird.”

“Ah’ve nivir seen any of them in my life,” Francis said.

“Weird,” Brighthoof repeated, as they headed down the pathway.

Coming up here was Nkiruka’s hut. In the middle of...

Plants. So. Many. Plants. Francis wouldn’t have guessed you could fit this much into such a small place. This made the previous jungle of plants look like the great plains. Fruits and flowers burst from every tree, some of which wouldae looked at home ~~back at home in Cape Town, luscious greens and purples and blues, oh he’d have so much fun back there~~ in a botanical garden. Some of the fruits even seemed to glow.

“Yeah,” Rivet said. “Nkiruka grows a lot of Equestrian plants, and…” he cast a quizzical eye over at Francis. “You’re not worried?”

“I’ve been near a lot of magic,” Francis said. “I don’t think it could make things worse than they already are, and… it’s just not scientific. If magic really did hurt us that bad, things would be way fokkin’ worse for you.”

“Ah,” Brighthoof said, nodding, her translucent, almost crystalline fur shimmering. “Then we’d apparently be disease carriers. Which’d mean…” she paled, and for a second Francis thought she’d gone invisible. “No. Let’s not think about that, my little ponies.”

“Agreed,” Amber said, looking kinda sick. “Miss Nkiruka!” She called. “We’re here for Dad. He… needs some time to relax.

“There is no need for you to shout,” said a zebra, trotting up. Her mane was a deep coal-black, a mohawk interwoven with golden jewelry. Her eyes were a deep green. Francis had seen her in a few photos in Aegis’ house.

Presumably, this was Nkiruka. He’d never actually seen her.

“I heard you all before you called out,” she said. There was an odd lilt to her voice. Like some of the people ~~Francis~~ Kraber had known back in the old neighborhood of Zonnebloem that had once been called District 6, the ones that had moved back in when he was seven. The ones that Paul Kraber had taken little Viktor, Nelius, Lauw, and Tania to see off in the shit housing developments they’d been relocated to, after leaving Cousin Richard and Helen to guard the house. After-

stop.

That is the past. That. Is. Not. Me. Ah’m Francis Strang. Naebody else.

“Where’s dad?” Rivet asked. There was an… an edge to his voice. Francis didn’t like it.

“Over there, by the leaves that hang,” Nkiruka said, pointing to the other side of her hut. “Do I presume your are the one who calls himself Strang?” She asked, looking up at Francis.

“...Calls myself Strang?” ~~Kraber~~ asked. “I… I am Francis. That’s…”

“I do not know what you’ve gotten into your head,” Nkiruka said, walking around to the other side of the shipping container, beckoning to the four of them with one foreleg. “But mark these words: I know what I said.”

Goddammit, does everyone fokkin’ know? Kraber thought. And as they turned the corner, passing by the

Aegis, on the other hand, or hoof as it was, did not know what he was doing.

He was staring intently at a small sapling sprouting from the ground before his forelegs. He seemed almost rooted to the ground, strange cracks spreading around where his hooves met earth.

“Say, Nkiruka,” Brighthoof said. “Can you… we just ran into two strangers. Can you… who… They acted like they knew Mr. Francis here, but...”

“I have no fokkin’ clue what happened,” Francis said bluntly.

“There are strangers all around,” Nkiruka said. “You must be more specific who you found.”

“Whae found us,” Francis corrected. “There wis a mare so pale ah couldnae see her cutie mark, wearin a robe ay some kind. “

“Ah,” Nkiruka said. “I have seen her before. But information on her? I only find it in the obscurest of lore. I know only that there are other worlds, that she is a traveler. She was part of some tale that was written of old, but the trail of that story, alas, has gone cold. Only one thing should you keep in mind - this pale mare is not of mere pony kind.”

...This is still so fokkin’ weird ~~Francis~~ Kraber thought. Talking zebras with magic that make a nice herbal remedy, talking ponies… am I going bosbefok? He thought on the irony of that. Wait, no, that’s kak. I’ve already been bosbefok, and it was fokkin’ awful! I think I’m just going sane in a crazy world. That makes much more sense.

As they were discussing this, Amber and Rivet were heading over to their dad, and Francis gasped at the sight.

He was under some tall, sloping trees with thick, overhanging branches that practically blocked out the sun. Nkiruka had hung glass jars full of some odd lights from Equus, in blue, pink, and green. They weren’t doing Aegis’ complexion any favors.

The big stallion looked intensely unhealthy, smaller than a stallion his size had any right to be. His white fur was almost yellowed, his ears were drooping, and his eyes were tired. His muscles seemed to sag over his frame, like he didn’t fit in his own body anymore.

“Mate?” Francis asked, uneasy. Something was like ice coursing up his spine. He wanted nothing more than to hold the big stallion in both arms, just sit together under one of the hanging trees with a cold beer, him with a big glass bottle of rotgut from Moonshine and John Peters - you know, the brewer? - and Aegis with a bowl of the same. “You dinnae look good. Like ya need a doaktir.”

The biggest surprise in all this was that it wasn’t. Aegis. Once Claw Hammer. Now he’s my best friend left in the world, ~~Francis~~ Kraber thought. Years ago, he would’ve said that was pathetic. And bliksemed the man who said a damn fokkin’ dof thing like that into a bloody pulp. If he was lucky.

There was an almost selfish pang of joy at the realization that he had a friend now. An honest friend who wouldn’t reach into the darkest depths of what little soul a fokkin’ kontgesig like him had left and pull more awfulness out from deep within.

But it passed with the realization that his friend looked awful.

“Dad,” Amber said, sighing. “I thought you’d be there earlier?”

“I did, but I had to…” Aegis said, staring intently, distractedly, at the sprout. “Had to…”

“Oh no,” Rivet said. “Daaaad…” he sighed, irritated.

He seemed almost dead to the world. Staring down at this tiny little plant. Wait, ~~Kraber~~ Francis thought. I am a doctor. Surgeon, yes, but not... “Mate,” he said. “I learned some medicine. Not much I can dae withoot a medicine cabinet and a prescription, but…”

“You’ll thank me for this later,” Aegis wheezed. Francis could barely hear him. And Amber looked old. More than she had any right to look.

“Well, I’m not feeling thankful now!” Rivet said, a little cross as he looked up at his dad. “The he...ck, dad?!”

“I don’t know what you’re doing,” Francis said, “But it isnae healthy.”

“I was trying zebra magic,” Aegis said.

“He was,” Nkiruka said, nodding. “I’d say he’s rather successful.”

“...Did it go well?” Amber asked, hopefully.

“No it didn’t!” Rivet yelled, his voice little more than a squeak of indignation. “Dad looks dead!”

“Rivet, don’t be like that,” Amber said.

“Why’re you being like that?!” Rivet demanded. “He left us with Mr. Francis this whole ti-”

“Excuse me?” Francis asked, looking down at Rivet.

“Well, you’re… pretty cool, Mr. Francis,” Rivet said.

“And your dad isnae?” Francis asked, quizzically, sarcastically.

“He ignored us when we were supposed to be enjoying the party,” Rivet said. “I’d say no.”

“He’s doing this to protect us!” Amber said. She looked over at Nkiruka, who was lying in a hammock between two trees. “Nkiruka? Did he… is he making progress?”

“What’d you learn?” Nkiruka asked, as Aegis stood, panting.

Aegis looked over at Nkiruka and shrugged slightly. “I thought you were supposed to instruct me or something,” he panted.

“Well, that’s a no,” Nkiruka said, looking over at him. “Your father has learned nothing.”

“You know who else ignored how we felt to keep us safe?” Rivet asked. “Mom.”

Amber gasped. “Rivet!”

Aegis stared over at his son, a tired, unspeakably pissed-off look in his eyes. “Don’t,” he said. “I haven’t. Done. Half. The. Things. She. Has. Don’t compare me to her.”

“But you left us,” Amber said.

“I do that all the time,” Aegis said. “It’s called having a paying job. Amber, Rivet…. I’m doing this for you.”

“...But you were done with the PHL work,” Amber said, confused.

“True, but I don’t have much time to learn zebra magic on the job,” Aegis said. “I don’t like being away from you two very much, but I have to work for you. What if Viktor Kraber comes in, and I can’t get to the assault saddle? I could shatter the earth under him, I could turn the grass into spears and…”

“I think ya could take him,” ~~Kraber~~ Francis said.

“That means… a lot, Mr. Francis,” Aegis said. “Thanks.”

“I know, daddy,” Amber said. “I know you want us safe.”

“...By ignoring us,” Rivet sighed.

“Not helping,” Amber hissed.

“I’m sorry,” Aegis said. “For what I said. I…” he was downcast. “I really am, Amber. Rivet. But… I’m sorry for what I said. I just… I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

He stared at the plant intently. Mentally begging at it, practically screaming at it for it to do anything.

At the sight of watching it fail to obey him, Aegis slumped to one side, wheezing a little.

“Dad!” Amber yelped, galloping over, trying to hold up her father. “Rivet, help…”

Nowhere had Rivet’s resemblance to his father been as apparent as it was there, with Rivet rushing over, trying to prop his father up.

~~Kraber~~ Francis hung back. This wasn’t for him. Wasn’t his family. Wasn’t…

Keep telling yourself that, he thought, and he walked forward. “Is there something I can do?” he asked, concerned.

“We’ve got it!” Amber called over.

“No, sit, do not worry for the foals,” Nkiruka said, looking over at him as she headed towards her hammock. “Enjoy the cola.”

“I’m more worried about their father at this point,” Francis said, looking at Aegis’ two foals, trying to keep their father from falling over. He seemed almost rooted to the ground, and nothing his foals could do seemed to move him. Then again, even in this state, Aegis was huge and heavy.
“Aegis,” Kraber said. “You only get so much time with your kids.”

Everyone looked to him.

“In a sane world,” Kraber said, “We wouldn’t have to worry. But what you’re doing… isn’t a job. It’s more of a hobby. I did something like that, once - Took more shifts than I should have cause I wanted to provide.” He paused for effect. “Then I woke up unable to move in bed.”

“How…” Rivet asked.

“Then, Kate, ah… had her way with me,” Kraber said.

“Oh my God,” Amber gasped.

“It was a nice…” Kraber’s mouth quirked into a smile. “She called it an un-birthday present. But that was just how Kate was.”

“...Where are you going with this?” Aegis asked.

“The point is… look, what’s going on here isn’t about whether you shoud enjoy time with your kids or get paid,” Kraber said.”It’s about balance. You can learn this… I don’t know, sometime there isn’t a concert. Rivet, you’ll have time with yuir da’. Aegis, you’ll have plenty of time to learn this. Just… not on the day Nny and Fiddlesticks are trying to parody Repo: The Genetic Opera.”

“You’re shitting me,” Aegis said.

“He’s not,” Amber said. “They’re really doing it.”

“Think I can get them to tape i-” Aegis started, only to be met by at least three skeptical looks. “Wait. Why’s Brighthoof here?”

“You didnt sound too good so I went to get help,” Brighthoof said. “Come on, then. I have seen serfs in the crystal empire who got half-portions that looked better than you. You. Need. A. Break. You’re pushing yourself really hard, Claw Hammer.”

“Wait, his real name is…?” Francis said.

“Aegis sounds cooler,” Rivet explained, off-hoofedly.

“It really does. Anyway, it was my alias when I broke into Equestria,” Aegis explained, and somehow this memory seemed to sustain him. “Everyone called me that for protecting the ponies on the Last Ships. Kinda stuck.”

“Huh,” Francis said. “Kw… cool. Anyway, Aegis, I know how it feels to be overstretched with your kids, your job, and the overwhelming anxiety of living in borderline poverty.”

“You? Impoverished?” Brighthoof asked.

“I only have two other sets of clothes,” Francis said. “But you get used tae this sortae thing. Ah wis impoverished till ma finished med school to learn psychology and neurology. It isnae tae different.”

Mom had moved to South Africa from East Berlin, on account of wanting to get as far away from Europe as possible and met his father. He’d been poor before - hell, he’d been born into it after dad lost his job in the Three-Two battalion and didn’t come back quite right until Mom’s lessons in psychology paid off and he found a job as a cop.

With how things had been back then, this wasn’t too different.

“LIke Erika Kraber?” Nkiruka asked. “For the announcement she gave… I almost hate her.”

The surge of white-hot anger from ~~Francis~~ Kraber was overwhelming, and for a second he couldn’t see. His hands were twitching. Something went red-white, that bitch,, that FOKKIN’ HOERKIND, HOW FOKKIN’ DARE SHE INSULT HIS MA-

“But,” Nkiruka said. “Waited is a letter removed from ‘wanted’, and after she said they’d been drunk…”

Okay, cool it. Cool it, Viktor. She meant no fokkin’ offense, he thought. And, to his pleasant surprise, it was his own voice.

How Kraber remembered that awful fokkin’ day. More gesuip than he’d ever been, desperately needing his fokkin’ fix, hands trembling, a sawed-off shotgun in his coat and his hunting rifle on his back, covered in blood, face coated in tears, unidentifiable muck, and viscera. He hadn’t shaved in days. Calling his mother to find out what the tests proved about Cousin Richard, Peter, Anka, and Kate.

The wordless howl of rage he’d made when she’d said there was no coming back ~~and the horrible, awful things he’d done to police, to innocent ponies, civilians, to people that so much as looked at him funny…~~

STOP

~~Kraber~~ Francis calmed down the slightest bit. Was… was Aegis staring up at him? Did he know? Did he know?!

“How I hated,” Nkiruka said solemnly. “How I was haunted. So many lives, snuffed out. Not coming back, no doubt. As soon as Catseye, as Reitman called the newfoals better…. ” And the look of sheer raw hatred on her face took even ~~Kraber~~ Francis back. “I knew that moment… I would get her.”

“We did,” Aegis said, nodding weakly, still staring at the plant. “Down in Agua Caliente. I wasn’t… I wasn’t good enough.”

No, Francis decided. He didnae know. That, and I actually saw him there, and he was doing okay, so he doesn’t need to know that. “Look,” he said, finally. “Yuir here. Yuir daein this outae yuir love fae th’ foals. So, you goat plenty right.”

“But he left us alone?” Rivet asked, not quite looking at his dad.

“I was going to come soon,” Aegis said. “When I was done.”

“And when would that be?” Amber asked. “When would that be?”

Aegis didn’t answer.

“Ah didnae spend enough time wi’ my own bairns ‘fore they were ponified,” Francis said. “An’ ah wish like Heaven ah spent more. Jist… nivir write oaf time wi’ th’ bairns at times like this, ken?” He held out a hand.

Aegis looked up at him, eyes suddenly a bit less weary. “Alright.”

“Thinkin’ ay learning like thit, it disnae work well. Only leads tae…” He looked around furtively. “Nah, ya don’t want tae ken.”

“Are you ever going to tell us your past?” Rivet asked.

“You don’t,” Francis said, “Want to know.”

“I’d guess we don’t,” Aegis said, and he stepped out of the depression he made. Weirdly, it seemed like he’d left actual craters where he’d been. Even weirder, the ground seemed to pull at his legs, as if he’d taken root.

“Amber, Rivet,” Aegis said, drawing his two foals into a hug, “I’m sorry for what I said. For being so annoying and irritable. I just…” he shook his head. “I was just…”

“I get it,” Amber said. “I’m not the same when I’m tired. And neither are you, Rivet.”

Rivet gave his sister a Look that practically screamed ‘I am just barely trying to say something sarcastic.’

“I said,” Amber said, nudging her brother with a foreleg, “And neither are you, Rivet.”

“Fine,” Rivet mumbled, almost grudgingly, as he was drawn into his father’s massive forelegs.

“Well don’t just stand there,” Aegis said, looking up at Francis. “You lived in my house, you took care of the foals, you talked things out with me. You’re part of this family too, I’d say.”

Francis smiled at that, shrugged, and joined in the mass of hugging ponies. Part of a family.

How about that.

But, as ~~Kraber~~ Francis noticed, there seemed to be grass growing between the cracks he’d left, and the plant Aegis had been so focused on seemed… greener, somehow.

Ah, well. Wasn't important.

Author's Note

IT'S UPLOADED, HUMPADUMPS! WHEE!

If you have any questions about the ~~albion~~ albino, Q, and others showing up... don't worry about it. It's just a reminder of the ongoing AoA crossover, you don't need to know to enjoy the story.

We're Gonna Have A Party...

Chapter 18:
We’re Gonna Have a Party, Fuck You

"I've been talking to dead rabbits and feeding bloody walls. I've done horrifying things with salad tongs. It's really eaten into my social life."
Johnny The Homicidal Maniac

“The world is, generally and on balance, a better place to live this year than it was last year. For instance: I didn't have this gun last year.”
Spider Jerusalem

Doctor Whooves (DW) “Dare I ask what today’s project is here, [REDACTED]?”

Interviewer (I): “What do you mean?”

Doctor Whooves: “The interviews, Colonel. The way you’ve been experimenting using technology that only I would know how to make.”

Interviewer: “Why would…. Yes. I stole them.”

Doctor Whooves: “Thought so. Because we both know what that could mean.”

Interviewer: “What’s this visit about, Doctor?”

Doctor Whooves: “Oh, nothing much. It’s just I know the kind of research you’re pursuing. Vorodin in Russia. Elias Selberg and Alejandra Torres at Crowe Labs. Erika Kraber at the beginning of the war. But especially Chalcedony, just last May. Tell me again… exactly what is it that you’re studying?”

Interviewer: “Newfoal-ology, or so the Boys from Brazil, Fort Wainwright-”

Doctor Whooves: “And some of the other PHL like Nurse Redheart, Presley, and Dovetail would term it. Even Caduceus. She makes the most wonderful Chinese tea. Ah, the benefits of having a tiny horse body! Anyway. I’m here to warn you about pursuing newfoal-ology. Either you lose sight of your original goal-”

Interviewer: “I haven’t. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

Doctor Whooves: “That’s one of the things I’m afraid of. Terrible thing, knowing exactly what you’re doing. How’s that quote that Kraber likes go? Ah, yes: ‘Oh, Cecily, it is a terrible thing for a man to learn he has been telling nothing but the truth his whole life!’ Who would’ve guessed a sociopath had such an appreciation for Oscar Wilde?”

Interviewer: “Is there a point buried deep within what you’re asking? And what did you mean about Vorodin and Chalcedony?”

Doctor Whooves: “I mean that those studying an aspect of newfoals - their connectivity, their minds or facsimiles thereof - huh, sounds kind of like fake smiles the first way I just said it - their biology, everything… they come to a bad end. Either they play with things they don’t understand, or they go mad. Studying totem-proles is what made my friend Chalcedony-”

There is a rise of breath from [REDACTED], the Interviewer.

Doctor Whooves: “-form the EHS. Create that amplifier, which, I might add, you seem to have been looking over. A little too intently.”

Interviewer: “I’m not studying the Necronomicon-”

Doctor Whooves: “I have little doubt you would if push came to shove. And right now, we’re rather close to shove. Also, don’t touch the Neighcronomicon, that’d just be silly.”

Interviewer: “Maybe. It’s a science like any other, Doctor.”

Doctor Whooves: “But it’s dedicated entirely to destruction. The study of how something can be broken, then broken even more for a change of pace. What you’re planning… I don’t doubt it could hurt a lot of people.”

Interviewer: “Fine. Let’s say I am going to do something that’ll hurt a lot of people. Let’s assume that. But what else will I do?”

Doctor Whooves: “You realize command - Marcus, the UN, the Ethics Board - would hate it.”

Interviewer: “That’s why I have to do it. Either I make my move during Barrierfall, or we all die. If we allow the Solar Empire to have bases here - on one of only a few landmasses untouched by the Barrier, let them have the thousands if not millions of newfoals they’ll take during Barrierfall...” Sigh “This is the only way.”

Doctor Whooves: “A lot of bad things in history have happened because someone said they had ‘the only way’.”

Interviewer: “I’ll stop working on it when you tell me another option.” (Pauses) “That’s what I thought.”

Recorded message found in a bunker in Montreal, surrounded by at least eighty-one tapes.

It was just about dark by the time they got back to the museum. They were a motley crew, Francis Strang, Aegis, Brighthoof, Amber, and Rivet.

But up here, right now, they seemed to fit. Weirdly enough, Francis was the only one armed, carrying his stolen ACR, shotgun, and two large pistols.

Aegis felt safe knowing this. There were rough-looking men and women giving them a wide berth. Four guns were a hell of a deterrent.

The lights were going up behind the museum. A passenger train was roaring over the nearby bridge. Popover, a pink mare with a blue and pink mane, was carting a towering stack of food past the side of the musem. A pegasus named Blossomforth was hanging up the strange glowing jar-lights from the forest on the side of the train bridge.

Sarah Ruyter, Nny’s cousin, waved over to them.

“Finally here, eh Aegis?” She called over. “And the famous Mr. Strang.”

Sarah let her rifle hang off her, and held a hand out to Francis. “Sarah Callista Ruyter. I’m Nny’s cousin.”

“An’ why th’ fok’m I famous? I shot PER,” Francis said. “Isnae anything special.”

“Well, you…” Sarah looked down. “People say good things about you. Came out of nowhere, saved a synagogue...”

“It wisnae me,” Francis said. “Aegis here, Yael Ze’ev, Heliotrope, Nny, Fiddlesticks… If ah went uptae PER alone, ah’d be dead if ah wis lucky.”

“But you did something with the rest of them,” Sarah said. “Something good. And that’s for the best. Don’t be so modest...”

As it happened, modesty was the last thing on ~~Kraber~~ Francis’ mind. If HLF found out about him, if they saw his face, he was fokked. Like Farnowitz… he wasn’t here, was he? That miserable ratlike little kontgesig?

This is fokkin’ stupid, Kraber thought. ‘I’m near the HLF - the people from the synagogue didn’t recognize me, but just barely. This’ll all come crashing the fok d-’

Aegis looked up at him, grateful. “Thanks, Mr. Francis. For keeping an eye on my foals.”

‘And like that, it’s worth it.’

“It wis naething,” Francis said, scratching his ragged stubble. “They’re good bairns, an’ practically took care ay themselves. Even went tae the museum t-”

“They showed you the severed testicles of Elvis Presley, didn’t they?” Aegis interrupted.

“Yes,” Rivet smirked.

Aegis facehoofed. “Of course.”

“They always… I don’t… gaaaaawd,” Sarah sighed.

“Guard duty again, huh Sarah?” Brighthoof asked her.

“Somebody’s got to,” Sarah said.

“Your loss, then!” someone called over. It was a man in a leather coat, t-shirt and jeans, hair short and spiked, on a corner near the front of the building, strumming a guitar. Near him, another man, smoking a cigarette and wearing a tan trenchcoat, was tapping a foot. He nodded at Francis absently as he walked by. As he did so, the guitarist started singing.

“Come here often, love?” the man in the trenchcoat asked.

“Ah, piss off, John!” Sarah called over, tossing her hair back.

“Ah, well,” ‘John’ said, acting faux wounded, “at least Keith still loves me - don'tcha Keith?”

But Keith - the guitarist - was too far into his song.

“#Miss Macbeth has a frightening face that all the children know. She must have been something else, a long time ago. You can’t look her in the eye or else your face will crack. She talks to statues on the shelf, although they never answer back…”

“Pretty,” Amber said, whistling, and dancing along. Rivet, ears flattened back a little, gingerly joined in, swinging from hoof to hoof.

Francis stopped, turning to look. He frowned, wondering what the lyrics might have meant. Something just felt uncannily like the weird newfoal Beatrice Hatch had kept, the one she called Richard that had been her son. The one that had only come out half-baked in the same sense that the brownies he’d cooked with Anka that came out as sludge had been “a little undercooked.”

The one with the speaker sewn into its chest. Francis was no expert on pony health, but mange, thin limbs, jaundiced eyes that seemed to follow you wherever you walked, and being anywhere near Beatrice Hatch were probably not signs of being ‘healthy as a horse,’ so to speak.

Beatrice Hatch. A woman bosbefok enough he looked like a model fokkin’ citizen.

Maybe they don’t mean anything: it's just a Costello song.

Kraber sighed. Yay - hallucination wanted a conversation. You’re not a fokkin’ music critic.

How do you know?

You’re a hallucinatory demon Space Marine from the proverbial Bad Future. What part of that description implies that you spend time listening to music?

I can see why you’d think that. I know what I like, though. Costello’s ok on a rainy day.

… you know Costello?

I killed a Costello, once. So yes.

Alright, Mr Fokkin’ Music Critic. Then what’s my favorite band? Or my favorite opera? I mean, it started this op’ra shit?

Oh for the love of… do you have to make everything an argument about what I remember from before?

No…. Oh… Oh no, ohhhh, nooo, no…. Pffffft. Ja. Though you didn’t answer the question. What. Is. My. Favorite. Opera. Or my favorite band. Either or.

Kraber’s hallucinatory self seemed to sigh slightly himself. You know that - quite apart from being from a different world than you anyway - I’m like three hundred and fifty years older than you, right? Bands have changed. Like you wouldn’t fokkin’ believe. You’ve never heard of The Demon Sprites of Caladon, have you?

... You made that the fok up.

Nah. Imagine Death Metal mixed with dubstep mixed with a tiny bit of acoustic, then add some choral stuff. It melds… surprisingly well. It's up there with ‘Ode to the Eternal Nothing’ and ‘My Father Was A Paladin’.

Fok off. That’s the craziest thing you’ve ever fokking said.

Really.

Kraber considered this. Ok. Maybe not. You didn’t answer the question, though.

There was silence on the other end.

...It made my favorite music video? There was a German Shepherd getting thrown out a window? He’s fine now? It was just a CGI’d load of bricks that wrecked the car? Teleporters?

Carpenter Brut?

Okay, Le Perv was awesome. Still wrong, though.

Well, I can’t be bothered to remember everything, alright? Eish, the other him snapped. Three hundred fifty years - most of that shooting things, some of which were actually, I shit you not, not very fokking nice.

Uh huh.

You don't believe me? Tell you what. When you spend forty days and forty one nights stuck in a trench fighting the Sand Sprites of Ra-Abaddon as they keep marching at you, using the bodies of men you've known most of that time for cover, and then go straight from that to fighting the nineteenth Japhet the Firebird with nothing but a malfunctioning rifle, a broken combat blade and three toothpicks -

Three what?

Lost a bet with Hill, long story. Point is, when you've done half the fokking shit I've done, fought and bliksemmed half the crazy things I've managed to bliksem, and dealt with some of the absolute kontgesigs that result from that kind of career - seriously, do not get Lyrium talking -

Who?

- then you can fokking call me out on not remembering a band from six of your fokking miserable lifetimes worth of time in my past.

There was a brief pause as Kraber processed this.

Wow. Some fokker's touchy.

Mange de la merde. If you had to deal with you, you’d be touchy too.

I do have to deal with me.

And you're saying you're not touchy?

Point.

Anyway, when we finally come there, I can probably find out what your favourite band is. Hell, I can bliksem the konts. Maybe that’ll stop you tryin’ to fokkin’ one up me every time we talk.

Kraber's face paled. When you come here? What do you mean?

What? Of course we’re coming there.

Fok off.

We come everywhere, eventually, Viktor. It's just a question of time.

Didn’t you hear me?! Fok right off, or didn’t the traveler tell you to stop?!

“You alright mate?” a new voice asked.

Kraber blinked, and the man in the tan trenchcoat, his spiky blonde hair messy and greasy, was staring at him with a frown.

“Er, yeah,” he said. “I’m fine. Just, ah… reminded me of an old friend.” He looked at the guitarist. “Good playing.”

“I liked it,” Aegis said.

“You keep some interesting company,” the blonde man said.

The guitarist shrugged.

“Want a cig?” the blonde man offered, holding one out. Kraber held up a hand.

"Nah," he said. "Tryin' to kick some bad habits."

The blonde man chuckled. "Trust me, mate, I've been tryin' to kick my bad habits for years. Some of them just don't want to be gotten rid of."

Kraber's smile soured slightly. "Yeah. Hope mine are easier."

"Hope so, mate, for your sake," the blonde man shrugged. “I don’t know what yours are -”

“You don’t want to,” Kraber said.

“So?” the Guitarist said with a smirk. “Any requests?”

Do I Wanna Know by the Arctic Monkeys, the Dark Kraber said at once.

What?

Just say it. Just this once, listen to me. You're not going to for the rest of this story.

Did you just break the fourth wall?

The green abomination isn't having all the fun in this story, Nameless-dammit. Say it.

Deciding it couldn't hurt, Kraber repeated the request. The guitarist grinned, and so did the trenchcoat-wearing man.

“Good shout,” he said. He started stamping his foot, and the guitarist tapped his guitar in time, before playing a guitar riff.

“Have you got colour in your cheeks? D’you ever get that fear that you can't shift, the kind that sticks around like summat’s in yer teeth…?”

Kraber blinked, and though the song was nice enough, he couldn't help but feel there was another message to it.

Maybe it's just a song. Or maybe, if nothing else, this is about violence?

Violence?

“#Are there some aces up your sleeve?Have you no idea that you're in deep? I dreamt about you nearly every night this week. How many secrets can you keep?”

Do you know the one thing I can guarantee if nothing else?

“#'Cause there's this tune I found that makes me think of you somehow and I play it on repeat, until I fall asleep, spilling drinks on my settee…”

What?

You could be me, you could be the green kont, you could be the Captain of a Spaceship in the 29th Century…

Others who knew the song were joining in. The trenchcoat man, a few of the girls, a man in the back of the bar with goggles and a fur-lined leather jacket, a tank top and a grin, another man in a green greatcoat…

“#Do I wanna know?”

“#If this feeling flows both ways?”

“#Sad to see you go.”

“#Was sort of hoping that you'd stay.”

“#Baby we both know.”

“#That the nights were mainly made for saying things that you can't say tomorrow day…”

… but violence is part of what you exist for.

Fok off.

Maybe it isn't a coincidence that things happen around you. Maybe you're part of some plan.

“#Crawling back to you. Ever thought of calling when you've had a few? 'Cause I always do.”

There is no plan.

Sure there is, kontgesig. The Albino bitch is part of it. She knows it. She knows that you're not part of her part of the plan. She even told you.

There. Is. No. Plan.

What would you do if you met the thing that made you? If you learned that you were born to suffer? Created to milk your pain? That violence was your destiny? That someone out there thinks it’s funny to drive you into ever-more homicidal rage until you snap and write your resignation letter in the blood of others, then make some sort of off-color joke?

“#Maybe I'm too busy being yours to fall for somebody new. Now I've thought it through. Crawling back to you…”

...I fokkin’ smaak the sound of that!

The song might be about you. Might even have been picked because it's about you. Crawling back to you - crawling back to violence, always and forever.

“#So have you got the guts? Been wondering if your heart's still open and if so I wanna know what time it shuts. Simmer down and pucker up. I'm sorry to interrupt, it’s just I'm constantly on the cusp…”

Battle is where you feel most at home - didn't you ever wonder why?

“#…of trying to kiss you. I don't know if you feel the same as I do. But we could be together if you wanted to…”

Its why you're here. You can't escape it -

We’re done. Fok off.

Ah, now who’s touchy. Take heart, brother - if nothing else, you're popular enough that the things deciding our destiny think that you should get to live on.

FOK OFF.

The voice became silent, but the song continued, and down the alleyway just out the corner of his eyes, Kraber almost thought he could see a shadow, like the silhouette of a great dark figure…

“#Do I wanna know?”

“#If this feeling flows both ways?”

“#Sad to see you go.”

“#Was sort of hoping that you'd stay.”

“#Baby we both know.”

“#That the nights were mainly made for saying things that you can't say tomorrow day…”

Give that kont something, he thought. It’s a good song.

They’d done a lot in the space behind the Museum.

Pegasi - including an interesting-looking mare with a white coat and a pink-and-green mane - hovered above the third story of the building. As Francis watched, one mare was placing what looked like a string of christmas lights and jar-lights from one pole to another. There was a stage being set up on the porch.

“We were sitting over there,” Rivet said, pointing at the porch. It wasn’t too far from that Chalcedony sculpture.

“Huh,” Aegis said. “Really?”

“Yeah, we ran into a Reaver,” Rivet said, ignoring the look on his father’s face. “Apparently, he was getting maple syrup from Nny, and…”

“I don’t know what you’re thinking,” Francis interrupted. “But it wasn’t my fault.”

“I wasn’t even mad,” Aegis said, surprised. “The kids are still here, and Rivet’s got that look on his face.”

“The shit-eating grin?” Amber supplied.

Aegis gasped. “Amber!”

“It wasn’t me this time,” Francis said.

“...What is with you,” Aegis said. “Francis, just… you need to relax here. Please. I don’t know what you did… and I don’t want to… but please. Just do me a favor and forget about it for tonight. You’re even twitchier than normal.”

“Fair enough,” Francis said. “I…” he shrugged. “Sure. Why not? I mean what else would I do?”

Aegis nodded, his great slab of a head bobbing up and down in the light summer breeze. “That’s the spirit.”

There were more PHL or PHL supporters than Francis had yet seen here. On one side of the lot behind the building, someone looked to have set up a still. A man and a batpony were sitting under a sign reading “John Peters and Moonshine.”

They’d had great booze so far. So… many… people! A Finn with a bald, tattooed skull that looked to have stolen his look from Yarrow, a big hunting rifle on his back. A PHL forest scout with one of those repeating flareguns underbarrel. And, most incredibly, a stand offering Southern comfort food.

Which was being manned by Johnny C and Fiddlesticks. The sign advertised shrimp and grits - thank fok! - and a wide variety of vegetarian foods, on account of meat being expensive.

“Honestly,” Francis said. “I think I’ll just sit back and reeeeeee-”

“Hey Aegis, what’s up?” There was a pink pony suddenly standing in front of ~~Francis~~ Kraber.

HER.

Bright, eye-searing pink. Blue eyes. Slightly darker mane. Peter and Anka screaming as the pinata must have exploded.

“Where’s dad?!”

Kate screaming, clawing at the purple goo from that was boiling her ebony skin. Fur ripping out from under her skin. Did she use a knife to cut it off? Could she even hold a knife when her fingers touched potion and began to turn into hooves? Children screaming. Pinkie laughing hysterically, looking darker than anyone that pink ever should.

A horn bursting through a child’s skull. Bones contorting. Children screaming everywhere. Pinkie and that clown he’d fokkin disassembled practically bouncing all over the room, telling them how Kate, how all the children he’d invited had gotten the bestest present ever.

Kate screaming.

“VIKTOR?! WHERE ARE YOU?!”

“He’ll be coming along soon!”

“DADDY!”

“Oh, I’m sure your husband will be perfectly happy as a pony, miss… Kate? Or is it Cirrus? Your choice!”

“I’ll always be Kate!”

“You’ll choose whatever makes you happy! Or whatever we decide makes you happy!”

Somewhere, Kraber was drawing his gun.

Chasing this fokkin’ mank genaaide bergbok down south. Rumors of this varknaaier through Israel, only by the time he got there, she’d been in France. Trying to make his way up through the Mediterranean, towards the madness, but failing miserably.

And here she fokkin w-

Aegis was reared up, holding Kraber’s arms downwards.

“Mr. Francis?” Rivet asked, standing back a little. “What’s… are you…”

“Nothing happened,” Aegis said.

Popover was cowering just the slightest bit. But there was… disappointment in her and Aegis’ eyes. Resignation.

I could blow myself up! Kraber thought. Ja! I could… The train of thought derailed. Wait. Wait, no, that’s fokkin’ dof. The fok was I thinking?

One of the voices asked:

The fok is wrong with you?

It was him this time. Thank fok.

Always trying to get out. Always trying to run away. What the fok’s the point here?

“Put the piece down,” said a man with a gun that looked like a Browning Automatic Rifle. Some tacky, ‘modernized’ thing. He had an old tac-vest reading Weiss. Kraber had seen him around. Jack… Weiss. Someone that had recruited ‘special constables’ from the lost and homeless. Another man, Burt Gransvoort, armed with the same rifle as Nny.

Kraber had quite literally killed the moment. Just not this mare. Whoever the fok this glue… no, this fokkin’ person! was.

Seemingly everyone armed was pointing weaponry at ~~Francis~~ no, no fokkin’ way out of it… Kraber. The Finn with the sniper rifle. Even Johnny C, for fok’s sake.

AEGIS!

“Lose the iron,” Nny said, revolver to Francis’ head. “Nice. Sl-”

Why would he do this?! Aegis thought, frantic. Why would he do it?!

Then he remembered. Right. HLF. I’m buckin’ stupid, Aegi thought. And a terrible father.

And then, something strange happened. Francis only obeyed the first part of this sentence. The .45 dropped out of his hand, not nice, not slow. It bounced.

“...Is the trigger guard supposed to do that?” The pony asked, a little frightened.

“Does it matter?” Francis asked. He looked reproachful. He was giving everything odd looks.

And then, to everyone’s surprise, so gingerly, so slowly that by the time he was halfway to the ground did Nny or Aegis really comprehend the event:

This ex-HLF man was kneeling. Bowing.

To a pony.

“I’m sorry,” Francis said.

The pony - Popover - staggered back a little. “Um… wha…”

...Why am I doing this, anyway? Kraber thought to himself. She’s just a fokkin’ gluestick, probably never met me…

...But she could have. Kate’s voice. She could have.

‘Why are you doing this, anyway?’

‘Eh, why not.’

“I’ve done bad things. To most of you gl...," Kraber said. “No. You ponies. I left fir here tae git away from it. So ah could dae right by…” he sighed. “Dinnae ken. Dinnae ken whae ah’d dae right by. Lord knows there’s enough.”

“I’m used to people trying to kill me,” the pony said, despondent. ~~Kraber~~ Francis could see he’d been fokkin’ stupid to believe it was Pinkie. She was a darker shade of pink, and while her mane and tail looked similar, there was a scar through one ear and…

Jou fokkin’ bliksem! Her mane is blue! How did jou not fokkin’ notice this?!

“Thinking I’m Pinkie…” the pony said.

“...I was gauntae say that’s bullshit, but considering I just did…” Francis said. “I was fokkin’ radge and fokkin’ stupid.” He held up his hands. “It was fokkin’ stupid of me nowt tae notice the differences, fokkin’ stupid to-”

“To think you’d get away with killing my friend?” the Finn with the big rifle asked.

“I didn’t think,” Francis said. “That’s the problem.” He was still knelt over. “I’m… sorry for what I nearly did, Ms…”

“Popover?” the scared mare asked.

“Popover,” Francis said. “Huh. Is there anything I can do to make it up?”

“Grits,” Popover said.

...What the fok? Francis thought. How… I don’t… what? Whatever he’d expected here, ‘grits’ were not it. “...What?” he managed to ask through the contextless haze that was his mind.

“Grits,” Popover said, tossing a hoof through her blue mane streaked with pink. “Nny-” she pointed to Johnny C, who’d since holstered that monster revolver- “Said he was making grits, but apparently he’s busy with…” she looked up at the stage. “Something or other. I forget.”

Francis licked his lips. “I can help with that.”

“Phew,” Nny said. “And that’s one less thing I gotta call Cousin Yael about.”

“I wonder how she’s doing?” asked a somewhat overweight woman with a mane of blond hair. She was wearing a buttoned-up shirt that was half red and half black, with a black stripe through the red half.

“Probably just resigned to grunt work, Linda,” the Finn grumbled.

“Eh,” Nny said. “Cuz lives for this shit.”

LATER!

“I wasn’t serious!” Popover protested, holding up both forelegs. The pot of boiling cheese grits rested on the stove.

“Yeah, well, I didnae ken,” Francis said.

Popover just stared at him. “Yes you did.”

“Did ah say ‘ken?’ I meant ‘care,’” Francis said. “Ah wanted tae dae somethin nice. Ah nearly shot ya. I owe you. So. Here. I. Am.”

“Nearly shooting me isn’t something to be proud of!” Popover protested.

“Compared to what I-” Francis started. “Nah. It really isnae, and ya dinnae want tae ken whaire ah wis gaun wi’ that.”

“I’m not sure where you’re going with this, and I don’t want to,” Popover said. “Are you…. Are you proud of what you’ve done? Are you regretful?” she tousled her mane, irritated. “I’m, uh, I’m getting mixed messages here.”

“Well, Ah’ve done things I thought were fun,” Francis said. “But, ah…. They werenae. Ya wouldnae ken em as such. An I hate mahself fir sayin’ so. But nah, they were all pretty awful. So... ” he shrugged.

“Are you ex-HLF?” Popover asked. “I heard, y’know, uh, things.”

“None of them good,” ~~Kraber~~ Francis said.

“Nope,” Popover said. “Did you… torture ponies? Kill PHL?”

Francis was downcast. “I dinnae want tae talk about it. But….” He was surprised at his improbable confidence. “I’m here cause I’m not putting up with that kak anymore. And also cause Aegis apparently has free room and board.”

“Hey, if you can’t appeal to someone’s better nature...” Popover sighed.

“Fok my erse and call me a stukkie, I have one of those?” Kraber asked. “Thoat it was shot off. Seriously though… Aegis is great. A pony treats me that right... then I owe him some kindness.”

“Same goes for the humans like Nny over there-” she pointed to Nny, wearing fishnet gloves and a wholly incongruous leather coat, his hair twisted into dreadlocks. “-who helped Fiddlesticks out, then took me in,” Popover said. “...admittedly, he’s either pushing himself too hard or too little, but he’s a great guy.”

“Don’t I ken,” Kraber said. “I’m telling you. Aegis’ foals, living with them, saving them... It’s been great. I’ve been fokkin’ radge the past few years, and Ah want tae make the best of it. This is the last of that sortae thing, I’m going straight and choosing li-”

“Trainspotting,” Popover said. “Really.”

“Hey, why nowt,” Kraber shrugged. “Cultural landmark and all that shite.” He sprinkled a bit of honey-ginger barbecue on the shrimp and sausage in a frying pan.

“Shame the Palace censor board will blacklist it,” Popover said. “Call it decadent, too human…”

“You po-” Kraber started. “Can I… can I start over?”

Popover was looking at him like someone who’d been about to sneeze, but suddenly wasn’t. “...suuuuuure? Question mark?”

“That was outae line what I would’ve said,” Kraber said. Okay, hadn’t intended it to come out like that, but…. I’m showing that I’m changing, I guess. Moving oan. “The Solar Empire-”

Popover nodded approvingly.

“Actually thinks there’s something worth saving in us?” Kraber asked.

“Sure,” Popover said. “Gelded newfoals. Fodder. Cautionary tales. Better ways to slaughter and ponify. Monsters under the bed to scare disobedient foals.”

“So… no. I’m nowt Catholic, but…” Francis looked downwards. “Jesus.”

“Yeah, they don’t see much value in that, either,” Popover laughed.

“I don’t either, what wi’ being Jewish,” Francis said. “But, it was the only swearword I haven’t run intae the ground. Quite a mooth ya got thaire.”

Popover raised an eyebrow. “More people telling me how to be…”

“I ain’t complaining,” Francis said. “Rather talk tae someone like that thin someone whit agrees wi’ me every step ay the way. Reminds me ay my waff. God, ah miss her.”

“Is she dead?” Popover asked.

Francis didn’t answer, and made a vague, uncertain shake of the head. “Why d’ya think ah wis so fokkin’ radge? There’s gravestones aw roond. Thit give a birthdate, then ‘P.2019’ or something. I’ve sat Shiva for people thit were… thit were ponified. Ah huvtae wonder wha’ our bairns, if we ever win, will think in the years tae come. ‘Da, what’s the P stand for?’”

“...Oh,” Popover said. “Well. Ffffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.”

“She’d be pissed oaf at me if she could ken what ah dae,” Francis said. “Same wi’ the bairns.”

No I wouldn’t, Kate said. We did kinda meet after I asked if you ate your roommate…

Kate, I have tried to garrotte a man with his own prosthetic eye like in the movie, and beaten people into bloody pulps. And mayyyyyy have left a rat in someone’s small intestine.

That’s disgusting!

Or was it the large intestine? I can’t remember. Seriously, Kate, if you’re a figment of my imagination you can be honest with me.

...Okay, okay, Kate said. Point taken.

“You have kids?” Popover asked.

“No,” ~~Kraber~~ Francis said.

“Well, that...” Popover started, and abruptly tried to distract herself by taking a whiff of the honey-ginger barbecue on the frying pan of shrimp, sausage, peppers, and onion. It apparently worked. “Eee crow, that smells good.”

“Disnae excuse it,” Francis said. “Wait, what? Thought….” He bit his tongue to avoid the slur. “Ponies didn’t eat meat.”

“We can digest it,” Popover said. “But…. grass, salads, pastries, those are better for us.” She took a whiff. “I could almost forgive you for nearly shooting me for how good this smells.”

“And Kate said I couldnae make grits to save my life when I started,” Francis chuckled.

“Well, clearly you picked up some things,” Popover said.

“Hell,” said the blond woman in the black and red shirt, “Almost considering hiring you.” A brown earth pony stallion with white patches and a reddish mane stood next to her.

“You’re making better grits than Nny!” the brown stallion whistled.

“HEY!” Johnny C called over. A strip of braided hair fell over his eyes, and he blew upwards, pushing it out of his eyes.

“Let it go, Nny,” Fiddlesticks sighed. She’d switched out her gray stetson for a black hat with a skull on it, and studded wristbands.

“...Are ya daein a gothic cowgirl look?” Kraber asked, confused.

“Sort of?” Fiddlesticks sighed. “It’s, uh, for the act we’re doing. Most of this is live music, but Nny wanted to do some other act and tried to do rock-paper-scissors...”

“You do realize he tried to kill me,” Popover said flatly.

(“No I didn’t,” Nny said. “We were drunk, and you don’t have hands! How does that even work?”)

“I thought you said you could almost forgive me!” Francis protested.

(“Maybe it was a coin-flip?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Yeah, that would make much more sense.”)

“Look,” Popover said. “You’ve got… You’ve got something good to you. But don’t think this means we’ll get along-”

The blond woman in a black and red shirt - whose name was Linda Branwen - was back over manning the stand, and Francis and Popover were grinding against each other’s respective butts.

“DAMN WE ARE GETTING ALONG SO WELL!” Popover crowed, throwing her hooves up into the air.

“And Sixstring just saved this lame-ass party, WUBBA LUBBA DUB DUUUUUUUB!” Johnny C was yelling, both arms in the air, wildly throwing himself from side to side.

“SHUM SHUM SHLIPPIDY DAP!” Fiddlesticks added, randomly.

“-GONNA HAVE A PARTY, FUCK YOU!” Sixstring was belting out onstage. He was just shredding the guitar with his forelegs, somehow. “I CAN THINK OF NOTHING BETTER TO DO!”

The crowd of once-sedate partygoers was thronging, everyone dancing, everyone active. Someone was swimming in the river nearby, and pegasi were streaking through the air with wild abandon. Because they could, presumably.

Aegis was drinking from an honest-to-god oil drum nearby, alongside the Finn with the sniper rifle. Amber and Rivet were….well, they were downstairs in the basements of nearby buildings, away from the noise, with other kids, playing videogames.

“Can’t believe it’s been this long since I felt this good!” Francis called out. And nobody’s even getting hurt, either! Wait… shit… how much of his fun had come at the expense of others? How long had he-

No. Not now. At the very least, he deserved this amount of time to cut loose, enjoy himself, belt out the lyrics to the song along with Sixstring, and just have a befok time. Torture himself later, but enjoy himself.

He threw out one leg, stepping forward, twirling slightly. He’d never quite been a good dancer. Taken classes to take the heat off (and to stare at people’s butts) but some things had never really clicked with him.

It was at that moment he bumped into a girl who smelled like patchouli. Her hair was in bright, almost Equestrian, neon pink and green colors in strips.

Francis decided that he liked her hair.

“Wow,” she said. She wasn’t drunk. She was sober, yeah, but she was here, in the moment with him. She looked on the verge of crying. “You look like a dancing coyote.”

Francis thought back to Mianda, the long-legged puppy with huge ears that they’d adopted. She was… kinda coyote-ish? It seemed like a fair comparison. “Not far off,” he admitted. “Been awhile!”

“Cool!” she said. “Huh. You’re not drunk.”

“I’ve been trying,” Francis joked. It was weird - he could drink a pitcher of beer, several, but nothing bad would ever happen.

“You too, huh?” she asked. Held out a hand. “Name’s Falyn, by the way.”

“Francis,” he said. “You, uh… ya dinnae look tae good.”

“Apocalypse does that to you,” Falyn said, interrupting him.

Francis stared for a second at her, and for a moment, his hand was inching towards Falyn’s shoulder. “Don’t I fokkin’ ken it. But, y’know what?”

“GONNA HAVE A PARTY, EAT SHIT!” Sixstring was yelling. “WE’RE ALL ABOUT TO DIE SO MAKE THE MOST OF IT!”

“Celestia wants us to be miserable,” Francis said. “Wants to show everyone how fokkin’ right she is about all us. Wants us to feel so fokkin’ low that we think maybe being in something like that peyote trip where my friend Strychnine thought he didnae exist-”

“You know a pony named Strychnine that does peyote?” Falyn asked. “Huh, I’ve met him too.”

“Nah, this was before the war,” Francis said. It was… it felt like something in him wis slipping away. Like he was…. Fok, actually fokkin’ relaxed! What was this fokkin’ madness?! “You don’t want to know why he got the name and why the fok do you know a-”

It was befok.

“Let’s not talk about it,” Falyn said sheepishly.

“Anyway,” Francis continued, “Best thing we can dae at a time like this? Try to enjoy ourselves. Out of spite, or cause…” he held out his hands. “Well, what else will we do?”

“Things’ll get worse later,” Falyn sighed, leaning against Francis.

“Then why not enjoy them when they’re the best we’ll get for the rest of the war?” Francis asked. “Ah wasted most ay the war oan glorified civvie street whin ah couldae been helping. Whin ah couldae been enjoying mahself. Don’t make the same fokkin’ awful mistakes I did, yeah?” he asked, holding Falyn’s chin up.

“...Alright,” she sighed. “Wait. Aren’t you the guy who paid for Sixstring’s train ticket? Saved that girl in Bethlehem? Donated the reward money for finding McCreary to Bethlehem?”

Francis nodded. He’d honestly been surprised Preacher didn’t bring that up. It had honestly been more of a spur of the moment thing, but the people around here had probably needed the money more than him.

Also, he took the wallets of the PER that he’d killed, and that worked too. It was less than the reward money, but giving the bounty to the towns had… it’d just felt kwaai.

“Sweet as,” Falyn said. “Back there, we think the world of you. You’re… you’re a good guy, Francis.” She flashed him a coy look. “Wanna dance?”

“Fokkin’ yes!”

Aegis

Aegis had come down to the basement to see what had been happening to the foals. They were doing alright. None of the kids were hurting them, which was good. Though the fact that he was bigger than most of them helped.

In fact, all the human fo - no, the children actually seemed too interested in how Amber and Rivet could play videogames without hands. It was… nice. But, they’d come back up with him, wanting to see some of the acts on display tonight.

It was nice that they’d gotten on so well. Especially after all that his foals had said about being bullied during the make-up classes at the local school. Since the foals had to go close to a year without schooling, so Aegis had decided they were entitled to a bit of an education.

As he came up, he saw Francis dancing with a girl with half her head shaven, the other half in pink and blue, (kind of like Popover’s mane, actually) looking like he was having the time of his life.

Good, Aegis thought. I don’t know what happened to him, but that man deserves a break.

“Ya doin’ good?” Aegis called over.

“Better,” Francis said, face split by a wide grin that looked unfamiliar on him. “Falyn, this is Aegis, I live in his house. Aegis, this is Falyn, we just met.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Falyn said. “I’ve… seen you around.”

“Nice to meet ya,” Aegis said, one hoof to his chest, bowing slightly.

“You’re a formal pony,” Falyn said. “Howsabout that.”

“Mom taught me well,” Aegis said. “Hey, Nny’s coming up on stage soon!”

The stage was blue. The lighting was low. Everything was deliberately subdued as Fiddlesticks, dressed halfway between goth and cowboy, trotted on stage.

“This will be quick.
It's in my sight
I'll capture it
Then run back inside
And be back home in time,” Fiddlesticks sang. Her fur glistened in the blue light above her.

It was weird, to say the least. And not quite as good as the last production ~~Francis~~ Kraber had been in, the one with Nny. His old mates from back in med school loved it ever since a drunken binge-watch with Kate. Even Strychnine had contributed a bit. If Kraber remembered correctly, he’d been screaming something in the audience about Geneco fixing his spleen.

The set was minimal. Bits of scrap wood and cardboard cast shadows all over the stage, as Fiddlesticks trotted in between the “gravestones”.

A figure was kneeling in front of one of them. Not tall, not intimidating. Obviously Nny.

A silhouette of an airship floated over the stage.

Whoever is doing the puppetry and set design here, Francis thought, is fokkin’ kwaai fokkin’ braw.

“Ponification has crippled the globe,” Nny sang from behind a grave. He was carrying a shovel.

“Enjoy Celestia’s day. And. Nighttime formulas. Of. Potion,” the words issued from a speaker that looked to be hidden behind the zeppelin. Or skyliner. Potioneer? Francis wondered.

“Cities failed as the barrier spread,” Nny sang.

“Ask a Bureau. If. Potion. Is right. For you,” the loudspeaker voice said.

“And in our wake, a market erected,” Nny sang, his voice almost unnaturally deep. He was pulling a mannequin out from behind one of the ‘gravestones,’ pawing at it.

“Taking. Potion. From an. Unliscenced source. Is. illegal,” the loudspeaker said.

“An entire culture built on top of your death!” Nny snarled.

Fiddlesticks was crawling on her barrel, trying to hide behind a tombstone. The spotlight shone down on the two of them. He was pointing at the tombstone Fiddlesticks was crumpled against, reading only ‘P.2021’.

“As you’re turned away from Celestia’s halls[i/],”
Even as she makes monsters of us all!
But best you be punctual with taking the potion,
Lest you be turned away with a firm NO…~”

Nny’s voice descended into a firm baritone as he took out a battered, scratched medical bag.

“It's quick! It's clean, and it's pure!”
It kills your imperfect self, rest assured!”

Nny punctured the mannequin’s face with one syringe, and everyone stared as the syringe glowed purple.

‘That… is a fokkin’ kwaai trick,’ Kraber thought. ‘Wait, why haven’t I tried this? Seems like it’d pay well.

Nny cut open the mannequin’s head, retrieving several glistening threads.

‘Alicornal tissue harvesting,’ Kraber thought. ‘damn.’ He hadn’t done that sort of thing, partly on account of not having enough left of the body to work with, and partly because only crazy people actually paid for it, and naw, fokkin’ stoap. Yuir Francis.

As for why it was purple… well, Nny wouldnae handle that crap, and… this was Nny. No fokkin’ way he’d be sympathetic to PER.

“It's the 21st Century... Cure!” Nny said, voice growing quieter. Fiddlesticks was cringing against the tombstone.

“And it's my job, to steal and rob…” Nny whispered.

A hush drew over the audience. The pegasi above fluttered ever-closer, intrigued.

Francis was struggling not to laugh, watching Aegis’ foals listening in intently, as their friend grew quieter and quieter…

“GRAAAAAAAAVES!” Nny roared.

A siren roared, and men armed with pieces of pipe swarmed onstage.

“JACKPOT!” Nny crowed.

“So why care for these petty obsessions?
Your new self’s still born from human blood!
And what if you could have ponified perfection,
Would you change who you are?! If you could?
'Cause it's quick, it's clean, and it's pure! (All you really need is)
It kills your imperfect self, rest assured. (All you got to have is)
It's the 21st Century Cure! (All you need is surgery! )
And it's my job, to steal and rob...
Gra~ves!
Gra~ves!”

The audience cheered.

Nny and Fiddlesticks held their respective forearms and forelegs together and both curtseyed.

But then, that didn’t surprise Francis. That was… Nny.

“Last time I did something like that,” Nny said, “Viktor Kraber was there.”

Oh, the horrible fokkin’ irony! Francis thought, trying not to laugh.

“I think he’d totally hate that,” Nny said. “I mean, here we are, with a production of his favorite opera on, him AWOL, and we’re using a lot of pony talent.”

Murmurs spread through the crowd.

“Fiddlesticks, thanks for getting dressed up like Nisha and playing my victim,” Nny said, rustling her mane.

“Marefriend,” Fiddlesticks said, playfully.

“There’s a difference?” Nny asked, stifling laughter.

“Oh, you,” Fiddlesticks laughed. “Anyway, Reclaimed Beauty was behind the sets. Give her a hand! Or hoof, or talon.”

A mare with brown fur and white… streaks? There was a stripe of white down her nose, and white fur around her fetlocks-

“A blaze,” Vinyl says. “It’s called a blaze.”

“Huh?” Elena asks, confused.

“Aweh, so that’s what it’s called,” Kraber says, as if this has bugged him for more time than he’s willing to admit.

“Neither of you seriously bothered to ask that?” Heliotrope asks, confused.

“I was busy with, uh…” Kraber says.

“Showing off your brushwork?” Yael asks.

“I’m not apologizing,” Kraber says.

“That is sick and wrong,” Babs Seed says.

“Look,” Kraber sighs. “I was a kontgesig. I’m seriously surprised that the time I died, I didn’t see a vision of hell.” He pauses. “Seriously, how did I not…. Fok, that’s beside the point. Just… just let me have this one, please?”

“Fine,” Yael sighs, burying her face in one palm. “You are a goddamn handful and I wish I was the one keeping you in line.”

Kraber just gives her a Look. He looks surprised, disgusted, disturbed at that. “Uh… Me too?” he asks, confused.

“No, seriously,” Heliotrope says. “It’s like your crazy bal-”

“They were dicks, anyway,” you point out.

Mommy gasps and holds one hoof over your mouth. “Dancing Aphelion Day!”

“...Aphelion?” Scootaloo asks, confused.

You sigh. You’re not proud of it. Your middle name was the subject of lots of taunts back in school.

Cheers rang out all around at the brown mare with the white blaze and fetlocks, at Fiddlesticks, at Nny, and the assortment of other ponies and humans behind this.

“Just like to say?” the brown and white mare (evidently named Reclaimed Beauty) said, rearing up to the mike. “Nny as Grave Robber? Not PER, not harvesting potion,” she said.

“That would’ve made a lot more sense!” someone called from the audience.

“Well, that’s not really…” Fiddlesticks said. “Yeah. It would. But we just didn’t want to go there.”

“Honestly?” Reclaimed Beauty added. “Nny just wanted an excuse to yell ‘GRAVES!’ at strangers. Which is silly. He doesn’t really need an excuse.”

“...I’ve wasted the last 7 years of my life,” Nny groaned, slumped over.

“Come on,” Fiddlesticks said, tapping a foreleg against Nny’s back. “I can make it up to you later…”

The man in the tan coat, the one who’d taken a request from ~~Kraber~~ Francis’ evil doppelganger from another dimension-

Merciful fok, my life is weird, Francis thought. That’s… That’s seriously a fokkin’ sentence. What the actual fok.

-Anyway, whoever he was, he was on stage. He held a guitar, and his friend Keith was with him, playing bass.

“So!” he called out. “This one’s for all the lads and lasses who miss a damp little shit of an island more than they care to admit! Here's to the fuckin’ Gallaghers!”

And then he and Keith started playing.

“#I sold my soul for the second time, ‘cos the man? He don't pay me. I begged my landlord for some more time, he said son, the bill’s waiting…”

Meanwhile, Francis was having a good day, dancing with Falyn. It’d been too long since he danced at all. His long, gangly legs, under ripped jeans he’d stolen from corpses in Portland, whipped to and fro.

“When was the last time you did any dancing?” Aegis asked, nearby, throwing himself side to side with the subtlety, finesse, and kinetic energy of an avalanche.

“College,” Francis said. “So… bout 8 years ago. Usually I was drunk, but... “ he sighed. “I felt like everyone was fokkin’ judging me. I needed something to loosen up. Booze… drugs… a punch to the jaw…”

“I’m afraid to ask,” Falyn said, her half-mohawk dancing in the light summer wind.

“It wisnae my jaw,” Francis said, shaking his head. “Isnae worth it, though. Just…” he sighed. “It’s good tae loosen up.”

“Well,” Falyn said, rolling her eyes, “I guess an old man like you deserves it.”

Kraber stared at her, aghast. “Auld?! I’m twenty-eight!”

“Seriously?!” Amber Maple asked, from a nearby table .She had her bowl of root beer to her mouth.

Falyn stopped dancing and stared at him. “...Huh.”

“He has this whole ‘carry-himself-like-an-old-man,’ thing, Falyn,” Aegis explained, inclining his head slightly as he saw Nny and Fiddlesticks dancing, flinging themselves around with wild abandon.

“Okay,” Falyn said, stepping back. Framing Francis in a rectangle of her thumbs and pointer fingers. “I was getting confused about that. Cause, y’know, you’re carrying yourself less like one right now.”

“All day,” Rivet confirmed, as he threw himself about not too far from Aegis.

Francis thought on that for a second. He stopped dancing. He leaned against the wall. It was true, wasn’t it? He had felt pretty fokkin’ kwaai. He’d kept his weapons at the lockup in the Main Street Museum’s basement, save for the big magnum riding his hip. But he’d barely felt that.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, heading over to John Peters and Moonshine’s stall.

They were an odd pair. A man with a thick, braided beard, sitting next to a batwinged pony with gray fur and lime-green eyes. Clearly, the latter was Moonshine.

Francis recognized the man. He’d been one of the best brewers in Defiance, then one day he simply left. No letters to the people who worked with him, no warning, just gone. Then he’d turned up making booze with a pony.

“How’d you leave?” John Peters asked. He didn’t seem to recognize Francis. The shaven chin, trimmed hair gone a little lighter thanks to time spent outside with Aegis on one of the farms, the fair bit of muscle must have thrown him off.

Or maybe it was the fact that Falyn was right. He was carrying himself completely differently.

“I stole a vehicle, and left them marooned,” ~~Kraber~~ Francis said, trying to keep his voice neutral. The fokkin’ kontgesigs deserved it.

“I’m glad you got out,” Moonshine said. “It was doing awful things to Johnny-”

“Please tell me you don’t mean Nny,” John Peters sighed, running his fingers over the braid.

“Well, yes, but no,” Moonshine said pushing a bottle to him with a foreleg, one that looked to have once been a Corona bottle. “First booze for a deserter.”

“Can I have some whiskey instead?” Francis asked.

“Fiiiiiiine,” Moonshine sighed, pulling the bottle towards her with one wing, replacing it with another.

“I can do it if you need,” John Peters said.

“Thanks, but… nah,” Moonshine said, with an odd shrug. “I’m good.”

Francis looked at it uncertainly, then his friends dancing, drinking, talking over by the porch. Rivet unsteadily dancing, trying to puff himself up like an adult, Aegis nearby, Falyn waving at him and calling to bring more beer. Johnny C and Fiddlesticks dancing together. Brighthoof, the light glistening over her crystalline fur. Even Popover, who was shaking her mane back and forth. And Yael and Heliotrope….!

Well, they weren’t there. But they were definitely friends.

“How much?” he asked, looking at the bottle of whiskey, as Moonshine distantly said something about ‘pn the house’.

My friends, he thought. People who don’t keep me around cause they have use of me, but cause they fokkin’ like me. A welcome change of pa-

“Wait, what?” Francis asked, train of thought derailing.

“You’re a deserter like both of us,” Moonshine said, pushing the whiskey bottle towards Francis again, pointing with another foreleg. “On. The. House. It’s my old recipe from back in the Guard. See, I was one of Luna’s night guard. And we-”

“Ah ken,” Francis said. “You were fokkin’ shafted by the Queen Bitch in the war…”

And with that, he recounted the stories that Nebula had told him. His first pony friend.

“Huh,” Moonshine said, impressed. “Not a lot of people know that.”

“Well,” Francis said, as he thought on it. “I’ve… been around.”

“Bring us more beer!” Falyn called over.

“...That’s nowt on the hoose, is it?” Francis sighed.

“Ah, what the hell. Why not,” Moonshine said, as John Peters (Yes, I’m sure you know by this point) nodded.

Francis paid the appropriate amount, and headed down to his friends, swaying like a boxer to avoid other partygoers.

This is, for Francis, what might be referred to as a transcendent moment. The moonlight shining down on them, the lights all around, the people that were grudgingly letting him into this circle of PHL and New Englanders. The Finn with the sniper rifle, who he’d later learn was named Simo, held a giant flask of tequila, as he chatted up another man. Sarah Callista sitting on top of the roof, rifle nearby.

And somewhere, in the background, he thought he saw a Reaver. But then, he’d thought he was seeing Kate, or Peter, or Anka?

Was that Kate? There, in between the… person wearing an electric-blue dress and Nny? Was that Kate? Wearing the old zebra costume? Fok, what a weird first meeting.

...Chicken costumes, for fok’s sake. What a weird day.

Popover slid one purplish-pink foreleg through the handle in one of the mugs when Francis came back.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Consider it part of an apology,” Francis said.

“...Don’t mention it,” Popover said. “You at least tried to make up for it. Admitted you bucked up. So I think we should just put that one behind us. Most HLF don’t admit it till you’ve taped razor blades to hammers or boxing gloves.”

Francis looked at her, confused. “Wait, you’ve done that too?”

Popover looked up at him, raising an eyebrow, already huge pony eyes going wider than normal. Which was strangely adorable. “Ummmm….”

“Can we put that one in the past too?” Francis asked, hopefully.

“You know what?” Popover said, raising the foreleg holding the mug. “Buck it, let’s enjoy ourselves.”

Francis took a massive swig of the whiskey. For a second, he couldn’t feel his face.

“Fokkin right!” he crowed, passing a beer to Falyn. Then a bowl for Aegis, which he placed on Amber Maple’s table.

“You know,” he said, “This is for me.” He held up the beer. “The HLF will call me lost. But… I. Am not lost. I. Am. Found.”

“A classic!” Nny said, clinking a bottle against Francis’. “So, what do you think you’ll do the rest of the night?”

“Probably…” Francis mused. “What I should’ve done earlier.”

And then Francis downed the entire bottle, losing himself to the party, and to his new friends.

Hours later

The train was rattling and squealing into Littleton, just passing Lisbon. It was a diesel loco this time.

The party, Francis recalled, had been great. Okay, it hadn’t been all that good compared to some of the college parties, but he couldn’t complain. It was a nice change of pace from mass murder.

Falyn was on the other side. Everyone was heading up towards Littleton. Falyn sat across from Popover, Gazpacho, and Linda Branwen, reading a book.

It wasn’t the weirdest job interview Francis had ever taken. That award went to the homemade stag film.

“-I serve as bouncer and hard man,” he said, listening intently. “But on the other hand, work among po…”

He looked over at Popover, and then Gazpacho. Linda was staring up at him, disapprovingly. Popover didn’t seem to care.

“Ah, fok it,” Francis laughed. “Nae much ay a downside, that. When can I start?”

“In about three days,” Popover said. “Just don’t…”

“Yuir fine,” ~~Kraber~~ Francis said. “It’s me thit’s the problem.”

When they got off the train, Aegis, Rivet, Amber, and Francis headed down through town. When they crossed the bridge at the Y-intersection, they went left. Falyn made a right.

“Be seeing you, Mr. Francis,” Falyn said. “Good luck at the new job. I’ll be seeing you around.”

Wrong Number

“You cannot think. You cannot breathe. You dare not breathe. Your head is full of blood. There is something behind the door. There is something behind the door. There is something behind the door. The door begins to open inward, and something fluid and slow, no longer dreaming, begins to come out from inside, lurching around the edge of the door. You run you run you run you run from that place as fast as you possibly can, screaming until your throat fills with the blood in your head, your head now an empty globe while you drown in blood. And still it makes no difference, because you are back in that place with the slugs and the skulls and the pale dreamers and the machine that doesn’t work that doesn’t work that doesn’t work thatdoesn’twork hatdoesnwor atdoeswor tdoeswor doeswor doewor dowor door…”
Patient l9-9-l8-9-l4
Voss Bender Memorial Mental Institute
l3l4 Albumuth Boulevard
Ambergris Il3-241

VanderMeer, Jeff (2007-12-18). City of Saints and Madmen (Kindle Locations 3939-3947). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Interviewer (I): "Do you know why you're here, Corporal Elliot?"

David Elliot (DE): "I was told it was a sleep study. There were a lot of PHL doctors coming by last week. Asking about… about dreams or something? Apparently, even Kraber was called in fairly recently. From what I can tell, you called in a lot of PHL about their dreams and then...”

I: "And then?”

DE: “Well, I don’t know. Didn’t have the opportunity to ask anyone. What’s this about a sleep study? If this is to help PHL sleep better, you might as well move on to my friend John.”

I: “Mr. Constantine?”

DE: “He has the usual potion-amputee nightmares. Things weird with his body. Some nightmares he doesn't even talk about.”

I: “Constantine… according to his records, he has never come in contact with potion. He hasn’t even lost a finger to it.”

DE: “Yup. Which is why it’s worrying me so much. I’ve heard people talk about damage to your soul from the potion, but… but can you be damaged from being near it? I’m getting worried about him.”

I: *coughs* "I've read your latest psych evaluation. Your dreams."

DE: "What about them?"

I: "I'd like to hear about them."

DE: (Fidgets) "Permission to speak candidly, sir?"

I: "By all means."

DE: (Pause) "I don't see how my dreams… well, why they're an issue. My shrink said they weren't."

I: "That's for me to determine, Corporal. I'd like to hear about them. Your file says that they're usually based around a conflict, yes?"

DE: "That's correct, sir. My shrink says that they're largely a combination of my own experiences, feeling of… of uselessness in the war, with a series of pop-culture images mixed in, creating unusual results."

I: "Such as?"

DE: (Takes breath) "Well, there was one dream where I was in power armour, fighting - zombies? Might have been?"

I: "Power armour?"

DE: "Paladin Mark I power armour - reactive runic defences, deployable buckler, helmet with standard HUD, IFF and target assist, magic-sink to prevent burnout -" (Pause) "I… sorry."

I: "What was that?"

DE: "I… remember things. Stats about the Paladin armour types, weapon types, troop positions… hell, I could probably field strip a Javelin rifle if we had one."

I: “Then… tell me. What’s a Javelin rifle?”

DE: “Eight-millimeter assault rifle. It’s not all too different from a Kalashnikov, and comes with a balanced recoil system.”

I: "You remember things from your dreams?"

DE: "Half remember. Like a - well, a dream. Except - except sometimes my muscle memory kicks in, like there was one instant on the front where -" (He pauses) "Sorry, it sounds nuts."

I: "Tell me."

DE: "A Royal Guard was in the trench. Earth Pony. Standard gear. He was attacking me - trying to stab me with his spear. I… I parried, used a bit of broken pipe to block his attacks. I didn't know I could even begin to move like that, I’ve never so much as learned to fence. And then I…" (He trails off)

I: "You…?"

DE: "Uh, beat him to death with the pipe."

I: (Chuckles) "No shame in that. I’ve done it before."

DE: "But there's more." (He pauses) "Sometimes I dream of other worlds. There's one - I… I'm flying."

I: "Flying?"

DE: "Yeah, I know, sounds crazy. But I'm - I'm fighting. It's raining. I'm wearing armour, holding a sword - and there's -" (He pauses) "Her."

I: "The Tyrant?"

DE: "Yes and no." (Pause) "Her name - S… S…"

(There is a pause.)

I: “Solamina?"

DE: "Astra Solamina Maxima. The Sun, resplendent and supreme. Monster." (He growls) "Glaive. Armour. Smirking. She thinks she's going to win. She knows she's going to win. She won't. I will stop her."

I: "Corporal?"

DE: (He pauses, looks embarrassed) "Sorry, sir. Got carried away."

I: "Do you remember anything of how to stop her?"

DE: "Yes." (He pauses) "It… you don't -"

I: "Can you tell me?"

DE: "But - but it was a dream."

I: "Even so. Tell me. Don’t you think that Red Couch or Finlayson’s diagnosis could be a bit of an oversimplification?"

DE: "But - but you can't think a dream holds the answer to beating Celestia." (He pauses) "Do you?"

I: "I think dreams hold more secrets than we've ever given them credit for. That's one reason we’ve had these tests."

DE: (He pauses) "Well, not these dreams."

(There is a long pause)

I: "Explain."

DE: "In my dreams, I'm not me - not just me. I’m - I'm like a magical warrior. It's part of who I am." (He pauses) "I don't know how it works. I'm sorry."

I: “That’ll be another question for another day, Although… tell me about the world you’re seeing.”

DE: “What world?”

I: “The one you’re seeing.”

DE: “I… sorry. Don’t know what came over me. But… look, if I try to think about it, I just… I know nobody’s left.”

I: “Nobody’s left where?”

DE: “Anywhere! I just… I know that everything outside of Britain is gone. I know that it’s the only place left and it has a population in the millions. So much of everything is gone that it makes this look like a golden age. There are people over then who honestly miss what we have now.”

I: (He pauses) “Do you think it's possible to have something similar to this - this magical figure you become?”

DE: “Like I said, I don't know how it works. I don't even know how to begin looking for it. And anyway, it was a dream. That world isn't real, and if it is I don’t want to know.”

I: “Why not?”

DE: “Because if it is, the others might be too.”

I: “What does that mean?”

DE: “I - no. No, I can't.”

I: “I could order you.”

DE: “Do you ever feel like there are things people aren't meant to know? I feel like that, sometimes. And it's terrifying.”

I: “Where are you going with this?”

DE: “I don’t always see pleasant, happy things like the end of the world, Colonel. Sometimes…”

(A pause)

I: “Corporal?”

I: “I see a door. The door is as small as your fingernail. The distance between you and the door is infinite. The distance between you and the door is so small that you could reach out and touch it. The door is translucent-the images that flow across the screen sweep across the door as well…”

I: “By the sound of it, you read more VanderMeer than Mr. Heald.”

DE: “Maybe…. I did. Or maybe I didn’t. But there’s something behind it. It’s not friendly. It thinks it is, it thinks we’re the same. But… we’re not.”

I: (Unnerved) “I was told there was a… limiting factor of some kind.”

DE: “That’s a word.” (He pauses) “If Celestia’s out there, then there’s more things out there. Maybe the Tyrant and her Equestria was just the first, and more bad things will follow. Maybe there are nameless things that she knows not, for they are older than her - shadowy things that knaw at the bones of the worlds. There are things that we are not meant to know.” (He pauses) “Not yet, anyway.”

I: “How can you know for certain?”

DE: “Sir?”

I: “You and - well, the other person who’s spoken of these things. You’ve said they’re not meant to be known. But how do you know we couldn’t survive? How do you know we couldn’t take what we need and then defeat them if they turned on us? Or why could we not seek something else out, something different, if there’s so much out there to find?”

DE: (He pauses) “The beginning of wisdom is ‘I do not know’. I do not know. But I know that I do not know. I do not know what my dreams are - whether they’re real or not. But I know that we should be content with reality. Our reality.”

I: “You’re incredibly unhelpful.”

DE: (Abashed) “Sorry, sir.” (He pauses) “One more thing, sir.”

I: “What?”

DE: “For in all things, as there is a beginning, so there shall be an end. It will not be here, it will not be now. We may never see it. But it will end, and the last choice that matters shall be made.”

(There is a pause.)

DE: “Something you needed to hear.”

I: “Says who?”

DE: “The tall figure in the light. And the dark knight hidden in shadow.”

(There is another pause.)

DE: “...Sometimes I see things I don’t want to talk about. Ow. Ow ow ow. My head hurts. I just…. Ah, piss. I feel like I knocked my head on a metal bar. What were you saying?”

I: “A better question is what you were saying…”

DE: “You were asking where I was going with this.”

I: “That was two minutes ago.”

DE: “Has it been? Where does the time go...”

I: “I’ll have to ask Doc Whooves about that.”

“Hold on,” Vinyl says. “How does that… how does any of that help?”

“I can’t believe I’m saying it, but yeah!” Verity asks. “You spend all this time building up to the Hotline, and then you just start referencing Rick and Morty while talking about a lame-ass party?!”

“Which cousin Sixstring apparently saved - wubba lubba dub dub -” Aegis adds.

“Well, I wasn’t there for most of this,” Viktor says. “I was keeping a low profile.”

“Actually,” Scootaloo asks, “I was kind of wondering about that. What… was happening for most of that time? With the Hotline, and… and HLF, and…”

“Now that you mention, it, scoots,” Vinyl asks, “Viktor? Verity? Elena? What’d you guys think of the Hotline?”

“Why do so many people in here have names that begin with ‘V’, anyway,” Heliotrope mutters.

“Good question. I have no idea,” Aegis says. “Seriously, though, I never asked.”

“Because you were too busy laughing,” Verity hisses.

“Verity,” Yael says, sounding bored, “Just… just answer the question.”

“I thought it was bullshit, to be honest,” Verity says. “I just wanted Dad broken out. I don’t… all this magic you PHL work with. The fucking awful shit the PER and Empire do. It’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

“But when you heard someone like Lovikov had control…” Heliotrope presses onwards, curious. “No, really. I never heard this.”

“Fuck you,” Verity says.

“You don’t have anything to lose by telling us,” Kraber says. “This is old news, Verity.”

“Honestly, you don’t have much to lose at all,” Heliotrope says and regrets it immediately.

“Fucking gluesticks,” Verity says. “But. I… yeah. I guess you’re right. Lovikov… so many people of the HLF are hard to point in the right direction.”

“Like Birch,” Yael says.

“Exactly, like Birch,” Verity says, surprised to find herself agreeing. “Or Kraber.”

“I’m not apologizing,” Kraber says.

“Lovikov would be another one,” Verity says. “Great at planning ambushes, hell of an organizer and strategist when he wasn’t off his gourd. I didn’t bother with him, though. Portland pissed me off because y-”

You back away at the waves of malice that seem to be radiating off of Kraber.

“-because he destroyed an opportunity to get back the… the only family I have left,” Verity says. “Well. Had.”

“And I was in Kentucky at the time,” Elena explains. “HLF go cultish all the time.”

Yael sighs. “We’re getting off-topic. Much as this has one. I… went after HLF obsessed with the Hotline plenty of times, but… the first time clue we had that something horrible was going on behind the scenes happened in Burlington. I’d gotten news that the HLF and PER were fighting just on the shores of Lake Champlain, so I’d come to break it up.”

“By which you mean shoot anything you didn’t like,” Verity says.

“Obviously,” Heliotrope nods.

“I know how that started,” you interrupt. “Mommy and I, we were there.”

“...I’m so sorry,” Kraber says.

“You weren’t even there,” Mommy says, confused.

“Well, you have the worst luck possible, I’m beginning to think,” Kraber says.

Mommy looks profoundly disturbed to be agreeing with him. “...Oh shit, you’re right. Anyway, the day Yael started getting worried about the Hotline began like this…”

July 29, 2016
12:30 PM
Burlington, Vermont

Dancing Day

“Pass the wrench!” mommy called from under a massive truck. She’s working on the internals.

A train was rattling by, just across the river.

You’re reading a comic book on an iPad belonging to this human you know, a black woman, a trucker named Keesha everyone calls ‘Chipmunk’ or ‘Chanterelle’. This is out in the yard of her company of employment, which is, more often than not, employed to work with the PHL. Hauling heavy supplies, people (well, why not? Not all the freight cars on that train look like they’re freight cars anymore) or whatever else.

There’s an umbrella over your head.

The black woman - Chanterelle - looked on, vaguely intrigued, as she walked over, a massive wrench held in one hand. She had a rifle and a pistol of some kind on a card table, both half-disassembled.

“Does everyone have to have a gun?” you asked Chanterelle.

“Why not?” Chanterelle asked, taking two long L-shaped pieces of metal the size of crowbars and affixing them to her rifle. “I don’t even like this, but…” she shrugged. “There’s bad people out there.”

Mommy made a vague noise of agreement from under the hood.

“How I have a magical unicorn fixing my truck,” Chanterelle sighed, “I’ll never know.”

Honestly, you don’t get it either. Mommy could - and this is not an exaggeration - have any job she wants. According to the people who serve as your host family, mommy - as a unicorn, with neigh-irreplaceable power - is on the same level of importance to the PHL as somehuman that can create elerium.

Whatever that is. You tried to tell your host family that none of the psionics you know can make that, but her and mommy brushed that off as you being overimaginative.

And yet, Mommy is perfectly happy out here in the countryside, repairing the machinery the PHL distributes. The windmills, solar panels, water purifiers, saltwater stills, alcohol stills, medical equipment, and whatever else. Quick hexes to fix someone’s engines.

She’s hoping to teach it to you too.

You protested. Of course you did. Why wouldn’t you? Your cutie mark is in dancing. You got it on the Eiffel Tower. You want, more than anything, to dance.

But mommy - who told you to think of yourself as the closest thing to Canterlot nobility as was possible in Hoofington - covered in engine grease, wearing a little baseball cap backwards with her horn poking out the hole in the back, will just shrug and say it’s a living.

An (apparently) almost-noble unicorn fixing machines. Some of the Canterlot unicorns would have fits of apoplexy.

So here you are.

“Wait, so Dirk Anger buries meat in New Jersey?” you called over to Chanterelle.

“Uh-huh,” Chanterelle nodded, peering up from her aviators,, pulling on the half-rebuilt rifle experimentally.

“Oh, Kamala! Come here, beta! Some nice man left us meat!” you called out in a passable imitation of a Pakistani accent. Chanterelle stared at you for a moment, and then fell on the pavement laughing.

Your mother stops working on the engine. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s a… it’s from this comic…” you explain.

“Uh, from back in the 2000s, and…” Chanterelle added.

Suddenly, it became abruptly clear that you would never get mom to understand the reference and it wasn’t wor-

December 2022

“PPPFFFFFT! BaaaaahahahahahahHAHAHAHHAAAAAHHAAHAHA!” Kraber guffaws in his hospital bed. “Oh, oh fok ja, that’s fokkin’ hysterical! Fokkin’ lekker… Ah… ah man, I needed that.”

Verity thinks for a moment and cracks up. “I used to love Kamala Khan so much!”

“Like Titanic, But the boat's still floating… No it's not!” Kraber not-quite sings. “The motherfokking boat is exploding!”

“NEXTWAVE!” Aegis adds.

“NEXTWAVE!” Vinyl choruses.

“...I still don’t get it,” Mommy says.

“It’d take too long to explain,” Verity says.

“I am so confused,” Nurse Redheart says.

“I feel your pain,” Mommy agrees.

“Anyway,” Chanterelle had said, “Glad you’re enjoying that comic collection I have, little day.”

Mommy stepped back from the truck, and her horn glowed a little. The truck rumbled - no, it purred. You hadn’t understood why machinery was said to ‘purr’. ‘Grumble,’ or ‘groan,’ or ‘rattle,’ but…

“The cooling enchantments were a bit off,” Mommy explained. “You kept a cooling pump in there even with the enchantments, didn’t you?”

Chanterelle looked a bit dejected. “Yeah… I just… after what happened, it’s hard to trust magic sometimes.” She paused. “No offense.”

“None taken,” mommy said.

“Least you didn’t touch the solar panels on the roof,” Mommy said. “They were weirdly drained though.”

You and Chanterelle look at each other sheepishly.

“Dancing Aphelion Day, tell me you and Keesha didn’t…” Mommy groans, facehoofing.

“I helped her siphon some of the power into those spare PHL power cells, and sell it for food,” you say, very embarrassed. “And more comics.”

Mommy just stares slackjawed for a second.

“Well, I’m not even sure if I’m mad anymore,” she says. “Was this how you got those butternut squash raviolis?”

“Yes?” you said. You remember you were really unsure.

“Did you use your own magic to gather the power and sell it?” Mommy asks.

“I didn’t even do that much,” Chanterelle added. “All her.”

“I’m not even mad,” mommy said. “Well done.” She hugs you. “Not sure anything could ruin toda-”

’In retrospect,’ Mommy says, ‘it almost would’ve been rude for the universe not to listen to that.

It was just then that you saw a flicker, a shifting of light behind Chanterelle’s tinted aviators, and she ran - no, dove - no, flew, for a second Chanterelle seemed to have intimidated gravity into giving her some leeway - for the table.

She grabbed the barely assembled weapon and started pounding the upper half, a set of rails, and something that looked like a box with a hole in it to that rifle. To this day, when you think back on it, it you can’t mentally separate the image of Keesha - of Chanterelle - trying to destroy her gun from the image of her trying to put it back together.

“Something very well could ruin today,” Chanterelle said. “Keep quiet. “

You follow what could be the gaze of Chanterelle’s aviators. With those sunglasses she could be looking anywhere.

Except that’s not true.

As you look over to the road, you realize there is only one place that your friend could be looking.

“But it’s-” you started. Your voice died. Mommy and Chanterelle looked at you, as if to reprimand, and then realize that you have been through enough.

Might just be about to go through more than enough.

For trundling down the road, just outside the trucking depot, was another truck.

It looked like it’d just driven off the set of a movie. It’s not quite military. It looked like a pickup truck, but bigger, meaner. Jagged bits of scrap metal are affixed to the front. It looked like a prefab has been attached to the back. There’s at least two machinegun turrets on it. The words “BIG HURT” were sprayed on one side.

In front of it was a truck that looked… that looked military, but like… like the edges had been sanded down (civilian model?) then built back up. You know that the spikes on it and the other cars are for times when things get desperate enough that newfoals start running at the trucks, so they just might impale themselves.

Or maybe the HLF that built it just saw it in a movie. Behind all of this was a mining truck that barely seemed to fit on the road. Surrounded by bikes and a few small cars with slapdash repairs so bad you weren’t sure if mom was cringing from the poor quality or the occupants.

Years ago, back in france when the Barrier was only barely inside Switzerland’s borders, this sort of thing might have inspired confiden-

“Is Kraber here?!” you whispered.

There’s no way to know but you’re shaking all the same. That bastard, gun to your head, looking so darn empty…

“Hide,” Chanterelle said. “Now.”

You and mom stood frozen in place but still shaking.

“For the love of-” Chanterelle said, muttering something, and then she slung the rifle over her shoulder. She shoved the pistol into her waistband, then suddenly she was picking up you and mommy, running for the building faster than you thought she had in her.

You went blind for a second as you careened through the door.

Chanterelle staggered, Mommy dropping from her arms. She didn’t stop moving, not for a second, and pelted down the hallways.

Then you were running. You don’t know when or how, but one minute Chanterelle was holding you. The next, you were racing along the old, threadbare carpet.

“Keesha,” you heard someone say, “What’s going-”

“HLF,” Chanterelle said. “There’s no time.”

A middle-aged man who looked like he’d worked at this company for most of his life reached under his desk and pulled out a sawed-down shotgun.

“Why aren’t we hiding in the truck?!” you asked.

“They’d expect that,” Chanterelle said. “And there’s a little hidey-hole upstairs.”

You don’t know how long you ran. Not even now.

But then suddenly you were in a little apartment just above the stop. In a closet, hidden just behind some boxes. You could not move.

Astral Nectar

I saw the HLF dragging a pony behind a pickup truck.

I don’t know who it was. They had him harnessed in what looked like a parody of a carthorse yoke, and he was bouncing, skidding behind it. The road had gouged out chunks of their flesh.

I covered my daughter’s eyes.

The truck was packed with HLF, clustered around a rusty machinegun. They were cheering and hollering.

I heard yelling from downstairs. Pressed an ear to the floor.

“Are you housing any PER?!”

“We’re just a trucking company, you mo-”

BLAM

Oh God! Were they okay?! Dancing Day, my daughter, was trying to squeeze herself into an ever-tinier ball against the closet’s walls.

“Reubens, you goddamn-”

“My computer!”

Suddenly, an explosion.

“They’re here! The Hotline was right! I can’t believe it, it was actually-”

When we came back down, it looked like a whirlwind came through. Papers were scattered. Bookshelves had fallen. There was a missing computer or two, and bulletholes in the ceiling.

“What happened here?” I asked.

“They just ran in, and started smashing everything,” Chanterelle said, dejected.

“What…” my daughter said, whimpering slightly. “Why’d they stop?”

“Something across town distracted them, I guess,” someone else explained.

“They were supposed to be good guys,” one man said glumly, as we trotted down through the building.

“You mean the HLF or HTF?” my daughter asked.

“HLF,” the man said, still glum.

Okay, I can be immature sometimes. I can be… unforgiving or whatever. So when I heard that, I started laughing.

“The hell?!” the man asked.

“I never had that certainty,” I said. “Hell, I joined the HTF’s Paris chapter. Then Michael Carter came in. Then the Three Weeks of Blood. When I came to the meeting, the Bureau was attacked, and…” I sighed. “Some of the people there pulled guns on me. I had to jump out a window.”

“So… that’s why you walked with that limp,” my daughter said. “You never told me.”

“You got to like the humans there,” I said. “I didn’t want you to stop trusting them, and when we were on the boat, well… It didn’t seem important.”

“It’s sad, though,” the man said. “I… was part of the Three Weeks of Blood too.”

I stared at him for a second. “Um.”

“I…. kind of fell out of going to the meetings,” he said.

“I think a lot of people are going to soon,” my daughter said.

December 2022

“So,” you say, “I.. never quite asked anyone this.”

“About what?” Kraber asks.

“The HLF… being there,” you say. “I just… why were they even there? I barely know what happened that day.”

“Far as I know,” Yael says, “It was something like this: The PER - some bastards backed by Captain Cactus-”

It is impossible for you not to notice the somewhat dejected look on Heliotrope’s face.

“-and led by Shieldwall were supposed to infiltrate the ruins of a Bureau, find some supplies, and use the basement portal to escape,” Yael explains. “It didn’t work out for them.”

“Why not?” you ask.

“Because,” Heliotrope explains, “The HLF were waiting for them. We didn’t know how or why, but they’d planted themselves all over the city. They’d set up gun emplacements not too far from the Bureau, too.”

“And when PER get cornered…” Kraber says, and shakes his head. “Don’t let PER get cornered. Just kill them all first, it’s a quite an ubuntu.”

Everyone just stares at him.

“Not kinder to them, to the… the people they’ll obviously turn into barely sentient abominations,” Kraber explains. “Honestly. What do you people expect from me? But PER do fokkin’ boos things when you get them cornered.”

July 29, 4:30 PM
Burlington, Vermont, near an old Conversion Bureau...
Yael

I fucking hate Conversion Bureaus, Yael thought as she sat on the bed of a wrecked HLF pickup truck - made by International Harvester of all people, did they even make pickups anymore? - that somebody had outfitted with a large Neo-Panzerfaust. Once again, Yael’s big .308 Galil sat next to her, bipod extended outward, as she used it to open a bottle of Vermont root beer.

“That looks unsafe,” said one Canadian servicewoman with a large, ambiguously wolfish black dog that looked to have a very diverse breeding history, some of which may have involved Newfoundlands or bears.

Probably newfoundlands. The latter seemed unlikely.

“Well, I’m not using the mag,” Yael said. “Besides, what do you think the little gap was made for?”

“The bipod?” the woman asked.

“Yes, but no,” Yael sighed.

It’d been awhile since Yael had been in the presence of one, but you never forgot that sort of thing. Fucking Reitman. Fucking Catseye.

Yael hated the ugly place with a passion. Oh, it’d been painted over in a rainbow of colors once a time, given little flourishes of Equestrian architecture, but once upon a time it had been subjected to the wrath of almost half a decade’s worth of angry residents.

The student uprising during the Three Weeks of Blood, for example. Yael had seen Nny’s photos. The drawings. Nny clutching a molotov cocktail, a stolen revolver in his belt, as he and other students marched on the Bureau...

A photo of a horrified look on someone who’d just been spattered with potion, as someone with that little revolver (the same one Cousin Nny had stolen?) held a gun to their head.

The building sat on the edge of Burlington, Vermont, not too far from a set of railroad tracks. Queen Celestia’s little concentration camp. It bore the scars of hundreds of rounds, angry graffiti, and burns from molotov cocktails thrown in the Burlington Student Uprising back in 2019. A brass memorial of an almost aggressively featureless newfoal, verdigris choking the life out of its features, stood guard or vigil outside. “To Our Eternal Shame,” it read. It had been pocked with bulletholes. One shot had gone straight through its flank where a cutie mark would have never grown.

Lately - as in, within the last hour or so - the landscape had improved. In that the old charnelhouse had suffered several explosions, one wing looked to be collapsing thanks to weapons fire, another one was a skeleton thanks to grenade fire, and the main wing and suffered damage from regular fire.

“So... What do we know about the start of the battle?” Yael asked.

“Didn’t you get here early enough to…” a National Guard said, moderately confused.

“No,” Yael said. “There was a lot that I missed. I… I didn’t see the opening shots of it all.”

It was true. There’d been news of violence in Burlington today - Yael and Heliotrope had been hoping to go on leave, meet Nny, Fiddlesticks, Aegis, his foals, and that strange (strang?) scotsman.

By the time she and Heliotrope got here, an entire neighborhood of Burlington in view of the Bureau had turned into a warzone. HLF had been looting any building they could find and flaying people in the streets, PER had been steadily ponifying anyone in view and fighting their way to the Bureau.

HLF had set up machinegun emplacements nearby in an almost impossibly short amount of time and opened fire into the overgrown garden in front of the Bureau, a hailstorm of bullets shredding any PER nearby.

Until the PER had brought in a herd of anomalous newfoals. The struggle for whatever the goddamn quislings had been looking for had turned into a bloodbath within seconds.

Yael was actually okay with that. Less okay with the staggering civilian casualties, but more okay with the idea of PER being dead. She headed over to the prisoners, tied to trees until the prisoner transports arrived, and peered down at them.

The HLF were a rough-looking group of men and women. One woman with an awkward-looking prosthetic leg made from scrap metal. A man with a burnt face. A woman whose arm looked to have been ponified then cut off in the last hour. Another who looked like he’d been a trim, nautilus-toned old man (maybe ex-military?) before the war, but now just looked beaten to hell by the war.

But then, what didn’t?

Heliotrope trotted over alongside Yael as they looked down at the prisoners. Well. Heliotrope looked up.

One of the prisoners spat in their general direction. Heliotrope wasn’t sure if it was her or Yael.

“You’re going to tell us why you’re here,” Heliotrope said, eyes narrowed.

“To kill the gluesticks,” the man with the burnt face said. “Not that you’d understand. Brown. Quisling. Bitch. Came swooping in…”

“Nah, Yael doesn’t have wings,” Heliotrope interrupted. “That’s my job.”

July 29, 2:30 PM

Heliotrope

She was off scouting. She was always off scouting.

There was an intersection ahead. Another road bled into this one, and a tractor trailer had inexplicably rolled over just nearby.

The HLF had set up a minigun through a hole they’d cut in the trailer (possibly with a stolen laser cutter) and had opened fire at the nearest ponies they’d seen.

This had been PHL tending to wounded, so Heliotrope had divebombed the gunner and splattered his head against the floor.

“FUCKIN’ GLUESTICK!” someone shrieked, firing their M16 in a wide, uncontrolled… well, it was spitting out too many bullets from its ungainly, high-capacity magazine for it to really be called a burst.

Heliotrope spread her wings and catapulted herself to the left, the HLF man tracking her with his rifle, bullets spitting out like some kind of weird sideways hail.

‘-run out of bullets at some point!’ Heliotrope thought frantically as she turned invisible, and flew up, to the right, the HLF man’s bullets continuing along her previous trajectory.

“Can’t hide from me, demon!” the HLF man cackled.

Okay, first, I kind of am. Secondly… demon? The hell?! Heliotrope thought as she flung herself upward like a grenade, comfortably far from wherever the HLF man was fring. All around, she could see HLF spraying their weapons in the direction of the PHL or PER all over this stretch of abandoned highway.

PER were using what few guns they had - thrown vials, as it happened, were rather poor competitors to modern weaponry, so they’d settled for paintball guns, homemade grenade launchers, and ballistas.

Purple explosions thudded along the road, and humans screamed. Heliotrope… tried not to think about it as she flew upwards. Yael would be taking care of them, wouldn’t sh-

July 29, 4:35 PM

“Mind if I sit?” Yael asked, immediately as she sat down on the hood of a nearby pickup truck. It had a rusty yet serviceable copy of a DsHK - rechambered, or more likely built from scrap from the ground up for .50 BMG. Looked almost Chechen.

Yael had worked with Russian and Chechen soldiers before, and it looked kind of like their work. The pickup had been hammered with scrap and painted over several times.

Yael had found that this usually worked out for her.

The prisoners were silent. Even the man with the burnt face.

Heliotrope fluttered up behind the homemade DsHK.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” Yael said.

“Bullshit you’re not,” the woman with the prosthetic leg spat.

“If I was, you’d already be off in - no, fuck it. Nevermind that,” Yael said. “As things stand, you’re still here, and I’ve been getting them closed down. And you’ll probably be put in the prison up in Berlin. I’m not responsible for what happens there.”

“You’re part of the PHL, you brought one of the damn gluesticks here, and you’re Yael Ze’ev,” the ex-military man snorted. “I’m calling bullshit. I was at Nipville, you bitch.”

“So was I,” Heliotrope said. “Your point?”

Yael ignored that. Ignored the argument that was sure to result from it.

“I’m here because right now, the PHL doesn’t like what it’s seeing,” Yael said. “Currently, we’re more on a support role. Build towns up, instruct civilians, create evac routes, kill PER-”

“And our friends!” someone called out defiantly.

“Those HLF kept ponies chained to walls to make weaponry for them,” Heliotrope said. “Took over a refugee camp. You think we’d let that slide?!”

“Well, I can see why you wouldn’t,” one of the prisoners said. “Goddamn geldo.”

“I don’t even have a y chromosome! That doesn’t even make sense!” Heliotrope said.

“No, what I don’t understand,” the prisoner continued, “Is why a human would try to help. Haven’t they taken enough from us? How do you wake up every morning, look away from the horse you must be fucking, and tell yourself that you’re doing the right thing?”

“It’s easy,” Yael said. “You just think about all the good you’ve done. All the successful evacuation. All the food deliveries. All the times civilians looked up to you when you helped set up defenses for their towns and said they were safe. But I’m sure that’s easy for you, isn’t it?”

There was no response.

“That’s what I thought,” Yael said, her face unchanged. “That’s what I thought. Officially, I’m not here to burn Nipville again. I’m just here to scare you all straight thanks to the actions of one Leonid Lovikov. Who turned a hostage situation into a bloodbath and started firing on a city.”

There was silence.

“And arrest the fucker, of course,” Yael added. “Are any of you willing to help?”

More silence.

“Oh, for the love of…” Yael facepalmed. “Please tell me somebody’s at least ashamed of that.”

Still more silence.

“People died? The PER used the chaos as an excuse to ponify and get the Bureau back up and running? Kraber apparently has a higher PER killcount than all of you combined that night?” Heliotrope suggested.

Well, you get the idea.

“What, afraid of actually doing dirty work?” the ex-HLF man asked.

“In which case,” Heliotrope asked, “Why aren’t you afraid of us burning Defiance to the ground? I could do that if I want. I’ve never understood american militias. Read a lot about them when we were taking the flight from Africa to Montreal. And apparently, how it works is militia apparently want nothing more than to get themselves killed.”

“NO WE DON’T!” the man with the burnt face yelled.

“Then why do all the early HLF occupations end with you provoking people?” Heliotrope asked. “You want blood. So the two of us are here.”

July 29, 2:41 PM

HLF, Heliotrope decided, had all the subtlety of a jackhammer.

This wasn’t a real military she was seeing fight its way to the Bureau. This was an armed mob.

They stormed through what few houses were near the old Bureau, men and women and armor rushing out with electronics, appliances, and stolen food.

Some of them were whooping in joy as they carted everything out. Were those…. Were those dead civilians? Had they… had they killed them?

Not that it was out of the ordinary for what Yael and Heliotrope had seen in the Middle East. The PHL had military backing, aid, and a supply of workers. The HLF had little of that, and what they’d done to survive in North Africa as the Barrier pushed them to the Atlantic was best left unmentioned.

Especially as Shieldwall and other PER ran roughshod over them.

Poor Yassen… he did not deserve to be exploded and put back together as a newfoal.

This? Watching HLF ransack the house of some poor human, its windows broken, a hole in the roof from some improvised “artillery?”

From what Heliotrope saw, this was just par for the course.

All around, there were HLF throwing themselves at PER. That hadn’t been the last one she’d seen blow themselves up, taking multiple PER with them.

A woman with one arm, a twisted orange-furred lump of something on the ground next to her, fired her rifle one-handed. An HLF man held a massive pony with one arm, using them like a meatshield.

This isn’t war, it’s a goddamn madhouse! Heliotrope thought.

July 29, 4:43 PM

“You bitch, Ze’ev!” one of the prisoners spat. “You left Matheson to die!”

Yael raised an eyebrow, confused. “And that would be…”

“Eyepatch, pegleg, had a Kalashnikov?”

“We got him to an ambulance,” Yael explained. “Do you really think I’m-”

‘-cruel that I’d let you get ponified? Just laugh it off?’ is what Yael wanted to finish. Instead, Heliotrope just interrupted her.

“Don’t finish that question, you know how they’ll answer,” Heliotrope said. “Anyway, Matheson’s fine.”

“Um. Shit, really?”

July 29, 2:41 PM

Heliotrope rammed her foreleg into the skull of the man that’d been firing at her. His face exploded back against the pavement, and she felt a momentary burst of… joy? Adrenaline?

She didn’t want to think about it.

The battery indicators for her invisibility suit flashed red in the lower left corner of her goggles, and Heliotrope cannoned towards an HLF car left lying on its side. She turned off the suit and flickered back into visibility, clinging to what’d been the right side of the car before a PER unicorn sent it careening through the air.

She was hiding just next to one of the wheels.

In front of her, she could see a foxhole punched into the earth, a crater in the middle of the road.

Looks just like the emplacements we used during the Crystal War, Heliotrope thought disinterestedly.

Two PER, a human and an earth pony, were crouched down in there. The earth pony had what looked like a scavenged assault saddle, with the gun replaced by two crossbows.

The human was feeding boxes (magazines?) into the crossbow.

As Heliotrope watched, the pony squeezed its saddle’s mouth trigger. Two bolts THWACKed out from the pony’s twin bows, and…

Heliotrope suddenly felt sick.

The two bolts punched through an HLF man’s football armor, probably worn because it was… maybe better than nothing?... and stuck there. The man fell to the ground, wheezing in agony. As she watched, the man contorted himself, his back bending at an impossible angle. Strands of purple seemed to be growing through his thick beard.

Ponification bolter! Heliotrope thought, her mind racing.

But the man was making no sound.

Picking himself up on unsteady and warping legs, the HLF man let out a howl of adulation, kissed the cross he wore round his neck, and charged the foxhole. Bolts peppered him, his breathing grew so ragged it actually hurt Heliotrope’s eyes to hear it, but he was still going.

“WE HAVE THE VOICE OF AN ANGEL!” the man warbled through vocal cords that were being reassembled as he spoke. “DO YOU HONESTLY THINK YOUR PATHETIC BITCH-GODDESS HOLDS A CANDLE TO THE ANGEL WHICH SPEAKS TO US! YOUR GOD CARES NOT FOR YOU, BUT WE! HAVE NOT! BEEN! ABANDONED!”

It was hard to describe it, but when she saw the man pull two grenades, the man was… intelligent. Happy. And bloodthirsty to the core.

‘Voice of an angel?! Heliotrope thought.

KABOOM

The HLF man exploded, whatever he had in those two grenades obliterating the bow...stallion? Bowspony? Bowmare?

All that was left of the man was a shoe.

‘The hell was that?!’ Heliotrope thought. But that was another question for another day. She pushed herself up from the roof of the car and fired off her SMGs, pouring a hail of bullets on the stunned-looking PER staring at the sooty remains of their compatriots.

“IT’S HELIOTROPE!” a PER man screamed. “Switch to slug ammo! SWITCH TO-”

Concentrating her goggles’ reticule on the man, Heliotrope squeezed the mouth trigger and fired. Two bullets - hollowpoints - rained down the sky and split his head in half.

She angled her guns downwards and fired down on the PER below. Nine-millimeter rounds from her SMGs poured down on the pavement, chopping through them.

The Bureau was close by. The PER were falling back. Actually, they’d been falling back a long time now.

July 29, 4:53 PM

“If you don’t mind my asking… What the hell?” Yael asked.

Heliotrope shrugged. “I dunno.”

“Not.. I know what you said. But what the hell,” Yael said.

The prisoners down below didn’t look happy to hear from Yael. Or see Heliotrope. Actually, they were just pissed in general.

They were silent.

“Voice of an angel,” Yael said. “Sure. I knew a man who claimed to be hearing the voices of angels.”

“Was he happy? Did it help?” one prsioner asked.

A woman with a hook for an arm - likely to help stabilize her grip to weaponry with foregrips - scowled, and smacked him on the back of his head with her real hand.

“No, it was some kind of Imperial weapon Shieldwal made. And he died,” Yael said. “He exploded - took out most of the tent, and I watched his body parts crawl back together.”

Everything - even the giant dog owned by a National Guard - seemed to go quiet.

“We handled it,” Yael said simply.

“You set him on fire, filled him with all the bullets in the mag - and you had a Beta-C - and blew him up with a grenade launcher,” Heliotrope said.

Yael’s expression didn’t change.

“Then fired a Shipon at the bloody stain in the sand just to be sure,” Heliotrope said.

The woman with the hook snickered.

“You try dealing with watching a man explode, and then watch all his viscera reform into a pony,” Yael said.

There was silence.

“That’s what I thought,” Yael said, nodding.

July 29, 2:54 PM

Heliotrope had fought people that’d later be considered HLF in the Middle East, back during the campaign to alternatively evacuate or defend the place. This most holy of lands.

Some of them had been remnants of ISIS. Some had been angry men and women who happened to have access to soviet materiel and didn’t trust westerners and Israelis trying to help. And others… overlapping with the last two more often than not...

Well, this was why Heliotrope had been skeptical of Yael’s deeply-held belief at first: Fanatics that’d been given an apocalypse. Not their apocalypse, but one all the same.

The fighters that fit into that last category had always terrified Heliotrope. HLF that hung people from cranes, stoned people, crucified them, all kinds of punishments that must have seemed appropriate for the times. And they fought like…

Not like soldiers. Like beasts. A soldier would aim and fire, the fanatics Heliotrope remembered would shoot to fill with lead. With utter disregard for their mortality. Sometimes blowing themselves up with grenades. Sometimes shooting their arms off and firing their rifles one-handed.

The HLF here were like that. In fact, Heliotrope could see examples of it for herself.

But she had bigger things to worry about - for example, the PER ahead of her.

There was an intersection ahead of the Bureau both ends of the road long since walled off by police and National Guard.

A ragged, uneasy alliance of HLF and police had taken points at either end, and were spraying full-auto into the PER just ahead.

And just ahead…

“Golem!” Heliotrope hissed.

“Heliotrope? What’s going on?” Yael’s voice crackled over Heliotrope’s earpiece.

Just below Heliotrope was a vaguely humanoid shape made of all angles and sharp pieces. Like a human of unstable proportions. Last Heliotrope had heard from a… ‘friend’ that’d been captured from the Royal Guards, the Solar Empire didn’t use things like that because of their resemblance to the human form. A human skull, its jaw wired shut, sat just between the shoulders.

And it was slaughtering the HLF in droves. The wicked, hooked blades cutting through them.

“We are not dealing with the usual PER,” Heliotrope said.

“I gathered that when I saw them fielding this many,” Yael said wryly. “Find the animator.”

The Golem was too thin and wiry for bullets to have much long-lasting effect. They skidded across the wood and metal rods that formed its skeletal structure, punching through spots where vital organs would be…

...If it wasn’t just a puppet, about as much as any of the newfoals. It glowed lightly, the telltale aura of a unicorn’s telekinesis.

“Already on it,” Heliotrope said.

And then the Golem ran a teenager through. They looked like they were HLF, wearing homemade leather armor that looked like it was made just to deflect blades.

Heliotrope saw the life bleed out of him. Saw him cough up blood, and-

There was an unearthly shriek from the teenager still impaled on the blade. Almost gingerly, the golem slid them off, and Heliotrope watched their body contort. Watched them… watched them ponify.

It was like their whole body turned inside out.

Aw, the hell with it, Heliotrope thought, and swooped downwards.

“Heliotrope, what are you…” Yael asked, confused.

“I just can’t watch, Helotrope said, and flung two grenades down at the golem.

She watched them both explode, watched them vaporize part of the Golem’s legs. It fell to the ground, only one arm scrabbling on the pavement.

She saw the PER staring agape, up at the spot where Heliotrope had fired the grenades, and turned a homemade machinegun up at the spot. Heliotrope yelped in fear, and-

OW!

One bullet dug a runnel through the side of her suit, just under her wing, and Heliotrope screamed in agony. She fell to the ground, landing on her face just behind a car.

“Medic,” Heliotrope mumbled, as she fell to the ground. Did that thing bruise a rib?!

She pulled herself up to all four legs, only to find three HLF staring down at her.

“It’s Heliotrope,” said one woman with a trucker hat.

There was a strange moment, Heliotrope staring up at these three armed militiamen, (and woman) each pointing guns at her, the strange little brightly-colored alien.

“I’m trying to kill the PER, same as you!” Heliotrope yelled, almost protesting.

The woman smirked. “When you killed some of my friends in Tunisia?”

“They raided the-”

And suddenly, a round through two of their heads, reducing one to vapor, and simply obliterating half of another man’s skull.

The woman gibbered for a second, then suddenly the round punched through her arms, shredding through her ribcage and leaving nothing of the arms about two inches above the elbows.

She… crumpled? Shattered? to the ground.

“Can’t believe that Abe made that shot,” Yael said. “The hell, Heliotrope?!”

“I had to disable the golem!” Heliotrope yelled.

“It’s only downed-” Yael said, and paused. “And pulling itself together. Goddammit. Are you okay?”

“I can still fly,” Heliotrope said. “But the suit’s damaged.”

“You’re the furthest out, and I don’t have air support,” Yael said. “Get in there, and kill whoever’s leading the PER here.”

“I thought you were here to kill us,” someone said. Heliotrope jumped back, and hovered in the air for a second.

“How did you get there?!” Heliotrope stage-whispered. Then shrugged, and put the trigger in her mouth.

“Wait! Wait, no, no no… stop!” the person said. Heliotrope looked over at her - female, dark skin, barely more than a teenager, AR-15. “I’m not going to kill you.”

Heliotrope narrowed her eyes. “Really.”

“Look, the last people that did were shot through their heads,” the woman said. “I don’t want to deal with that.”

Heliotrope shrugged. “Fair enough.”

“Besides,” she said, and something about the way she said this piqued Heliotrope’s interest. “We knew they’d be here-”

July 29, 5 PM

“She said what?” Yael said.

The man with the burnt face slapped the side of his skull. “Dammit, Tamara.”

“See, I’m curious as to what that means,” Yael said. “We knew they’d be here.”

“Maybe we have intel, or something,” one man said.

“I don’t buy it,” Heliotrope said. “You’re Menschabwehrfraktion. That means you work for Lovikov. And Lovikov…. Is not an intel person. He’s someone that others, like Atlas Galt, point in the wrong direction.”

“Don’t you mean the right…”

“No, not at all,” Heliotrope said.

“PER attack. Right,” Yael said, looking down at the corpse of a PER earth pony with an assault saddle modded for two homemade revolver grenade launchers. She placed her thumb and finger over where the gas mask touched the bridge of her nose, out of habit more than anything.

“Why…”

“This wasn’t just a PER attack,” Yael said, pushing one piece of rubble off the man’s body. “See, I asked Heliotrope to run recon awhile ago. And I was at the synagogue while some of your brothers-in-arms kept mentioning the Hotline, whatever that is…”

“Shieldwall said as much,” Heliotrope said, nodding.

July 29, 3:07 PM

Heliotrope flattened her wings to her side and cannoned through a shattered window. Her suit still wasn’t back up to par, but she was Heliotrope, dammit. Plenty of people could remain unseen without an invisibility suit.

Only question was how long she could with the long run cut through her flightsuit.

The indoors had been decorated in the best approximation of Equestrian decor that the early builders of the Bureau could afford.

God, I hate this place, Heliotrope thought, slinking along the walls, almost catlike. She kept her hoofsteps to a soft, steady beat.

It looked for all the world like nobody had gone in here since the Three Weeks of Blood. Gurneys were left scattering the hall, as if a whirlwind had rushed through the building. She could see medical equipment strewn all over the place, strange, specialized things that nobody had even considered looting.

Walkers for the newly Converted, for example. Just ahead, in what was going to be a lounge of some kind, there was a… well, it was hard to describe. It was like two metal rails bent into the shape of waves, cresting upwards.

‘I remember that,’ Heliotrope thought. ‘Mom had me use one to help me fly when I was a foal. Didn’t want to throw me off the cloud. ’

But it was sized for more-or-less fully-grown ponies.

‘They took functioning adults and turned them into children that’d pick the wings off of bugs for fun,’ Heliotrope thought. She knew, on a purely academic level, that the newly converted had needed certain things to help integrate them into their new bodies. The early ones had slight mental problems (apparently, it’d been considered a fair trade to cure alzheimers or something like that) but they’d needed time to integrate. Time to be in a magically neutral environment.

Apparently - according to some of the boys in R&D - ponifying outside of a magically neutral environment could have problems. This was why there’d been specialized Bureaus in the first place.

“Yael,” Heliotrope said. “I’m in the Bureau.”

“Please, for the love of all that’s holy, tell me you added cognitohazard protection to the head,” Yael said.

There was a spray of bullets just overhead, and Yael made a distinctly un-Yael-like yelp.

“Yael? What did you do?”

“I pissed them off,” Yael said.

This was where, if someone hadn’t been familiar with Yael, they’d repeat the question. But, no, it was probably that Yael was just nearby.

Heliotrope didn’t worry. This wasn’t her job. Which sounded callous in retrospect, but Yael could handle herself. Yael… usually had things under control.

She wrinkled her nose as she walked past a room with broken scraps of a door. It looked like someone, hopefully PHL, had stripped the door for its orichalcum. Heliotrope peered inside. It looked like…

Gross!

It looked like there was a sheet of dead skin spread out over part of the floor. Waste biological material, Heliotrope thought, remembering a set of Bureau memos that she’d stolen during the earliest days of the war. All the mass has to go somewhere, so…

Still gross.

All around Heliotrope, as she crept along the hallway, there were remnants of the bad times when humans had grown horrified by the Bureaus and risen up, rioted and ripped them apart.

She’d thought the PHL had been stripped everything of value. Of course, this begged the question… why were PER here?

Portland, Heliotrope thought. Of course. There’d been supplies in the basement of Portland’s unfinished bureau. Of course they were looking for something. They had to be getting potion from somewhere.

There was an atrium just ahead. Heliotrope could hear footsteps and hoofsteps just below, and she crept up to the railing.

This place is a goddamn tomb, Heliotrope thought.

It was a ragtag group of ponies and humans trudging downwards.

Just below, she could see Patrick Fairbairn. A PER man in too-huge aviator sunglasses, who looked fat - or as if he’d once been fat - with a face that looked like a horrible accident. Not like it had resulted from one, no, the first thing that Heliotrope thought of when she saw this man was that some kind of horrible contrivance of fate had led to the existence of his face. His face was more scar tissue, stab wounds, and poorly-healed bones at this point than anything else. Scars looked like they’d exploded outwards from his jaw, cheek, left eye, and a prosthetic nose sat awkwardly on his face, always seemingly on the verge of slipping down to his lips.

He’d been handsome (apparently) before the Alaska incident, when Joseph McCreary and Shieldwall had finally, as Nny put it “kicked what looked like a husky only to find out it was a wolf.”

Fluttering just nearby was a pegasus pony in a gas mask, wearing what looked like a flame-retardant suit. Only their wings were uncovered, and Heliotrope couldn’t tell what color the fur was. It was… kind of ashy grey, but strangely blotchy.

An earth pony mare with a hideous gash in her throat stood nearby. She was carrying a violin case on her back.

December 2022

“Heliotrope?” Vinyl asks. “Were they… were they really that ugly?”

“Probably not all of them,” Heliotrope says, a little sheepish. “I was angry. really angry.”

Kraber, sitting upright in his hospital bed, shrugs. There’s something a little odd about the movement, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “Fair enough.”

July 29, 3:11 PM

Leading all of them, Heliotrope could see a pale earth pony with a short mane. His legs clinked oddly against the floor. He appeared to be drinking something in a cheap glass bottle. And his cutie mark was… was a shield blotched with purple. Was it just her, or had the purple spread? What did… what had happened to his cutie mark? Could the Potion affect it?

Shieldwall!

It took every bit of self-control Heliotrope had not to simply toss in a grenade and watch them explode.

“Yael,” Heliotrope hissed, “I found Shieldwall. Please advise.”

They were cornering a ragtag assortment of humans.

Fairbairn, the three unfamiliar ponies, and Shieldwall - that added up to four. Five, as Heliotrope watched an almost deformed-looking purple unicorn stallion join them. He looked like that huge pony from the synagogue… what was his name? Aegis? Yeah. Like Aegis, as created by an inexperienced sculptor going through a messy breakup.

He was pulling a cart that looked like it had once been an Equus firetruck, a massive upright cylinder that Heliotrope simply knew to be full of potion.

A bandolier sat over his body, with teleport spikes sitting in each slot.

There were about twenty humans in a corner. A But five ponies, most of which didn’t look to be armed, staring down twenty like a Special Forces squad with M16s to someone’s head?

That didn’t feel right.

Shieldwall took a long, disgusting slurp from the bottle. It looked like it had been coke at some point.

“So,” Shieldwall said, looking refreshed, “Who told them?”

“What?” one woman asked. She was trembling like a child.

“The transmissions we’ve been hearing,” Shieldwall said. “Telling people to smash the spikes. PHL being onto us, that I understand. But the HLF were here first. So, to whoever it is…”

July 29, 5:04 PM

“All the high casualties,” Heliotrope said. “Of PER, that is. And the lack of Grotesqueries. This was an HLF ambush. The machinegun nest up there. The HLF had been lying in wait for awhile. It’s too precise to be something that they threw together at the last minute.”

“And there aren’t many HLF here?” a purplish unicorn mare named Chablis asked, confused.

“You kidding?” Yael asked. “My cousin came by here for some investigative reporting around may, and joined the student riots cause he was bored. HLF were the first guys they turned on.”

“I’m tempted to ask why,” one of the members of Yael’s taskforce asked.

“Apparently there’d been a pegasus student cousin Nny wanted to interview,” Yael explained. “She’d been dropping molotovs on the Bureau along with all of them, and the HLF still wanted to cut off her wings. So cousin Nny kicked them in the face.”

She looked down, trying to remember.

“Ask him about it sometime,” Heliotrope said. “The point is, there’s about six colleges around here. And almost everyone there hates the HLF. The point is… the HLF are definitely onto PER around here. Only question is how. And why.”

“It could just be a coincidence,” Chablis suggested.

“It’s never that easy,” Yael said. “There’s something we’re not getting here. I just know it.”

July 29, 3:20 PM

Shieldwall narrowed his eyes at the human PER members.

“I can’t even believe how bucking disgusting you are,” he said, raking his eyes over each and every human. “At least PHL can be made understand their… position relative to ponies. But you. Sell out for the average human. I don’t get that. Aren’t we here to uplift them? Make them better?”

“Please advise!” Heliotrope hissed.

Shieldwall took another sip. Something about the sound made the fur just under Heliotrope’s mane crawl.

“The HLF were waiting for us. I want to know who sold us out. We walked right into a damn Changeling nest full of HLF, and one of you humans has to have told them.”

“Gather intel,” Yael whispered. Heliotrope could just imagine Yael, her best friend, shrinking up against a concrete barrier. “Whatever they’re plotting, we need information on it.”

“I don’t like that sort of thing,” Shieldwall said, pulling the bottle from his mouth with one hoof. “I don’t like it at all.” He turned to the massive cartpony. “Mattock, did you get the supplies?”

“Yes sir,” he said. Heliotrope looked them over, and saw…

No cutie mark?

That was the biggest newfoal she’d ever seen.

“A load full of potion here-” Mattock tapped his cart- “And all the teleport spikes we could need. Our Queen was smart when she built these places. Huge amounts of raw materials down here, even Equus-treated tungsten.”

“What would we need tunsten for?” the newfoal with the throat wound and violin case rasped.

“A lot of-” Shieldwall started.

“Yeah,” said one PER man with a neck that looked to be mostly scar tissue. It looked like he’d been hanged. “Why do we? I’m losing friends down there. We-”

There was a second for Heliotrope to catch a glimpse of an utterly flat, reptilian glint in - no, behind Shieldwall’s eyes - before she watched him pull a vial from one saddlebag and snap his neck forward, the vial shattering against the man that had interrupted him.

Blood dripped from the man’s shoulder where the vial had fragmented. It bubbled and boiled, as lime-green fur grew from inside the wound.

“Listen to your betters,” Shieldwall said, a strangely newfoal-like smile on his face as he took a sip from that glass bottle. “You seem to be mistaking Dicey’s question for possible agreement. We can’t afford to question the Queen. The last time we let a defector live, the PHL’s tech took a running jump forward.”

The steadily ponifying man stared at the lime-green, mossy fur growing out of his shoulder with the glazed eyes of a drug addict.

“But, as I’m a forgiving pony, since I believe you can all be useful-” he swept one hoof across all the humans in the corner. “I’m rewarding you, ah…” He looked like he was confused, trying to recall something. “Ah well. Whatever your name was doesn’t matter. Jimmy?”

“Jeffrey,” the ponifying man whispered, voice raspy. Dare Heliotrope think it, hoarse.

“Sure, whatever. It doesn’t matter,” Shieldwall said dismissively, as he walked up to the ponifying man and reared up. Almost instinctively, the man - Jeffrey - bowed, and Shieldwall placed his hooves on the man’s back. “Because you’re asking questions like that, I’m rewarding you.”

“Thank yurrrrrrr,” Jeffrey slurred.

“You’re all useful assets,” Shieldwall said, and there was something approximating warmth in his voice. “All of you. But I need you to be better than questioning the Queen.”

“What’ve you learned?” Yael asked.

“I don’t even know anymore,” Heliotrope sighed, shaking her head as she watched Shieldwall massage the man’s back.

What was he doing? He was… he was interfering with the ponification process somehow, but Heliotrope had thought only unicorns could be potionshapers. Wait. Earth ponies were able to channel a planet’s magic through them, could it be that Shieldwall was doing that… and pushing it into this human?!

In a Bureau, no less. Bureaus were magically sterile, to prevent outside influences from infecting the process. Like any other hospital room. Letting outside influences in could result in living weapons like Imperial Creed, or… or Reaper. Any process immediately had a chance to fail, and adding outside factors to ponification only made it more likely.

The bastard was using people like building blocks. Not that it was anything new for the Impie sons of pigs.

“That’s… very nice of you,” Heliotrope watched one woman say.

“Mossy Knoll,” said the lime-green pony that had once been a man. It had a black mane with pink highlights, and looked oddly… feminine? Its proportions were strange, and its fur looked strangely lumpy.

There was… there was moss growing in place of the newfoal’s fur in places. A tree branch with a few leaves sprouting from it poked up from its mane.

“He’s… I think he’s making an anomalous newfoal,” Heliotrope whispered.

Yael was silent.

“Say again?”

“Now,” Shieldwall said. “What Jeffrey didn’t understand-”

“Mossy Knoll,” the lime-green pony said.

“Yes, yes, we know,” said the pegasus in the asbestos suit. Rather un-newfoal-like behavior.

“It’s… it’s like some kind of walking tree,” Heliotrope whispered. “Shieldwall... He’s a potionshaper. And worse, he has job satisfaction.”

There was a muffled curse from the other end, and the sound of Yael’s big Galil rattling out a long burst.

“Yael?”

“The HLF have us under fire,” Yael said, “But you’re right. Blow those filthy motherfuckers to-”

“-In a month’s time, it’ll all be over. The PHL will be in ruins. I will stand at the Queen’s side over a land brought to our hooves. I’ll make the filthy betrayers and the humans they’ve enthralled with Hearstrings’ message beg to be ponified. I’ll watch them bleed. And when they’re all ponified, we’ll work over every last one for hours, for months on end, but they’ll accept it with humility. So noble of them.”

“Mossy Knoll,” Mossy Knoll said, nodding.

“And all of you can be fixed,” said the pegasus in the asbestos suit.

“Exactly, Firewhirler,” Shieldwall said. “But, afterwards, we’ll put them to work. Because that’s what heroes do. They show mercy.”

“But, won’t that…” one PER woman said. “I have family in Montreal.”

“They’ll understand,” Shieldwall said, dismissively. “When they see how we’ve crippled the PHL’s stranglehold on Montreal, punished them for the arrogance they had in not perfecting themselves…”

“They don’t know… Maelene doesn’t know that I haven’t been ponified,” the woman said. “I just… I don’t want her to get hurt.”

“Doing the right thing hurts people, Tanith,” Shieldwall said, offering her his bottle. “But then, that’s why it has to be done. We’ll destroy the abominable machines of the PHL, and a lot of people will die. It won’t be easy. But then, worthy tasks never are.”

The woman - Tanith took a sip from Shieldwall’s bottle and froze.

“You sure you don’t want to at least let her think she’s right?” Shieldwall laughed as Tanith went rigid. There was a strange look on her face. It could have been joy. It could have been horror. It could have been anticipation.

“Shieldwall, no!” one man started.

“Excuse me?” Shieldwall yelled, turning his head towards the man that had spoken up. “Are you saying this isn’t an improvement? Do you want me to-”

July 29, 5:10 PM

“He actually drinks potion?” one of the HLF prisoners asked, profoundly disgusted.

“Like great-uncle Set with Nesher Malt, apparently,” Yael said.

“A pony… addicted to the Potion,” one prisoner said. “That’s just… that’s hideous.”

“It’s fucked up, isn’t it?” Yael asked. “I knew a lot of awful people. I’ve worked with people I would’ve been shooting about seven years ago.”

“So much for that moral superiority, huh?” the old veteran sneered.

“Oh, like you haven’t hired awful people,” Yael said dismissively.

“Okay, we… have,” the woman with the prosthetic leg said, “But… from what your little pet there told us-”

“Don’t do it, Yael! They’re not worth it!” Heliotrope pleaded, holding Yael back as her fingers drummed the top of her Jericho 941.

“It’s just…. He just has such a cavalier attitude towards ponifying,” the woman said. “I had friends that tried to hunt him down, y’know. It was like… you know the old trope where someone’s horrible boss shoots his subordinates for failing him? Or just because he enjoys it?”

“I am familiar with it,” Yael said. “I’m just surprised you’re not, too.”

“Even Lovikov, even… even Galt wouldn’t do that!” the old veteran protested.

“I know,” Yael said. “Mike Carter, him I’m not too sure about.”

“Don’t insult our commander like that!” another prisoner yelled.

“He’s. Not. A. Commander,” Yael said, her voice like a whipcrack.

Everyone fell silent. The National Guard. The police. The PHL that’d been deployed to deal with the escalating situation.

“Stom ta jora,” Yael said, and Heliotrope shrank back.

Yael being angry - as in, find HLF in North Africa torturing and raping pony refugees, that kind of angry - was normal. Watching Yael being furious yet perfectly tranquil was terrifying, even if you knew her.

Sure, it wasn’t that different from how Yael usually was. Calm, collected, most of her words strangely precise. But there was something chilling about hearing Yael talk and knowing that somewhere, something had just switched off.

“Michael Carter is a miserable fucking son of a whore who just so happened to be angry enough to convince you, convince people all over the world, to murder every pony for having the chutzpah to look like the bastards that took our friends and family and turned them into chirping little fucking golems. He’s not fucking military. He’s not fit to hold any fucking rank. He’s just another ben zona that hates everything, and doesn’t care about any of you as long as he gets to watch ponies bleed and fucking laugh at it. You. You are not soldiers. You’re not even fucking militia-”

“Most of our fighters are from militias-” someone interrupted, but Yael kept going.

“And I’ve known militias armed with fucking world war one surplus that did their part. Their god-damned duty. You have no duty to anything besides murder, and-” she held up a hand as one prisoner was about to interrupt her. “No. Fuck you. I don’t even want to call you an army. You’re the goddamn manson family’s hired guns,” Yael said. “Now. Fuck off.”

They were silent after that.

“Oh for the love of…” the woman with the prosthetic leg sighed. “Can I finish?”

Yael stared at her. “I honestly don’t give a shit.”

“I just… I meant to say it’s like Shieldwall treats ponification the same way as that,” she said. “But nobody… nobody seemed to really question it. They actually seemed to act like he was… like he was rewarding them.”

“I can vouch for this,” Heliotrope said.

“Did you get him?” asked the woman with the prosthetic leg.

“I handled it as professionally as anyone could be expected to,” Heliotrope said, nodding slowly. She looked almost zen.

July 29, 3:25 PM

“CONSUME YOUR OWN PENIS, YOU UGLY FREAK!” Heliotrope yelled and tossed a grenade down at them.

The look on Shieldwall’s face was priceless.

“Oh, what the-”

“Heliotrope, what’re you-”

“Fuck subtle,” Heliotrope snarled, staring down at the PER. The bastards. The sons of whores that’d sold out an entire world out of self-hate.

“MOSSY KNOLL!” the plantike newfoal yelled, throwing itself at the grenade.

Helitorope watched in horror as Mossy Knoll blocked the grenade with its plantlike bulk. It seemed to grow to impossible proportions over the grenade.

“Mossy knoll!” it kept repeating madly.

Can’t it say anything else?! Heliotrope thought, and, almost on impulse, lobbed her remaining grenades at the PER below.

She held her hooves over her ears and crouched to the floor.

“SWEET RELEASE!” Mossy Knoll yelled as the grenades burnt him to cinders.

“Wait, so is his name Sweet Release now?” Mattock asked. Because-

“SHIELD, DAMMIT, SHIELD!” Shieldwall yelled.

But it was too late. Heliotrope, spraying Russian 9x39mm rounds into the PER on the floor below her. They’d been made to use the most kinetic energy possible at short distances. They weren’t long-range rifle rounds. They didn’t punch through the people below and leave gaping holes in the floor. They just did that to the PER.

Or rather, they had been doing that to PER. Mattock’s shield flared to life in front of the remains, a dull translucent red-brown.

As the forcefield flicked to life, one grenade was split in half. Another one bounced off of Mattock’s shield.

“Scatter!” Shieldwall yelled. “Get to the basement!”

Heliotrope yelped, fluttering her wings madly and flying away from the plume of fire and magically sharpened shrapnel that had been the atrum. Someone’s arm spiralled up through the air.

Who’s arm is… well, whatever.

“Heliotrope, what the hell are you-!” Yael yelled, and before Heliotrope could turn on the comms, she saw Yael.

Just in front of her.

Heliotrope smiled.

“We’re gonna find Shieldwall and make that bastard into brushes and leather!” Heliotrope yelled, fluttering down through the atrium beside her friend.

There was a disturbed look on Yael’s face, but she brushed it off and kicked a heavy, long-since-emptied cabinet to the ground. PHL and National Guard alike were swarming into the Bureau, all around Heliotrope.

They looked ragged, and distinctly unhappy.

“Can’t believe you got here so quick!” Heliotrope breathed.

“Well, the HLF started shooting at us,” Yael said flippantly. “This was better cover.”

“I still can’t believe they-” one man started.

“I’m going to stop you right there,” Yael interrupted.

Heliotrope peered over the cabinet, and stared over at the PER. They were opening up a hail of bullets and ponifiction pellets in the direction of the PHL, National Guard, and assorted others, painting the wall in holes and purple gunk that smelled of grapes.

Shieldwall was at the front, firing from what looked like a stolen assault saddle.

Yael fired off a burst from an unfamiliar open-bolt rifle, only to watch as the bullets skidded of a translucent dull-red surface.

“Shield-disruptors!” she yelled. “Grab the disruptors!”

She slid back into cover and turned back to Heliotrope.

“I was thinking you’d get it all done yourself,” Yael panted, wheezing slightly. “We weren’t hoping to get in here for awhile. So, what’d you find out?”

A powder-blue Earth Pony mare with a build that looked to be mostly muscle fired off the auto-grenade launcher on her back. Blue-pink flashes flared against the shimmering surface of the shield, and slowly but surely, it began to crack.

“It’s tougher than it looks!” the mare cried, “But I’ve got them on the ropes, I d-

There was a bang, and she fell to the ground, a massive hole drilled through her skull.

‘They can shoot through their wall shields, and actually started using guns?’ Heliotrope thought, her gaze tracking up to a human woman standing behind the shield. She held an assault rifle. ‘This just isn’t fair…’

With the exception of one human male with bandoliers of potion slung over his chest and a box full of long, thin tubes on his back, all the other PER were fleeing down a side hallway.

He was unslinging a pipe from his back.

“Everyone throw your damn shield grenades at that thing!” Yael called. “They’re getting away!”

“What does that even mean?!” Heliotrope yelled back. “We’re forcing them down to the basement!”

Yael shook her head, confused, pulled a shield-disruptor grenade, and tossed it in their direction. “They have a plan. They always have a plan.”

“From what I can tell, their plan was just to pick up supplies,” Heliotrope said. “Apparently, some Bureaus have hidden stashes.”

Yael flung herself back down, just as an improvised rocket made from a can of beans, several fins welded to the back, careened over their heads. It had an oddly purplish-colored trail of fuel, and smelled-

“GET DOWN!” Heliotrope yelled, and skidded in front of Yael. “EVERYONE, GET DOWN! IT’S A PONIFICATION ROCKET!”

The other personnel in the room blanched.

“Ah, fuck,” swore a young man with a thick Czech accent, before rolling into another room. PHL and National Guard alike rushed for cover.

Even the ponies, oddly enough. As Heliotrope watched them all scatter, she reflected on how odd it was that even PHL ponies would run away from potion strikes. Sure, the cans would often explode, shrapnel whirling everywhere, but PHL ponies seemed to pick up a lot of the fear that their human compatriots had at the thought of the Potion.

Yael grabbed Heliotrope in one arm and flung them both behind the desk, next to several other humans cowering in fear.

BOOM

The rocket smashed into a wall behind the two of them, splashing Heliotrope and Yael with drips of potion.

For just a second, Yael went… well, if she’d been white, her skin would have gone practically translucent.

She breathed a sigh of relief. The potion simply hovered above her skin by millimeters, as if a invisible layer of something oily sat atop her dark skin.

“When I find Presley and Dovetail, I’m going to rip off all of my clothes and have sex with both of them as thanks for making this thing,” she said.

“Whoa!” someone called from across the room. “Some of us do not need to know that!”

“Go on…” Heliotrope said, a smile creeping up both sides of her face.

“Or I could buy them a cake or something,” Yael shrugged. “Everyone okay? Everyone still think Celestia oughtta go fuck her mum?”

There was a chorus of affirmatives.

“Right,” Yael said. “Heliotrope, can’t you… I don’t know, go invisible and flank them?”

“Can’t,” Heliotrope said, shaking her head. “Got shot. Some of the projectors are damaged.”

Heliotrope poked her head up from the cabinet, and fired off another quick burst from her rifles, more to get rid of the remaining ammo than anything.

“You’re low,” Yael observed, withdrawing two ammo drums from Heliotrope’s saddlebags and feeding them into her rifles.

“I… got carried away,” Heliotrope said.

“It’s another rocket!” someone called.

Yael snarled for a second, and stared down the sights of her Galil.

The PER down the hall were inching steadily towards a doorway, the human with the rocket launcher busy shoving another rocket onto the front.

“Some Russian did this,” Yael said, and squinted at the rocketeer. Her rifle didn’t tremble a bit, even with all the explosions threatening to crumble the Bureau. “Aitmatov, I think.”

The PER man fired.

Yael did too. The Galil didn’t have the fire rate of the other PHL and National Guard’s lighter carbines, it didn’t have an impressive full-auto roar.

But it did have a capacity for impressive full-auto pounding. The rounds crashed out the barrel at full-auto, landing…

Right on the tip of the rocket as it passed through the shield.

Yael smirked slightly as the rocket abruptly detonated midway through the shield, shrapnel turning the cracks in Mattock’s shield into great, gaping wounds.

The man with the rocket launcher had been shredded. Shards of panzerfaust and rocket alike had split his body into pieces. Scraps of flesh, clothes, and metal lay on the floor. Roughly half of Mattock’s body had been sliced apart

And best of all, the shield was… gone. A few fragments hung in midair, fizzling slightly.

Some PHL and National Guard, through truly astonishing feats of poor aim, managed to hit the fragments of shield… but only just.

It was more of a reflex than anything. The PER man with the rocket launcher was a bloody mess on the floor, and the PER had already filtered down the stairs.

“WE’RE COMING FOR YOU, YA BASTARDS!” Heliotrope bellowed, the noise barely seeming to come from her tiny frame. She spread her wings and cannoned forwards, what little glass remained in the room shattering in her wake.

“Hold fire!” Yael commanded. “They’re going to hole themselves up in the basement. I don’t have the explosives to level this place, so we’re going in after them.”

“Already on it,” Heliotrope said as the two of them sprinted for the basement door.

It was just then that disaster struck.

Shieldwall stepped out, a glistening section of shield in front of him. But that wasn’t the worrisome part.

No, that was the assault saddle he was wearing. Loaded with a set of four guns that might have once been paintball or airsoft.

There was a manic grin on his face. “You’ll thank me when this is over. “

A flurry of purple projectiles thoop-thoop-thooped out the barrels. Where the guns hit, purplish spheres almost a foot in diameter grew. There was only one thing they could be: The Potion.

“TAKE COVER!” Yael yelled.

PHL and National Guard alike ducked into rooms, behind shelves and cabinets, anything to get out of the way of the purple spheres.

Heliotrope couldn’t.

Neither did the men and women that had been prepared to follow Yael, their feet stuck to the ground with potion.

“Anyone even moves funny,” Shieldwall called out, almost jovially, “And I can ponify everyone in this room!”

“You’re bluffing!” Heliotrope yelled.

“Okay,” Shieldwall said. “I’m bluffing.”

He moved his neck downwards toward a second mouth trigger, and closed his jaws around the thing.

Within the space of a second, a sphere popped, splattering a PHL man with potion. The walls bled purple with the noxious concoction, and Heliotrope gagged as some got in her mouth.

She retched on the floor.

“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Shieldwall said. “You can surrender, and maybe I won’t ponify you. Disappointing, but needs must as Discord drives.”

“Fuck you,” Yael spat.

“What’s that?” Shieldwall asked. “You want another one of your men ponified? I can do this all day.”

“I know how you operate,” Heliotrope said. “You won’t use them as bargaining chips. You’ll ponify them when you get tired. When you’re hungry. Horny. Or for snoring too loud. Or just when you get bored. Fuck… you, Shieldwall. You want Yael, go through me.”

Shieldwall didn’t move.

“What’s wrong?!” Heliotrope taunted him. “I thought you hated ‘betrayers’ like me.” She mockingly raised the one hoof not pinned by one of the purple bubbles. “I’m the worst Equestria has to offer, even if you’re worse than me by a long shot.”

Shieldwall still didn’t move.

“You’re trying to trick me,” Shieldwall said, his voice even. Calm. Happy. Too much so. “It won’t work. I don’t care. ”

He walked closer to Yael, struggling against the purple bubble holding her prisoner to the wall. He was smiling. Too much.

July 29, 5:15 PM

“Oh, I’m calling bullshit,” one HLF woman said. “He had you dead to rights.”

“How the hell could you possibly know that?!” Chablis asked.

“We were going into the Bureau to kill you,” one of the prisoners said.

A PHL man who’d come to New England with Yael blanched. His face looked like it was caught halfway between angry and confused, then it veered off in a different direction and firmly planted itself in a nearby brick wall. Yael recognized him - his name was Evangelisto.

“The fuck,” he said.

Everyone else - PHL or HLF, pony and human - turned and stared at him.

“What do you even…” the woman with the large dog asked.

“Yeah,” Heliotrope added. “Look. This happens all the time. The religious fanatics that took PHL and UN forces in North Africa, a bunch of pissed-off refugees with guns and one hell of a murderboner for any pony.”

Who the hell even says murderboner, anyway? Yael thought. “Yeah,” she added. “What, do you think I have a reputation for turning them a blind eye?”

“It’s just… none of this makes much sense,” Evangelisto said. “Look.” he gestured to the HLF. “You’ve already gotten one breaking speech, but just… why?”

“They hate us,” Heliotrope said. “Isn’t it obvious?”

The man with the burnt face nodded. “Any horsefucker dying is a good start in my book. PER or PHL”

Yael sighed. She’d killed people for that in North Africa. She’d told herself it was necessary later. She’d told herself it didn’t matter. That somehow, those prisoners dying would have been the straw that broke the camel’s back for the refugees she’d been escorting. It probably wouldn’t have been. The HLF had condemned her for it, maybe even rightly, but the thought of being equated to a goddamn potioner…

The woman with the burnt face smirked. “Go on. Shoot us. Show the American people just what kind of person you really are…”

“Yael,” Heliotrope said. “She’s-”

Okay. The thought of whipping out her Jericho was there. But not tempting.

Yael kept the pistol in her pocket. “Not worth it. I know. Anyone that thinks that way is likely to work with PER to fuck us over.”

“We’d never do that!” the military veteran from the HLF shouted.

“Yeah, but I’m doing just what you said,” Yael said. “‘The other two guys are just as bad.’ Think for a second about what you’re saying.”

“Yael,” Heliotrope said. “What happened to not being worth it?”

July 29, 3:40

And suddenly, bullets. Everywhere.

Some of the PHL fell to poorly-aimed volleys of automatic fire, and Heliotrope watched Yael, despite herself, breathe a sigh of relief.

“KILL THE HORSEFUCKERS!” the HLF were chorusing from outside.

Shieldwall laughed. Like he was untouchable. Like this all had no bearing at all on him.

“Why do you try to protect humanity so much if that’s what they sink to, huh?” he asked. “You’re not much better. What do you really fight for? War? Desolation? The right to hurt each other for no reason at all?”

There was a strange look on Yael’s face.

“What are you…” Heliotrope wondered.

And Yael flicked out a lighter and set herself on fuckin’ fire. The bubble stuck to her leg popped in the intense heat, and for a second Yael was ablaze. A tall, eerie, flaming silhouette.

Everyone stared for a second. The HLF stopped firing. Heliotrope’s jaw dropped. The potion bubbled and boiled on her shield, and for a second Shieldwall just stood, openmouthed.

“Wha-”

That was all the incentive Yael needed, and she rushed forward and kicked him in the face.

He stumbled, staggering across the Bureau floor, before Yael reached down, one flaming hand around the mouth trigger that had exploded the spheres of potion, and pulled.

It snapped off in Yael’s hand. Shieldwall cursed, rearing up, and rammed one foreleg into Yael’s stomach. She staggered backwards, just as the long-dormant sprinklers of the building began spraying water.

It ran in rivulets down her shield, extinguishing the flames.

All around, Heliotrope could see the spheres melting slightly, covering the floor in purple. There were purple stains on everyone’s clothes. Thankfully, everyone seemed fine.

Probably. The PHL and National Guard had all been wearing some kind of countermeasure. Like hazmat suits, wetsuits under their armor and fatigues. The one guy that hadn’t - the poor bastard - looked like he’d unzipped parts of his suit to deal with the summer heat.

The water looked to have diluted the potion enough it wouldn’t do much of anything but burn people - already it was being washed into the drains scattered through the hall.

Heliotrope breathed a sigh of relief as she pulled herself free of the sticky purple sphere, then winced slightly as she watched Yael and Shieldwall grappling near an open doorway. All around her, the PHL and National Guard were taking cover, sliding into disused rooms.

“NEWFOALS!” someone yelled. “THEY PONIFIED OUR FRIENDS, THE BAS-”

It was chaos. The battle had been compressed into this small area, and blood filled the air. Heliotrope could barely hear over the sound of all the bullets.

Newfoals were rushing in and out of the doors looking for the nearest foe, as PHL and HLF alike scrambled out of view. Bullets riddled the walls.

For close to a second Heliotrope’s senses were simply disconnected. Up, down, left, right, loud, quiet, they had no meaning. It was just a constant blur of sensation. Then suddenly reality snapped back into focus and Heliotrope was in a doorway, breathing heavily.

She poked her head and squeezed off a quick burst. At what, she wasn’t sure.

She thought she saw a newfoal collapse.

“Why are the HLF even shooting at us?!” somebody yelled from the doorway across from her. Looked to be National Guard. Sounded young. Heliotrope remembered him “We’re PHL! PHL, GODDAMMIT, WE’RE TRYING TO HEL-”

A bullet punched through the visor of his armored gas-mask. He made a horrible gurgling noise.

Well, that answers that, Heliotrope thought, and looked down the hall.

Yael and Shieldwall were still fighting, pushing their way down a nearby side hallway.

Heliotrope, not knowing what else to do, gritted her teeth and flew out the window.

I’m not leaving Yael with that monster! she thought, enjoying the sensation of being back outside if only for a few seconds.

She stared down at Burlington as she flew back towards the Bureau. There were fires everywhere, smoke wafted up from between the buildings, and she could hear sirens.

Then she folded one wing to the side and dropped, careening towards the first floor window of the Bureau, right about where she remembered seeing Yael and Shieldwall.

I hope I’m right about this, Heliotrope thought, and gritted her teeth as she smashed through the window.

Oh thank God for these goggles, she thought as, hooves outstretched, she burst down the hallway.

She could see Shieldwall, holding a vial of potion above Yael, grinning madly. They were next to a set of stairs leading downwards, deep into the bowels of the Bureau.

Won’t she be fine with the shield? Heliotrope thought. No. Doesn’t matter. This is my best friend. “And nobody!” Heliotrope found herself yelling.

She braced herself, watching Shieldwall’s grin slowly melt into a grimace of hatred.

“-HURTS MY FRIENDS!”

He tried to dodge.

It didn’t work. Heliotrope felt something give under her forelegs, heard him cry out in pain. She circled back, watching Shieldwall staggering on all fours. There was blood running down from just under his mane. His jaw looked somewhat lopsided.

Heliotrope saw Yael breathe a sigh of relief as she staggered to her feet.

And then winced as Yael grabbed her Galil from the floor and jammed the buttstock of the rifle downwards into his snout.

This time Heliotrope heard something crack. She watched as Shieldwall twisted around, and bucked out at Yael’s knees. She slid back an inch, wobbling, before Shieldwall headbutted her in the stomach.

Yael grunted, clasped both hands together, and brought them both down on his head like a sledgehammer.

Whatever he was planning couldn’t be allowed to happen. She circled back, and smashed one hind leg into his ribs.

He staggered. Yael lashed out with one leg, knocking him off-kilter.

She and Yael rushed down the stairs just as Shieldwall picked himself up, and rushed out of their field of view.

Yael swore in Hebrew and unslung a shotgun from her back. Heliotrope followed, close behind.

“I’ll take point,” Heliotrope said. “Yael-”

“We’re taking him down together, shield or not,” Yael said.

“How are you doing? You’re looking a bit… battered,” Heliotrope said, and Yael scowled slightly.

It was their safeword, so to sp-

Kraber starts laughing hysterically. As does Vinyl.

Aegis looks… well, as he always does, restrained. But there’s a slight curl to his lips, like he’s trying not to smile. Either that or it just slightly amuses him. For somepony with such a large face, it can be hard to tell with Aegis.

His foals, on the other hand, are as confused as you.

”Shut up, Kraber,” Verity groans.

“I don’t get it,” you say.

“See, it’s important to-” Kraber starts, and before anyone can fix him with an angry glare, he just sheepishly says, “We’ll explain when you’re older.”

Anyway.

Yael’s shield, as it happened, didn’t automatically recharge. It ran on a PHL thaumic battery Heliotrope had helped fix, and there was only so much it could take before it simply crapped out and died. The original plan Presley, Dovetail, Heliotrope, Hex, and the others at R&D had made when building shields owed a lot to some researchers playing too many videogames. It’d been to make a shield module to make sure PHL soldiers or allied civilians were able to shrug off the potion. A rechargable shield.

This didn’t quite turn out as hoped. There was only so much energy it could store, and while it could absorb ambient thaums and convert them to power, it was inefficient enough that Yael had taken Heliotrope’s advice and gotten rid of the recharging mechanism in favor of more capacity.

Heliotrope guessed that her best friend’s shield had reached the bottom of said capacity. Shot by HLF, took potion, set on fire…

“Guess I am,” Yael conceded. “Fine. Take point.”

Heliotrope nodded, and the two of them surveyed the basement. From what she could see, it looked just like the basement of any building. Equipment of uncertain use sat off to the side of the room.

And there was a hallway. Unless Shieldwall had forced his way past the rusty medical equipment nobody had looted, without knocking any of it askew, and somehow unlocked a secret passageway in the wall, he’d gone that way.

The two of them, followed by various other PHL allies, moved deeper into the innards of the Bureau.

‘Heh,’ Heliotrope thought. ‘More like the bowels. Or the-

Why was she comparing it to organs, anyway?

Heliotrope tried not to think about that as she flew down the hallway, lit only by guttering electric bulbs running on the bare minimum of power.

“Clear!” Heliotrope called as she approached a corner. ‘How goddamn fast is Shieldwall, anyway?’

At that thought, she started flapping her wings faster and turned sideways, her body just scraping against the wall as she turned.

“Heliotrope, slow down!” Yael yelled. “You could get hurt!”

“It’s either that or Shieldwall,” Heliotrope said, flapping her wings faster and faster, as she sped through the innards of the building.

‘Innards? Again?’ Heliotrope thought as she sped towards a door. She gritted her teeth, held her hooves forward…

And smashed into it, every nerve ending in her body screaming in protest as she crumpled to the ground.

Something else was screaming in protest. It took Heliotrope a moment to realize it was her.

“Are you okay?!” Yael asked.

“I’m fine,” Heliotrope said, fluttering upwards, wincing a little. “Ouch.”

“Stay still,” Yael commanded. “Heliotrope, we’re coming to get you.”

Heliotrope peered through the glass slit in the door. A purple glow issued forth from one wall, and…

No.

A portal!

She could see the PER pushing cart after cart of potion through the swirling purple vortex that encompassed an entire wall.

There were dollies being pushed through, each one loaded with potion and those strange crystalline spikes. Each PER member was pushing crate after crate of supplies through the portal.

Heliotrope didn’t think about what she was seeing. She only knew that PER and a portal never led to anything good. That letting the Solar Empire intrude with whatever new weapon they’d decided to equip a newfoal with could only lead to pain. She also knew that the whole city would probably have to be evacuated.

I’m not letting that happen!

Heliotrope ignored the pain in her wings and rammed against the door.

She hissed in pain, flapped her wings again, and was about to-

“Yael,” Heliotrope said, “I’m going to try to blow this door off its hinges with one of the grenades.”

There was a pause.

“You… do realize that in here, that might kill you, right?” Yael asked.

“Well…” Heliotrope started.

“What’s wrong?!” Shieldwall crowed from the other side of the door. “Scared? Don’t want to attack your kind all of a sudden-”

‘I’m gonna kill him,’ Heliotrope thought. ‘What a jackass…’

December 2022

“Well, did you?” you ask.

“Actually...” Yael starts.

“Nah,” Kraber says. “He wasn’t worth it.”

And it is at this moment that you, Mommy, and Verity, and Elena, all of you stare at Kraber in awe.

“What,” Vinyl says.

“I just… how does that even…” Verity is shocked. Her mouth is open. It’s not making words.

“We’ll get to that later,” Aegis says.

July 29, 4:00 PM

By the time Yael got to the door, they were gone.

Heliotrope stared at it all, mute. The portal taking up the wall. The shelves of potion, of supplies… all gone. A crystalline device, smashed to shards. Not quite a totem-prole, but it looked like it had been hooked up to a prole once upon a time.

Something cast a shadow just outside Heliotrope’s admittedly limited field of view. It was swinging slightly.

The door was almost aggressively normal. Painted a calming shade of blue, electric lights running on emergency power illuminating it, a red warning sign painted just by the handle.

And for no reason, Heliotrope thought of Piero from Italy.

When the portal opened, when everyone had their illusions of peace and cooperation, ponies had believed the Royal Guard would make their swords and armor into plowshares. Heliotrope…

Well, she hadn’t quite not believed it, but she hadn’t believed it either. She left for Earth as soon as she could and went to Italy. Which was fuckin’ wonderful. Far away from any humans scared of any alien invaders, beautiful mountains, the salty air from the sea. And pasta. So many great vegetarian dishes… or dishes that Heliotrope thought were vegetarian. She’d eaten meat on a dare from one of the griffons at a flight camp, so it didn’t bother her that much.

And then the city she’d taken up residence in had set up its Bureau, and her friend Piero had gotten curious. Like most ponies, Heliotrope hadn’t seen much wrong with Conversion if it was consensual.

Piero had been shy. Piero had never felt right in his own skin. Piero had been excited at the prospect. Piero had wondered if he was born in the right body, and kept steering conversations towards the Bureau.

Heliotrope had been about to tell him that maybe he had another problem he should talk about, and then one day he’d come back as a pegasus named Cloudburst.

Heliotrope hadn’t minded at first. They enjoyed racing, Piero - excuse her, Cloudburst - had seemed elated to be able to fly, and his sister had been happy too. Give humans the ability to fly, grow incredible plants, or use magic. Sure? Why not? Heliotrope had thought it was all in good fun…

Until someone had called him a cavallo, and… well, after that, things got fuzzy. Heliotrope didn’t quite remember. Maybe the other man had said hew as suspicious of Celestia, maybe he’d said Converting didn’t feel right, maybe he’d mentioned Jazmin Carter. Either way, it’d been minor - something Heliotrope had actually agreed with - and the man had triggered one of the tripwires that made up a newfoal’s mind, and Cloudburst had beaten him to a bloody pulp with a smile on his face. Then he’d turned on Heliotrope for agreeing. Said he was a better pony than her for it.

At that point, Heliotrope had realized beyond a doubt that the thing that came back from the Bureau was not Piero. It wasn’t even a pony. It was a person that had been turned inside out, with the little things that made it a functioning person excised.

It was right about then that things had gone wrong. The Three Weeks Of Blood happened. Heliotrope had flown away at high speed, towards Turkey. At which point, Kraber had shot her.

Where the hell is he, anyway? Heliotrope thought as Yael and the other PHL rushed toward her.

Dalibor Svec - a PHL man barely out of his teens who’d been sent to New England along with Yael and Heliotrope, one of the snipers from Nipville - rushed over to Heliotrope.

“Jsi zaremny,” he said, taking a medical bag from under his coat. “Zde.” He held out a pill.

Heliotrope swallowed it.

“You know you’ll need actual medical attention when we get out of here, right?” asked Dalibor’s brother Abraham in thickly accented English.

The two barely looked alike.

Abraham was barely under height regs for any army, and had a gut that stubbornly refused to disappear no matter how much physical activity he underwent. But he made up for it in width. He was blond and brown-eyed, with a face like a half-finished block of granite. Dalibor was taller than his brother by a few heads, skinny, and carried a marksman rifle on his back. His dark brown (or black?) hair was set in what was almost a mohawk, very slightly trailing down the back of his neck.

His green eyes were full of concern for Heliotrope.

“Just… I need a moment,” Heliotrope said, watching Abraham walk over to the lock, and pull out a screwdriver and small crystalline object. He looked to be fiddling with the lock.

“Heliotrope?” Yael asked, bending over to her friend. “What happened?”

“They…” Heliotrope bowed her head. “Got away. Went through the portal in the wall, and…”

Without warning, Abraham kicked the door open.

“How…”

“They locked it,” Abraham said, walking in, pistol unholstered. "I fucked with the lock, a bit."

“And I think they had a spell here,” one unicorn said, his horn glowing as he looked over the door. “It’s gone now, of course…”

Heliotrope groaned. “Dammit. I could’ve gotten ‘em!”

“In a room full of the things Shieldwall makes?” Yael asked. “I heard about them from cousin Nny. Shieldwall likes… improving. Going under the hood, like I did with dad’s Sabra Sport car.”

“Your Otec,”Dalibor said, “Had an Sabra. In Isra-”

“Oh,” Abraham said, much too calm. “You mean like the things at the other end of the room?”

“Don’t be silly,” Heliotrope said, her mind dulled slightly from the pain medication. She unsteadily picked herself up off the ground and walked into the room alongside Dalibor. “How could a Sabra Sports-”

She stopped and looked to the other end of the room.

Suddenly, Heliotrope wished that the refreshing numbness of the painkillers had come back. In the other end of the room, she could see what might have been newfoals standing aimlessly in the back of the room. Chained to the floor.

Might.

One had a human head poking out from the top of its neck, surrounded by peach-colored fur. Like it was coming out from the hood of one of the costumes Nny had. It was… almost curiously perfect. Too perfect.

Somehow that made it worse. Another one had hands at the end of its forelegs. One of them had come out as a cruel, skinless parody of one of Luna’s Night Guards, its batlike wings at mismatched length. Heliotrope could see fingernails at the end of the… what was it that Lunar Phase had called them? Fingers. Huh.

There was still a ring on one of them. Another newfoal didn’t look equine in the slightest, on account of no two bones in its body pointing the right way. It was… inverted was the only word that Heliotrope could think of at present.

“I guess it is like that,” Yael said, her voice sounding like it was coming from far away.

“Why would…” Heliotrope started, her voice trailing off. Of course. Why would Shieldwall do anything? For the Empire.

For the…

It was just then that the crystalline device on the desk burst into life. Light radiated from every facet, in a riotous rainbow of color that would have been beautiful almost anywhere else.

“Heliotrope,” Yael said. “You know more about Empire tech than most people here. Any idea what that is?”

“Well, Shieldwall is impulsive, so I’m guessing-”

“I meant the crystal terminal,” Yael explained.

“Ah,” Heliotrope said, staring at it, transfixed. The light seemed to dance off the eyes of the nearby failed newfoals. “Okay, that one, I don’t know.”

She inspected the crystalline device. With luck, it hadn’t been made from the same things that the totem-proles were, but she didn’t exactly have enough trust in the Equestrian government to make a judgment at this point.

Parts of it were cracked. Heliotrope could only guess what the cracked sections did, or what the various runes meant. Was that… something about connectivity?

The light coalesced, and everyone in the room saw the figure of an inexplicably angular pony hovering above the crystal.

“Who the hell is that?” Abraham asked.

“My old commanding officer,” Heliotrope said. “Captain Cactus.”

Chablis stifled a giggle.

“He got hit with a Crystal Empire Composer Crystal,” Heliotrope explained. “But…”

The holoprojected figure grew more distinct. Heliotrope knew it. Knew that within a moment she’d see the horrific… scarring? What was the word…

Spikes burst seemingly at random from the earth pony’s body. At some spots on the legs. One poking up through his head in a parody of a unicorn’s horn. But it was far too thin and sat at an off-kilter angle. One eye had been replaced with a sightless crystalline orb. Just by his joints, there were tracks of scarred flesh under paler-than-usual fur. The crystalline spikes grew out from everywhere on his body, with the exception being his left leg.

On account of the fact that it was already entirely crystal. Heliotrope couldn’t see his cutie mark underneath.

“See,” Heliotrope heard herself say, “Composer Crystals convert biomass into fuel for Crystal Empire war engines for the golems, the retrofitted airships, the prism cannons.”

“Why don’t you have any of that now?” Dalibor asked.

“Officially, it’s because the Empire doesn’t like the casualties that might result, but…” Heliotrope shrugged. “Yeah, I know. Mostly because nopony actually knows how to use most of them. The golems are easy - just a basic animation spell I saw unicorns do in their spare time - but something about the crystals from the Crystal Empire just…”

Her voice trailed off as she realized that everyone was more focused on this crucial bit of information literally hovering in front of their faces.

The holographic pony hung, unmoving.

“Anyway,” Heliotrope said. “Long story short, Celestia personally healed him.”

“Bet she ‘healed’ his mind, too,” one blue pegasus stallion said.

“Maybe,” Heliotrope said, shaking her head, her blue-green and pink mane shaking as she did. “Maybe. Not sure it’s that simple.”

The holographic pony spoke. His voice sounded as bad as he looked. Punctured was the only word that came to mind.

“You promise that the war will be over if I do this,” he said. He was wheezing. “My condition. Cured.”

Heliotrope listened intently. Then her head snapped back towards the deformed newfoals. She stalked over to them, confused.

No fuckin’ way, Heliotrope thought, and her blood ran cold.

Their mouths were opening and closing in unison with Captain Cactus’s speech.

“Someone get to recording this,” Yael said. “Now.”

“Absolutely,” Heliotrope heard Shieldwall say, from the mouths of the newfoals.

“You make a lot of promises, squirt,” Captain Cactus said. “You promised your finest newfoals, and human-fighting in Alaska. But… the things you did…”

“I know, I know,” Shieldwall said, dismissively. Like Shieldwall was brushing off a disobedient child or pet. No regard for Heliotrope’s former commanding officer at all.

‘Then again, I don’t really give a shit about him anymore either…’ Heliotrope thought.

“If you do anything like that to us, ever again,” Captain Cactus said, “I will make sure you know every minute of the pain I’ve had since I took that Composer Crystal to the leg.”

“Ohoho, don’t worry at all,” Shieldwall said. “I promise I’m not doing that to us.”

“Then what’s this I hear about the casualties that’ve been inflicted on us recently?” Captain Cactus asked.

“A pony needs a hobby,” Shieldwall said, and Heliotrope could just hear the smirk in his voice.

“You disgust me,” Captain Cactus said.

And then Shieldwall laughed. “Come on, Cappy! Have a sense of humor! That’s unavoidable. No, what I’m doing here is just… probing.”

“While using your underlings as bait,” Captain Cactus said. “You’ve-”

There was the sound of a hoof tapping on the floor. “May I finish?”

Captain Cactus grumbled. “Does it even matter?”

Evidently not, as Shieldwall just plowed onwards. “I want the apes to be scared. I want them to suffer knowing we could be anywhere. I want them to lie awake, so afraid of their world that they think they’re out of time and that we’re invisible. Omnipotent. Unstoppable.”

There was a pause.

“And I want to prove them right.”

Captain Cactus sighed. “Good. The world would be better off without the Celestia-damned monkeys and their defiance. Still, on the subject of your attitude towards personnel, towards resources… I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything different from you.”

“Why would anyone want to?” Shieldwall asked. “Captain, this thing we’re planning… Project Fillydelphia… will rip out half the discs in the spine of any human resistance.”

“I hate your methods,” Captain Cactus said, weak yet still gruff all at once.

“And yet you go with them,” Shieldwall said.

“Will they end the wars?” Captain Cactus asked. “Can I go home? Just finally have some peace of mind?”

“Abso-buckin’-lutely,” Shieldwall said.

“Then that’s why I go with it. I’m tired, you irreverent little colt. And this is what I have to do for Equestria’s glory,” Captain Cactus said. “I would’ve hoped you learned in Alaska that I have a different set of rules than… whatever you operate on.”

There was a pause.

“By the way,” Captain Cactus added, “How did the HLF find out about this? The PHL I can understand, but-”

His hologram glitched and abruptly froze.

There was silence.

And then Captain Cactus’ hologram went haywire. The crystals shot outwards, piercing through the blue pegasus mare, through Heliotrope, through Chablis, through any PHL in the vicinity. Heliotrope held a hoof to her barrel, breathing heavily.

Her former commanding officer’s mouth twisted upwards into a smile that would have fit perfectly on a newfoal… and then slowly rotated, dragging his face in a grotesque spiral. His eyes were somewhere on the lower left of his chin, fixing Heliotrope with a stare.

Yes.

Heliotrope. Specifically her.

The thing that had been the image of her commanding officer had a grotesquely stretched face. Bloodless. Barely recognizable but for the vague shape of a skull, and the crystals poking through skin that took the vague shape of a face…

“Jag kan inte sova…” a chorus of voices intoned.

“Oh,” Yael sighed. “This again.”

“I am… we are, we…” the voices warbled, and then a burst of syllables in a smattering of more foreign languages than anyone in the room could count.

It was exactly as surreal as the last time. Exactly as nonsensical. Heliotrope’s fur stood on end.

“...Who am I? Who are we? Who were we?” it asked, its voice coming from the newfoals.

Yael stood, rigid. Everyone else seemed to be edging back towards the doorway, towards anywhere that the deformed newfoals and twisted hologram weren’t.

“We are regrets, and we regret everything. We are…”

It was…

“My slave number is P-902. Crystal Empire… prism cannoneer. I am… we are… Gestalt. We were-”

Honestly, after the battle, after seeing Shieldwall, after watching the Captain Cactus hologram do that thing with its skull, after the chaos, after all the pains that were wracking her body, Heliotrope just felt drained.

‘Exhausted’ might have been a better word, but she felt drained. As if there was just an absence of energy inside her, nowhere enough for her to feel even remotely scared of the events.

She just fell to the side.

“Heliotrope!” Yael gasped, bending to her knees and placing her hands on her friend. “Are you-”

“Look, I’m sorry, Yael,” Heliotrope said. “I just… I’m kind of tired out. And after what we’ve been through, I don’t really care.”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Yael asked.

“Look,” Heliotrope said. “It’s just. I’m tired. How d’you do keep doing it, Yael? We have to deal with the HLF. With PER. The Empire. And internal politics. I just…”

“I just want you to know,” Gestalt’s voice echoed over the device, “that no matter what… I do aim to help. There is plenty to be learned about the PER, about what's happening in this region from what is here. There are terrible designs ahoof.”

“Then why doesn’t it tell us anything?” Heliotrope asked. “Look, Yael. Let’s just… whatever this is, I say we let the boys in R&D work on it.”

“I don’t tell you as much as I’d like, Heliotrope, because my authority is limited,” Gestalt explained. “There’s… only so much I can say. So much I can get past the empire.”

Heliotrope would have given anything to be bored and tired right about then.

But that was something neither Heliotrope nor Yael wanted to think about. The prisoners were set to be taken up to one of the two prisons in Berlin, New Hampshire. Relief services and the usual PHL or government spooks were combing the wreckage.

Well, not the usual ones. Yael could see Agent Mamjudar Whitman - the man who’d infamously been beaten for hurting Reitman when she was incarcerated - and Colonel Ambrose Hex nearby.

And a six-wheeled APC that looked like it had been designed by James Cameron. The PHL prisoner transport vehicle was here, now.

Yael could finally relax. Finally! It was about damn time, too.

Before the HLF could be loaded into the transport, Yael found her voice.

“Right,” Yael said, nodding unconvincingly. “By the way, do any of you know where Viktor Kraber might be?”

None of the HLF prisoners seemed to have any idea.

“Fucked if I know,” the woman with the prosthetic leg said. “But I bet that at this moment, he’s doing something truly horrifying and irredeemably evil.”

Keep Calm / Dreamscapes

Light Despondent Chapter 20: Keep Calm / Dreamscapes

“A war is coming, I've seen it in my dreams. Fires sweeping over the Earth, bodies in the streets, cities turned to dust… retaliation.”
Paxton Fettel, FEAR

Interviewer (I): “Mr. Aegis? Please, do come in.”

Aegis / Claw Hammer (A): “Pleasure to see you, Colonel ████████.”

I: “You keep interesting company, don’t you? Kraber, Ze’ev, Heliotrope, Reavers… even...”

A: (Raises forelegs, bends them back and forth in a motion assumed to be reminiscent of airquotes) “The New Researcher? Ae’s nice enough. A bit, uh…”

I: “Aer very existence gives our psychological department a headache. While ae takes enough medication to concuss a Diamond Dog, we love aer. Ae’s like everyone’s brilliant genderfluid child. Ae’s happy to be here, and I’d consider it my duty to make aer as happy as I can. Ae’s also been quite grateful to you, Aegis.”

A: “I was just doing what was right, Colonel. What anyone could have done.”

I: “No. You’ve done what anyone should do. And I can safely say you’ve gone above and beyond. Peace with Reavers, managing to redeem one of the PHL’s most notorious enemies… why?”

A: “It was right, wasn’t it? Besides, he wouldn’t exactly give himself a second chance. Somebody had to.”

I: “We have one of our best counter-terrorist operatives, propaganda opportunities, and another medic. And the New Researcher. And staggering amounts of Equestrian materials to work with. I’d concur. But… that’s not why I called you here. I’m here more because you come into contact with certain… otherworldly… things.”

A: “I mean, technically I’m otherworldly. I mean, I’m not from this one.”

I: “Not like that. I’ve been… worried. About the presence of other worlds. About our worst case scenario. So has the New Researcher, but ae just responds with-”

A: “Ae starts referencing Rick and Morty and belching, doesn’t ae.”

I: “Yes.”

A: “It was good advice, anyway. I… didn’t want to think about it.”

I: “Be glad for that. I’ve seen… projections for Barrierfall. Not exactly something conducive to sleep. I’ve gathered information on individuals from all over the PHL - you might know a few. Kraber himself, Yael, Heliotrope, David Elliot, John Constantine. Even more. Each of them has visions of a worst case scenario for a world like ours, but… but different.”

A: “Oh, that. I tried not to think about it.”

I: “You knew about another world and you just….”

A: “What good would it do? None of us know how to contact them, and I’m pretty sure that contacting them would do more harm than good.”

I: “What makes you say that?”

A: “Because it scares the shit out of me. We’ve lost billions already, but… being reduced to millions? Kraber barely describes any of it. I don’t want to ask about it, and he doesn’t tell me. We’re all happier that way. And there’s… other things out there. You already have one evil Celestia to deal with and one empire full of people turned inside-out. Why look for more? No, I’m happier just keeping the foals safe and playing videogames with my friend.”

Littleton, NH

“YOU MONSTER!” Amber Maple screamed in horror. “WHY?! WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS PURE AND HOLY WOULD YOU DO THIS?!”

“YOU’RE EVIL!” Rivet yelled, trying to bury himself in the couch. “FRANCIS, WHY WOULD YOU BETRAY US SO?!”

“Oh wow, I am good at using Mei!” Francis Strang cackled as the two of them played Overwatch on Aegis’ TV. “Seven years, and just as good as I remember….”

“This is so evil!” Amber Maple cried. “Whyyyyyyy…”

“Francis, are you doing something unspeakably evil?” Aegis asked. “Oh my God, you’re using Mei?! Seriously?!”

“How do you even use an Xbox controller with hooves, anyway?” Francis Strang asked, and then inexplicably began to imitate Christopher Walken. “A tragic irony. Born without thumbs."

“Here,” Aegis said. “Let me explain the whole thing…”

Later That Night

The city was buzzing in spite of the battle that had just occurred.

The destruction had, thankfully, not been as bad as Yael thought. Still enough for the city to show its scars.

PHL, National Guard, ASF and others had poured support to the city. Apparently, someone had even managed to get a nightclub up and running. Not too far away from them.

“Check it out,” Heliotrope said, fluttering down to Yael. “You want to go over, and…”

Yael yawned. “Not… not right now.”

“It’s amazing what people can get through with a smile,” Heliotrope said, looking out at the city. They’d found themselves in an empty, overgrown lot not too far from the Bureau.

“Well, best club I ever visited was Vertigo in Algiers while the bombs were going off and the Barrier was due in a month,” Yael said, giving an uncertain smile at the memory.

“That one?” Heliotrope asked, confused. “They had terrible beer. Hoofington for me, during the Crystal War. No question.”

“Really?” Yael asked. “Cause at the moment, I have plenty of questions.”

“That’s not what I…” Heliotrope asked, as Yael pointed off into the distance, to the rubble that had been the buildings surrounding the Bureau.

Parked in front of it was a six-wheeled APC, a blocky mass of a vehicle that looked vaguely like it had been designed by James Cameron, with a semiautomatic grenade launcher on top instead of the old Browning M2. Yael hadn’t understood the practice of replacing HMGs with auto-grenade launchers, though apparently they’d come in handy during the war.

Milling about the vehicle were personnel in just slightly offbeat uniforms and armor, equipped to a standard all their own.

“F.E.A.R’s here.” Heliotrope gestured to her saddlebags with one foreleg. “By the way, there’s some shitty beer I managed to scrounge up.”

“Please tell me you paid,” Yael said.

“The HLF didn’t need it,” Heliotrope said, both hooves outwards in a way that made her upper body look like a ‘W’.

“I guess that works too,” Yael admitted. “So. F.E.A.R?”

“F.E.A.R,” Heliotrope confirmed. “Don’t see them around too often.”

Once upon a time, First Encounter Assault Recon - or F.E.A.R - had been, bluntly, a joke. A place that undesirables in the US military were cashiered into when, justified or not, the brass had determined them liabilities. Popular wisdom around the PHL was that Marcus Renee himself would have been sent there if not for his family history of military service.

Heliotrope, who’d been studying human history as a hobby, (“someone had to remember,” she’d say) would’ve blamed it on Cold War paranoia, but surprisingly, it was not so. Created in 2002 by a Senator who believed in ghosts after a spate of “paranormal disturbances” in the late 90’s, the organisation had - surprisingly - lasted, and the rumour mill had reported on such varied instances as the first through third Amityville hauntings, a case of what might have been demons in Utah, and something only referred to as “Amarillo”. The organization's ranks were rumoured to contain an eclectic mix - snipers, “psychics” (or “psionics”), crack commandos and - to be frank - those who would believe anything.

When magical ponies had shown up, F.E.A.R’s unique blend of kooky weirdos had been laughed off at first. Then, improbably, they’d been useful. After all - who else could stare down a sudden barrage of telekinetic assaults from Equestrian telepaths like pros, at least in the beginning? Their current leader, a Colonel Munro, was described by all as “competent” - which in this day and age meant “forgettable”, but that was hardly a bad thing.

Besides, for whatever reason, they had a tendency to find themselves in possession of higher-end Armacham tech. That was helpful.

“How about we go and ask about it?” Heliotrope asked.

“What?” Yael asked.

“Well, I figure we’re not doing anything better,” Heliotrope explained, picking herself up and fluttering upwards. “Besides, I’m still confused about what happened.”

“What happened to being drained and tired, huh?” Yael asked, cracking a smile.

Heliotrope rolled her eyes. “Really.”

The basement of the Bureau…
July 29, 4:10 PM

“What the hell is that?!” Dalibor asked.

Yael, to her credit, barely moved a muscle. She wasn’t scared. Heliotrope could tell. Only a few things scared her friend. HLF with military weaponry and absolutely no restraint, ponification, and probably at least one goofy, arbitrary phobia.

“Do you like our gift?” the newfoals asked. “You know the enemy. You know the… captain cactus, was it?”

“How do you know who he is?”

“You prehistoric throwbacks have unleashed a world of hurt!” the grotesque parody of a Night Guard said, in Captain Cactus’ voice. “You killed hundreds in Manehattan. You destroyed my favorite coffee place. You’ve committed war crime after crime, time after time. And we shall bring consequences like you would not believe.”

Heliotrope’s blood ran cold. She remembered this.

They’d knocked a Crystal Empire ship running on arcane, half-remembered levitation crystals out of the air, and it had slammed into a mountain. They’d picked the survivors out from an avalanche.

Knowing the conditions in some of the POW camps, the deeply suspicious way that crystal ponies had a chance to simply fall out of the record books, Heliotrope wondered if the lucky ones hadn’t been left to suffocate in the snow.

But how had it known?! How did it know so well, down to the slightest inflection…

The ersatz Night Guard switched back to another voice. Crystal Empire accent. “We didn’t know! We’re sorry!”

“You’re going to be,” Captain Cactus said. “You’re going to be. Heliotrope!”

She went rigid.

“Bring the hoofcuffs. And...”

Heliotrope remembered that he’d cocked his head, confused. Some tenderness showing through. “Some hay for them, too. They look half-starved.”

“Wow,” someone said in Hebrew.

Yael’s eyes went wide. “Who is… how… Yassen?!”

“It’s nice to hear from you too, Yael,” the person said in Hebrew. “By the way… I can’t feel my body. Can you help me out?”

“You were ponified,” Yael said. “I… it was something Shieldwall made. Slow-potion. Anti-personal mine.”

“I think I’d know if I was ponified,” the unseen voice said. “Can you help me though? I can’t feel my body. Can’t feel my body. Can’t feel my body. Can’t feel my body. Can’t feel my body. Can’t feel my body.”

Yael remembered.

He’d been implanted with a slow-potion bomb from Shieldwall. There’d been a shard of some crystal from a bomb Shieldwall built. They’d rescued him, but by the time he’d come from camp, he’d been little more than a puppet, vomiting potion as he slowly, agonizingly shifted into a pony.

He’d obsessively repeated that phrase. “Can’t feel my body.”

And then he’d exploded, potion splashing everywhere and ponifying at least ten people. For lack of a better word, it had been a nightmare.

“Yael?” somebody else asked. They’d been ponified too. “Where are you? Everything’s dark…

“What is this,” Yael asked, gritting her teeth. “What the hell is this?!”

The grotesque parody of a Night Guard smiled at Heliotrope. “I remember him. He’s responsible for more than you know. So are you, Heliotrope.”

“What are you…” Heliotrope asked, staggering back a little.

“You remember, don’t you?” the not-quite-a-Night-Guard asked. “The internment camps for Crystal Empire prisoners. The Battle of Manehattan. You constructed a town with every expense spared just outside of Appleoosa for us.”

“Who are you?” Heliotrope asked, her blood running cold. How did it know?! My service is… it’s public record, but… how… she thought. “How are you using those newfoals?”

The grotesque Night Guard thing shrugged. “It is more like squatting. Nobody is at home in here.” It tapped its head, and Heliotrope swore she heard a hollow set of clunks as if it was tapping on an old gourd. “As for who I am…” it cocked its head. “I am… We Are Gestalt. I am… we are...”

Its eyes went blank for a second. “I… We are a monument to the Solar Empire’s sins. We are…”

“Are you the source of those recordings?” Yael asked. “The creepy ones we keep hearing?”

“Yes and no,” the not-quite-a-night-guard said. “They… aren’t recordings. They’re… they are and they aren’t. And they are.”

“What are you?” Heliotrope asked. “Are you… We have people in the PHL looking into whether or not you’re Resistance..”

“Any pony with a functioning conscience is of the Equestrian Resistance,” the newfoals said in unison. “For example, unlike them, I use the totem-prole network. You humans would call it hacking. There is a wealth of information in here.”

“But… no pony working against Celestia would use the network, would they?” Yael asked. “How does that even work?”

“No pony can do what I can. What we can,” Gestalt explained.

“You might very well ask yourself how many of Gestalt there are,” the voice on the other end said. “There are many of us. One tries to contact through emotion and as a result... Some try to contact through methods such as these. Another… has given up. Resigned themselves to what is coming.”

And suddenly the deformed newfoals collapsed, dead.

Yael and Heliotrope stared dumbly.

“I suddenly understand jack shit,” Yael said.

“Oh, I think you know,” Heliotrope said as the two of them headed over to the FEAR APC. Yael observed one of them, ASP rifle pointed downwards. Backing him was an unnervingly silent man in an opaque full-face helmet, carrying a shotgun that looked like a SPAS-12 with a box magazine.

Yael grumbled.

“Great, another person calling us a waste of money,” the man with the ASP said, then went rigid in apprehension. “Ah, sorry… Lieutenant… ah… Sergeant Ze’ev.”

He had a nametag reading “CHEN”. The man next to him had no nametag, and Yael almost would have taken him for a mannequin if not for the slight, imperceptible motion of his breath.

“It’s alright,” Yael said.

“She’s just… never liked your rifle that much,” Heliotrope explained.

“It’s a locally produced copy of a gun I already don’t like,” Yael said. “I actually had nightmares about the trigger back in basic.”

Chen blinked slowly behind his visor. “Nightmares… about the trigger?”

“I had a hard time pulling it,” Yael explained. “So… why’re you here?”

Chen sighed. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

“Can I promise to try?” Heliotrope asked.

“Says the magical flying pony,” Chen said. Then blinked. “Goddammit my life is weird.”

“Preaching to the choir here,” Yael said, nodding. “All seriousness though, we’re not in a position to laugh. We got back from watching some…” she ran a finger through her black hair. “I don’t even know. Whatever it is that controls the Gestalt broadcasts just hijacked a PER communication system and started telling us things it couldn’t possibly know.”

“Things like what?” Chen asked.

“The voices of the dead,” Heliotrope explained. “Or… no, people we know were ponified. It… it couldn’t…” she shivered. “It couldn’t possibly know!

“Well, that’s part of why we’re here,” Chen said. “Allegedly, some of it was a man in a trenchcoat trying to summon something terrible, but-”

The silent man behind him shook his head. Yael raised an eyebrow at the sudden motion.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Chen said. “Heard you were part of some anti-HLF taskforce?”

The silent man sighed.

“He’s right,” Heliotrope said. “It’s not really a taskforce, it’s more that we just got pointed in one direction and told to get away from Montreal.”

“Whatever you’ve stumbled onto, it must be getting serious. This guy-” Chen pointed to the silent man. “He’s closer to tactical weapon you deploy than a soldier.”

The silent man shrugged, modestly.

“These broadcasts, somebody trying to summon something, the spirits of the dead… did you know that our resident unicorn Twinkle picked up a strange event over in White River junction just recently?” Chen asked.

Heliotrope looked at Chen, curious. “No. No, I did not know that.”

“Apparently, something extradimensional touched that town. Then, as soon as it was there…” Chen said. “Gone. You’ll have to ask him about it later.”

“I’ll make sure to do that,” Heliotrope said. “Bout where is he?”

“Powder-blue unicorn stallion with a yellow and pink mane,” Chen said. “He sounds. Kind of like-uh, Christopher Walken.”

“Oh, Twinkle,” Heliotrope said. “That stallion that always dreams about the shrieking maggots of grief.”

“He really needs a hobby,” Chen said, patting his silent friend on the back.

The silent man nodded vigorously.

“Not even going to ask,” Yael said, sighing. “Where were you going with this?”

“I mean that we’ve been assigned to work with your…” Chen said. “For lack of a better word, ‘taskforce’. The PHL have gotten spooked.”

Heliotrope raised a few eyebrows. “Really?”

“This… wasn’t the first time the HLF saw a PER attack coming,” Chen explained. “Besides, we’re near Boston. The PHL’s main base to defend against the Solar Empire.”

Yael considered this. She supposed it made sense.

“Well, I’m happy to see you anyway,” Heliotrope said. “Strange things are ahoof here. Say, does anyone in there know a way to psychically trace people?”

“Twinkle might?” Chen suggested.

Heliotrope stared for a moment. “I guess we all have to make sacrifices. Seriously, though, I might need a way to do that. There’s weird people around. Did anyone tell you part of why we got sent here?”

“I didn’t ask,” Chen said.

“Well, we were hoping to find Viktor Marius Kraber, and bring him to justice,” Heliotrope said. “Or find that he resisted arrest.”

Yael folded her arms, as if the thought of letting a nowhere-near-innocent man think he was coming in peacefully and enacting some indiscriminate justice didn’t bother her in the least.

It didn’t, by the way.

“Strangest thing is,” Yael said. “He’s just… gone. I asked the prisoners, I’ve been looking all over. But it’s like after Portland, he just dropped off the face of the earth.”

“I don’t think we can find him,” Chen said dolefully. “Psychic tracing usually only works when the psychic has a strong signature to work with, some idea where to start, and preferably some DNA of the target.”

“Oh well,” Heliotrope said, fluttering around. “There’s some weird people around, and I’m glad for any help. Who knows what could be happening out there?”

That Night…

Get to Defiance. JI will be waiting. Recruitment and cleanup operation.

The text message blinked on the phone and Amber Hill found herself staring at it with a growing unease in her gut. She, along with a few others, was sat in a heavy APC driving towards John Idle’s last known position. Idle was scouting - that Hill and her Odinson group had been despatched to support him was unusual, and yet here they were, ten of them huddled in this truck, a larger group than Yarrow had sent out in months.

“What is it?” the man opposite her said. She looked up: Preston, one of Yarrow’s best, was frowning at her. The black man’s shaved head, scarred visage, permanent frown set against a glasgow smile, and intimidating height didn't make him seem that reassuring to those who didn't know him, never mind the imposing heavy armour. Despite that, Hill always felt better knowing the big man was around.

She showed him the text. “Maxi’s got a plan.”

Preston frowned at the text, then narrowed his eyes. “Better be a good plan. Defiance is Lovikov’s rathole.”

“Yeah,” Hill said. “And Lovikov’s got fuckin’ rabies.”

To put it lightly, Lovikov did not have a good working relationship with the Reavers. In fact, to call it anything other than outright hate would be a grave understatement. All the times that the Reavers had tried to work together, even after they found themselves with backing, there’d been a bit… too many friendly fire incidents. Too many shots to the head passed off as the Ponified’s Peace when there’d barely been a drop of potion within a foot of them.

Preston snorted. “Guess that's why we’re putting him down.”

The fact that Lovikov had garrotted a the previous Menschabwehrfraktion leader with a section of barbed wire didn’t help either.

“You think that's it?” McReady, one of the other Odinsons, asked. He looked worried. “That's gonna be a tall order: lots of HLF there.”

“Don't worry, Peter,” Preston said, looking at him with hard eyes. “Lovikov’s hole is full of mediocre scum. No real fight in ‘em. With a little forethought and some luck, we should be fine.”

“I almost wish we did it earlier,” Hill sighed.

The Reavers had left Leonid Lovikov to his own devices for awhile. Steered the old Purity down the St. Lawrence Seaway, dispensing justice, refugees, and aid where they could, and set down on the shore of one of the Great Lakes near what would become Bastion, in a spit of land unimportant to both the Canadian or American governments.

They’d focused on the American Midwest, mostly. Focusing on sovereign citizen HLF groups who were a threat only through sheer force of imbecility. Keeping farms that employed ponies safe, asking little in return. They’d even helped settle the disastrous newfoal labor experiments.

And now they were coming back. But when Preston considered the reaction that an HLF contact had given when he’d explained they were coming back, just near the border in Upstate New York:

Somewhere in New York…

”I will do fucking anything if you take me somewhere that Lovikov isn’t,” Petra Strode said slowly.

“Excuse me?” Preston had said.

Petra repeated herself. Then: “Away from the malaka. Please. I don’t know how he’s gotten the power he has.”

“He and Kraber are-”

“No,” Petra said. “Whatever Lovikov’s been stirring up in the HLF since Portland, Kraber’s had nothing to do with it. He’s gone. When everyone was getting out of Portland and headed north, Kraber was going towards the hospital, and then the trail just stops. Meanwhile Lovikov’s… I don’t know. He’s convinced people that he has a way to predict PER attacks. That somehow he can save us all from PER. On his terms, of course. Whether we like it or not.”

“Has he said it like that?” Preston asked.

“No,” Petra said. “But it’s fucking Lovikov, would you even be surprised? Whatever he’s doing, the collateral damage would be unacceptable and some of my friends don’t even care.”

“What?”

“People believe Lovikov. That he can do this. And with what he was willing to do in Portland, I don’t think he has anything nice in store.

Yeah, Hill was right.

“John Idle’s not a forethought kind of bloke,” Hill said shortly. “He's more an ‘act on impulse, shoot ‘em all’ kind of guy.”

“John Idle is Maxi’s third,” Preston retorted. “Maxi trusts him. I trust Maxi.”

McReady nodded, and Hill, sighing, nodded too.

“Whatever the plan is,” Fredricks, another Odinson with a symbol not unlike a giant squid painted on his armour, said with a groan, “I hope it means we’re outta this fucking bucket soon. I hate long drives. Why the fuck is America so big?”

“D’you want a political answer, a geographical answer, or a sarcastic answer?” a German man named Karl Osterman asked, as he held a picture of a little girl.

“If you make it all three, I’ll be impressed,” Fredricks smirked.

“Would ‘aggressive expansionism’, ‘aggressive expansionism’, and ‘McDonalds’ do?” Karl snorted.

Fredricks laughed, then he winced as he stretched. “Doesn’t explain why this armour’s so fucking tight.”

“The PHL fucker didn't get your measurements right, Timmy?” a sneering man with a red stripe down one side of his armour said.

“Fuck you, Martell,” Fredricks swore, giving him the finger.

“You're not pretty enough, Timmy,” Martell winked.

“That's enough!” Preston snapped, and the APC fell silent. “You're soldiers. Act like it.”

Martell snorted. “Whatever, Preston. It'll be good when Lovvie’s a corpse anyway. Fucker let the Redstripes die off. Too busy looting corpses and killing everything four-legged that passes by his neck of the fucking woods.”

Hill said nothing. Martell had been a Redstripe, before that unit had been destroyed. Now he, and the other surviving Redstripes, had joined up with Yarrow. There were all sorts like him: ex Chimeras, Kraken Grenadiers, “Rangers of the North” who’d worked with Rickard Thomlinson and joined up with his brother Aaron, some of Soren’s Skydivers and the Sternguard, and even defectors from the Sons of Macha and the Silent Storm. Most of those units were gone, now. From PER or PHL, even other HLF that they’d thought they trusted.

“We should be there in a few hours,” Preston said with a frown. “Worry about what happens then.”

As he spoke, the APC came to a halt.

“Hey guys,” the driver - a woman named Ellie Sykes - called back at them. “Trouble.”

It was a long stretch of road in the middle of nowhere. In retrospect, the chances of a rogue HLF patrol - six jeeps, about twenty or so men - finding a PHL refugee truck were slim. The chances of Reavers coming upon them were even slimmer.

Somebody was unlucky today.

As the APC pulled up, the badly-equipped HLF turned their guns on the Reavers, already suspicious. Preston got out of the thing first, securing the helmet of his heavy Armacham gear as he did so. Most of the others followed suit. Preston approached the group, a modified sledgehammer in his hands. At the top, Sykes took the APC’s cannon, her armour slightly lighter than theirs but still effective.

“What is this?” Preston asked calmly.

“Who the fuck are you?!” a nervy-looking HLF man - probably no more than twenty - said, aiming a battered Kalashnikov at Preston.

The big man didn't even tense. He planted the base of his sledgehammer in the ground, and waited. Behind him, Hill and the others came up, armed to the teeth. There was a tense standoff.

“Preston,” the big man said after a moment. “Odinson. Reavers. HLF unit under Yarrow. You?”

The man - the boy - trembled. “I - I shouldn't tell you.”

“Do I look like PHL?” Preston asked.

“You're wearing fancy enough armour for it,” another man, slightly older and slightly more rodent-esque, said with a sneer.

“See many with a Redstripe symbol, asshat?” Martell said, pointing to his arm, holding his machine pistol one-handed. “I know who these little shits are, Preston. They’re the Menschabwehrfraktion. And that little shit is Fergus Fuckin’ Farnowitz.”

“Holy shit, you’ve met Farnowitz before?!” Fredricks asked.

“And I forever regretted the experience,” Martell growled. “You thinking you gonna rough some little refugees up, stay away from the real war, boys?”

The rodent-esque man growled. “Says the Reaver.”

“Yeah, says the Reaver, Farnowitz,” Martell said. “Says the fuckin’ Redstripe who didn't have anywhere to go before Maxi Yarrow got off his arse and actually helped what was left of us, instead of just raiding my friends’ corpses like you and your vultures!”

“Calm down,” Preston growled. He looked at Farnowitz. “This is a PHL truck. Why are you waylaying it?”

“Routine patrol,” Farnowitz growled. “None of your fucking business.”

“It is now,” Preston said, shoving past him and heading for the truck. Farnowitz moved to stop him, but the other Odinsons aimed their guns, and he stepped back, grumbling.

Driving it was a black woman with fine, straight, dark hair. She wasn’t overweight, but she wasn’t in the peak of shape either. A faded polaroid of a woman graced her dashboard, with the word “Alice” written on the bottom in a jagged attempt at cursive.

To her credit, she looked strangely unperturbed.

“Apologies,” Preston said to her shortly. “You're PHL, right? Presumably you have transport papers?”

“What’s it to you?” she asked. She didn’t snap. There wasn’t enough anger in her voice for that.

“I’m proving a point,” Preston said in return, moving to take his helmet off. He smiled, a surprisingly gentle smile given his scarring. “I'd just like to check them briefly. I have no intention of stopping you.”

Farnowitz spat. “They're horsefuckers!”

Preston ignored him, holding the woman’s gaze.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Everyone calls me chipmunk, or chanterelle,” the woman said.

Preston just stared for a second.

“No, I don’t know either,” the woman sighed. “Blame Alice for that one.”

Preston simply shrugged. “I’m Preston. I’m a member of the Reavers.”

Behind him, Farnowitz looked incensed.

“Why should I show you my papers?” ‘Chipmunk’ asked.

“Because I’m asking nicely, and because I’m not him,” Preston said, jabbing a finger at Farnowitz. “And because, hate to say it, these aren't safe times.”

‘Chipmunk’ chuckled. “I’ll give you that.” She paused. “Fine. Since you asked so nicely.”

She went to her dashboard - the thing had a little 9mm pistol in it, but her hand passed that and went for a small wallet. She pulled it out and showed him an ID card. He nodded, scrutinising it for a moment.

“It expires in ten days,” he pointed out. She tensed. “I’d get that seen to if I were you.”

“Yeah,” she said shortly.

“And it says here you're a refugee transporter,” Preston said. He looked at her. “It's good work. Got a few in now, I take it?”

“Yeah,” ‘Chipmunk’ said tightly. “Foals, mainly. Lots of war orphans.”

Preston nodded. “Too many.”

He turned away, and ‘Chipmunk’ breathed a sigh of relief. She turned her engine back on.

“You're letting them go?!” Farnowitz yelled. He motioned, and a few of his men moved to block the truck. “They're fucking horsefuckers, moving fucking gluesticks into our fucking country, and you're letting them go?!”

Preston turned to glare at him. “Make your men stand down, Farnowitz.”

“Fuck you, traitor!” Farnowitz swore. He pulled out a pistol, only for Preston to suddenly charge at him, moving faster than the heavy armour should have allowed. He brought his hammer up, whacking Farnowitz to the ground with the haft. Another HLF man moved to shoot him, and he brought a Seegert heavy pistol out, blowing the man’s skull out.

In a flash, the other Odinsons aimed their weapons. Another HLF man tried firing, but only succeeded in winging Martell, who swore. The man was vaporised a second later by a shot from Hill’s Type-7. There was a pause as the remains of the man - little more than a charred skeleton - fell to the ground, and the remaining HLF stopped what they were doing, pausing to take what they'd just seen in.

“What…” one of the HLF said, eyes wide with shock.

“You don't get it,” Preston said blandly. “You got to kill indiscriminately before - but not anymore. You've done enough. Now, it gets put right.”

“You fucker,” Farnowitz sneered. Preston looked back at him. “You think you can piss on what the HLF stands for and get away with it?”

Preston took his helmet off, a scowl on his face. “Why not? You did that to the HTF.”

Farnowitz looked like he was about to order his men to do something else, when the back door to the PHL van burst open, and a squad of troops in heavy armour burst out, led by a surly looking man. They brought their weapons up, aiming at everybody. The Reavers aimed back until Preston held a hand up, ordering them to stand down.

Farnowitz and some of his men made a run for their jeeps. Farnowitz managed to get in and signal for the jeep to start driving off - most of his men weren't as lucky. Some took bullets to the back. Most simply stopped running and held their hands up, surrendering, including, Preston noted with some satisfaction, the nervy young man from earlier.

The surly man at the head of the PHL squad kept his gun trained on the Reavers. ‘Chipmunk’ got out of the truck’s cab, a scowl on her face. She pulled her 9mm out and aimed it at the Reavers and other HLF too.

“What the hell, Kellman?!” she swore. “I told you to stay put!”

The surly man growled. “For all I knew these bastards were about to have a fucking shootout right near us! I wasn't prepared to be a fucking bystander - or collateral!”

‘Chipmunk’ sighed. “Goddamn it, Sergeant!”

She looked at Preston, who had a raised eyebrow.

“‘Lots of war orphans’,” the Reaver said quietly. “I don't think I've ever seen war orphans that heavily armed.”

She gave a helpless shrug. “We’ve been - uh, well, waiting. This is an old trick.”

“I can imagine,” Preston said shortly.

“You’re all under arrest,” the surly Sergeant - Kellman - said, brandishing his AR at the Reavers and Menschabwehrfraktion. “For HLF activity, terrorism, treason -”

‘Chipmunk’ held up a hand. “Hold up, Kellman.” She paused, frowning at Preston. “You didn't even think about stopping our truck, did you?”

“No,” Preston replied blandly. “I was hoping to avoid a firefight with these idiots, truth be told. I came to kill PER and Empire, not humans. Not even Farnowitz.”

“You're still HLF,” Kellman sneered. “You're terrorists and traitors. Be thankful we’re just gonna lock you up.”

“No fucker’s locking me up,” Martell snorted, as Hill pulled the shoulder pad of his unpainted arm off, exposing a wound in his shoulder. “Even one-armed I’m still worth more than any of you PHL shitbags.”

“You're not helping, Martell,” Preston said quietly. He glanced at the young HLF boy, who had a terrified expression on his face. “You. Boy. Name.”

“Hey, you don't get -” Kellman began, but ‘Chipmunk’ shushed him.

The boy stammered. “H-Harry Drake.”

“Harry Drake,” Preston repeated. “Why are you here?”

“I-I wanted to do something, but the army wouldn't take me,” the boy said. “I - I just -”

“What does it matter?” Kellman asked.

Preston glared at him, before looking back at Harry. “Get in your jeep. Fredricks, go with him. Take him… take him home.”

‘Chipmunk’ scowled. “What the hell are you doing, Preston?”

“That boy has no place with these scum,” Preston said, pointing at the other Menschabwehrfraktion. “And no place in a jail cell waiting for the rot to set in. Fredricks is going to take him, and we’re going to make him useful, with us.”

The boy looked shocked. “I - I’m not going to jail?”

“No,” Preston said. “If you want to do right, we’ll help you do right.”

The young man got in the jeep, Fredricks with him.

‘Chipmunk’ scowled. “What makes you think we’re letting you go?”

“The fact that I helped you, that I didn't do anything wrong,” Preston said, “and the fact that you're not the sort of person who punishes people for no reason.”

‘Chipmunk’ narrowed her eyes. “That's a pretty big assumption.”

“Yes, it is,” Preston said. “But you could have tried to shoot me earlier. I didn't have my gun out. I had my helmet off. You could have sent your men out the minute things turned ugly, but you didn't. I don't think you wanted to send your men out at all.”

‘Chipmunk’ said nothing, though her expression spoke volumes.

“I think you know that we’re on the same side,” Preston said quietly. “And I have faith you'll make the right choice.”

There was a momentary pause as ‘Chipmunk’ considered this.

Kellman snorted. “We should take these guys in, Lieutenant.”

“Yeah, we should,” ‘Chipmunk’ said with a frown. She lowered her gun. “But y’know, I don't think the truck will hold all of ‘em.”

Preston smiled, and nodded, before motioning to his people.

“Hey!” Kellman said. “You can't do that!”

“I have a lot of discretion about how to do my job, Sergeant,” ‘Chipmunk’ said. “These people aren't our targets. We've captured some of Lovikov’s, that was our mission.” She held up a hand. “I want you to go back in the truck and radio command - tell them we’ve captured a group of Menschabwehrfraktion.”

Kellman grumbled, and headed back into the truck. ‘Chipmunk’ gave Preston a nod, and began herding the HLF prisoners into the truck. Preston motioned to the rest of his squad to get into the APC.

A few moments later, they’d all piled into the APC and driven off. Kellman stepped out of the truck.

“Radioed in,” he said sullenly. “I’ll be writing this in my report, you understand.”

“Do what you want, Sergeant,” ‘Chipmunk’ said with a snort. “They can't do anything but demote me. I’m a damn trucker, how bad could it get?”

Kellman said nothing. He frowned - the Reavers had left behind a small piece of armour: Martell’s shoulder-plate. Probably accidental, but he picked it up anyway. It might prove useful to someone.

The next night
Littleton

Yael and Heliotrope limped into the Cardsharp Pub.

It had been… an interesting night. Neither of them had slept well. Yael sleeping well was a momentous occasion, but this wasn’t as true for Heliotrope.

She’d had bad dreams. In fact, Heliotrope had woken up screaming like a little filly, fur drenched in sweat. The way she’d explained it, “everything went to hell.”

Yael’s brain had promptly given up trying to imagine just what ‘everything went to hell’ could mean in a time when almost a third of the world was gone, billions were dead or worse, Israel was gone, and you couldn’t get a good coffee.

Heliotrope, apparently, had been thinking of a world where the PHL’s various seats of power on the East Cost had fallen to PER, Imperials, and HLF alike before Barrierfall. She was completely unsure if it’d actually been a dream or a very realistic worst-case scenario she’d been living.

There were vague looks of disgust on the faces of a few people she and Heliotrope passed. Yael sighed inwardly.

“Goddammit,” Yael sighed. “Is everyone getting weird dreams?”

“You aren’t,” Heliotrope pointed out.

“Well, I’m beginning to feel a bit left out,” Yael sighed, sarcastically, as they headed up to the pub.

“No you’re not,” Heliotrope said, rolling her eyes.

“I reserve the right to be annoyed, though.”

There was a one-eyed beggar with a guitar sitting outside the pub. One of his legs was gone, replaced with a prosthesis that used the front end of an old ski as the foot. His left eye was…

Well, neither Yael nor Heliotrope could say. There was a patch of scabby skin over one of his eye sockets, extending upwards about half an inch forward from where the eye would have been. The patch of skin over the eye looked to be growing short, bristly hair.

Yael and Heliotrope passed him a few dollars each and headed into the bar.

“‘Preciate it,” he mumbled.

Nny was lying back on one of the couches, in a nest of Corona beer, ammunition, weaponry, a molotov cocktail, sketchpads, and at least one large border collie-lab mix. Fiddlesticks sat across from him in a hammock, making idle conversation as she strummed along her fiddle with both hooves.

Aegis… was actually not there, on account of being at home with the foals.

It was difficult to tell whose tongue was lolling out more. Nny or the dog.

Francis was walking by, passing a plate of crabcakes to Nny. Falyn and a muscular, stocky woman with a black mane of hair shaven on one side were sitting at a table. Meanwhile, Popover was trotting by with a tray of food atop her head.

“Afternoon, Poppy,” Heliotrope called over. There was a vague, approving noise from under Popover’s giant tray of food.

“Last night was fun, huh Francis?” the woman with the green and pink half-mohawk asked.

There was a smile on Francis’ face. “Thanks, Falyn.”

“Damn right!” one of them - evidently named Falyn - crowed. “Haven’t seen that dog around for awhile, Nny. What happened to him?”

“Eh, Lovikov shot him,” Fiddlesticks said. She rubbed the dog’s head as it panted. “He got better!”

Francis’ jaw dropped. “That fokkin’ bawbag!”

“Isn’t he just,” the woman with half her head shaven said wryly. “He was bad even before Portland, but now… Well, not many people seem to like him that much.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Francis said, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“And like that,” Yael said, “You know why we’re here.”

“Right, forgot to introduce you guys,” Nny said, gesturing to the other woman with the half-mohawk. Hers was just pure black. “Vera, this is Francis. Francis, Vera Low. Vera, Falyn. The pegasus mare who looks like she has part of Popover’s color scheme is Heliotrope. Falyn, Vera, this tall Israeli woman is my cousin-”

“Shalom,” Yael said. “I’m Yael Ze’ev.”

“You, in our pub,” Falyn said, going a little starry-eyed. “How. About. That.”

“And apparently, I’m here too,” Francis called over.

“Hey!” Heliotrope smiled, waving over to him. And to Francis’ surprise, he waved back.

“Weird,” Heliotrope said. “Usually we just get terror and a shotgun pointed at us.” She looked over at Francis - or more specifically, the Ithaca 37 on his back. “Can you… Can you, I don’t know… try and help with...?”

“Preevyet, Falyn,” Vera said.

“Vera, the woman with green and pink hair is Falyn...” Nny continued.

“Nope,” Francis said, a smile on his face. “Nowt worth it, Heliotrope. Nowt.”

“Don’t… just don’t even joke about that,” Yael said. From what Francis could tell, she didn’t look like she was sure whether she should be disturbed or laughing along.

“It’s nice to meet you, Vera,” Falyn said. “You’re why I did my hair like this. I heard about it in the book Nny and Fiddlesticks wrote.”

“Ah, I helped with Russian translation,” Vera said. “Didn’t expect that to make hair popular.”

She paused for a second.

“Why did you draw her looking like Zarya, anyway?” Yael asked.

(“Honestly, the hair was way more popular with us before that,” Popover said.

“Not like we have a choice, what with not having much mane on the sides of our heads,” Fiddlesticks said. “And he got bored.”)

“Yeah, I got bored,” Nny confirmed. “I mean, in my defense…” he pulled up a picture on his iPhone. “Seriously, you do look kinda like her.”

“Fair enough,” Vera said, nodding as she accepted Falyn’s hand. “Though… was actually because of ponies, Falyn. Ponies always look like they’ve mohawk. And I was...”

“Bored?”

“Pissed off at uncle,” Vera said. “He is HLF man. Would rather be orphan all over again than find out was still related to him.” She cracked her knuckles. “Having horsey hair would piss him off, so figured… why not?”

“Don’t I know it,” Falyn sighed, fistbumping Vera. “Mom and dad went HLF during the three weeks. I… didn’t want to be part of that.”

(“I like you, Fallen,” Vera said, nodding.

“Falyn,” Popover and Falyn said at once.

“Huh?” Falyn asked.

“It’s… not pronounced like that,” Popover explained, voice somewhat muffled by the tray she was carrying.)

Heliotrope held out a foreleg - then, with some prompting, Yael held out her fist as well. Vera bumped them too.

“That was… is that how this usually goes?” Yael asked.

“Ah, I see. And da,” Vera said, at the same time that Heliotrope nodded. “Is good to meet you, Yael. Your cousin told me good things of you in Alaska.”

Yael froze for a second. It was as if all bodily functions had disappeared from the tall Israeli. “He… did.”

“Well, obviously,” Nny said, seemingly not noticing that his cousin was…

(“If she’s having a heart attack, I know to deal with it,” Francis said.

“What kind of - I don’t - she’s-” Popover stage-whispered at Francis angrily, before Yael spoke again.)

Yael kissed her cousin on the cheeks. “I love you so much, Nny.”

“...Okay then,” Francis said, looking over at Heliotrope, who shrugged.

“Francis… You’re the HLF man I’ve heard so much about?” Vera asked.

“Retired,” Francis said.

“Then you’re one of good ones,” Vera said. “By the way…” she looked over at Yael. “Why’re you here?”

“Well, the two of us are here for…” Yael started.

Punishment? Francis thought. He’d heard about that awhile ago. Not sure where. But it didn’t seem right to say.

“We’re part of a special taskforce,” Heliotrope said. Yael mouthed her a silent ‘thank you.’ “Vera, did you come for, uh…”

“To hurt HLF,” Vera said, flexing one impressive bicep.

“Taking that as a yes,” Yael said. “Would you be willing to fight with us?”

“What do you think got me transferred down here?” Vera asked. “I have score to settle. If that’s right word.”

“Do I get to throw molotov cocktails at New Englanders that fly the confederate flag?” Nny asked.

“Well, since a lot of HLF have ties to that sort of movement, prob-” Heliotrope started.

“Done deal!” Nny interrupted,. “Cuz, I’m with you a hundred percent of the way! Because the world is full of idiots that don't understand what's important. And they'll TEAR us apart, Yael!!”

“I have made a terrible mistake,” Yael sighed.

“But if you stick with me,” Heliotrope added, taking a swig of a pitcher of beer, “I'm gonna accomplish great things, Nny, and you're gonna be part of - *URP* - 'em. And together we're gonna run around, Nny, we're gonna... do all kinds of wonderful things, M-”

“Please stop,” Yael interrupted, ignoring the bemused looks on everyone else’s faces. Well, Vera just looked confused. “What about you, Mr. Strang, Popover, Falyn?”

And then, before anyone could say anything, as Falyn and Popover were proclaiming that they’d rather stay as civilians on the grounds that somebody had to do their jobs:

“I can provide a list of HLF arms caches nearby,” Francis said. “Maybe a few settlements.”

“That’s… very generous,” Yael said, taken aback.

“But don’t tell them it was me,” Francis said.

“Anything else you can do? Information on troop movements, Defiance’s defenses?” Yael asked.

‘Oh, Yarrow would be fokkin’ woedend if he knew what I’m doing,’ ~~Kraber~~ Francis thought. “Considering all the HLF we’ve seen around lately… I doubt the last one still works. But if you need help, just ask.”

“You’re sure you don’t want a more active role?” Yael pressed.

“Naw,” Francis said. “That’s behind me.”

Aegis bursts into laughter.

It says a lot about Kraber that his reaction to this is just to raise an eyebrow.

“Isit?” he asks, sarcastically.

“Yes,” Aegis says bluntly.

For a moment, you wonder if Kraber will be mad. As if he’ll say something horrible, judging by the look on his fa-

“...Aweh, fair enough,” Kraber admits. “I was drunk when I said that.” He pauses, and sees that Aegis looks a little unnerved. As if he’s only just realized that he said something sarcastic to a mass murderer. “Come on man. You know I love you. And your bluntness.”

“Yeah,” Aegis says, cracking a smile. “Up top!”

The two of them bump fist and hoof.

“That… doesn’t seem sustainable,” Heliotrope said.

“It isn’t, but I’ll take what I can get,” Francis said. “Just…. Jist a peaceful existence. Nae more grotesque violence. Nae more oan radges a burst mooth-”

Aegis is making strange noises. ‘Mmmmfff!’ ‘Pfffftffbb!’ ‘Mmmmf mmfffffmmf eep!’

“-if only for a bit. All the awful ka… crap I did, it’s the last of that sortae thing. Jist gaun straight, movin oan and choosin’ li-”

Author's Note

DIDN'T EXPECT ME TO UPDATE SO SOON, DID YOU?!

Kill The Cooks

Light Despondent Chapter 21: Kill The Cooks / Lone Digger
Editors/Co-Authors:
Jed R (Special thanks for more things than I can count. Like damn son)
TB3
Redskin122004

“The man in this photo, though it was obviously Prof, looked like a different species entirely. Where were the lines of worry on the man’s face, the haunted eyes, the imposing stature? Nearly thirteen years of Calamity had changed this man.”
David Charleston, The Reckoners Trilogy.

“There’s a story you tell yourself when the world blows up in your face. There’s no way you could’ve seen it coming. No-one could have, so there was no way to stop it. This is what helps you sleep at night.”
Hunt The Truth, Halo podcast

Interviewer (I): “Mr Constantine? Please, come in.

John Constantine (JC): “What’s this now? Dr. Red Couch? I wasn’t expectin…

Red Couch (RC): “Do you know why you’re here?”

JC: “No.”

RC: “You’re here because a friend of yours said you were having potion-amputee dreams. Despite not being one."

JC: "Ah, fuck."

RC: "Would you like to talk about it?"

JC: "No."

RC: "We feel -"

JC: "I'm not a potion amputee, and these are not ‘potion amputee’ dreams. They're bad dreams, nothing to do with potion. Every fucker and his fucking dog has bad dreams, especially now. Do you have any idea how often I get woken up in the middle of the night by my neighbor’s german shepherd?"

RC: (Pause) "Would you like to talk about them?"

JC: "I'd like a lot of things - a cigarette, a few years of my life back, a sense that the world made sense again, an answer to some of my more insistent and important prayers, and possibly a signed copy of the Police's greatest hits. I would literally rather fuck a dead cat twice, again, than talk to you, or any fucker, about my dreams."

RC: "Wait, again?"

JC: "Don't go there. I don’t want to be compared to David Cameron again."

RC: "Why would you -"

JC: "You ever hear of a Faustian deal? Those things are weirder than you realise. Pigs blood, sheep intestines, arcane runes and ancient chants, and occasionally necrophilic bestiality. If it helps, I didn't actually penetrate - we got caught by some rozzers and the whole thing went to shit."

RC: "A - Faustian deal? That's, uh, selling your soul to a devil, right?"

I: “That's the idea.”

JC: "Not this one. Selling your own soul, that's easy - sign in blood on a dotted line. I was trying to sell some fucker else's soul."

RC: "Hence the -"

JC: "Necrophillic bestiality. Yes."

RC: (Pause) "Do you actually believe in these things, Mr Constantine?"

JC: "You're the fucking magical pastel pony from another universe who's Goddess-Queen went batshit and decided to obliterate the human race. You fuckin' tell me."

I: “I’m assuming that this didn’t work.”

JC: “Not… particularly, no.”

I: “What in the name of all that is holy possessed you to do this?”

JC: “I know what happens if we lose. Anything - anything was worth stopping that. Besides, I had this idea. Funny little one, that… that if you sell your soul to the devil, or something of the sort, you can’t truly get ponified in the mind. Counterproductive, but I was curious. Always had a sort of affinity for that kind of stuff anyway.”

I: “Where would you get an idea like that?”

JC: “I dunno.” (He pauses, then chuckles) “I dreamt it.”

The Cardsharp Pub, a restaurant in Littleton…

“MY SPLEEN!”

“DO NOT OFFEND THE BASEBAW BAT AY TRUTH, FOR IT IS WISE AND TERRIBLE!” Francis Strang yelled, and smashed it against an HLF man’s stomach.

Even including that, it’d been a fairly normal night. Nny and Fiddlesticks were up for some beer, Francis’ new friend Falyn had come up to say hi. Aegis and his foals were waiting on some hayburgers cooked in the kitchen as the Cardsharp worked to serve the usual clientele: Europe expats with big guns, farmers, lumberjacks and workers from all over town, store employees, even a local DJ, artists, musicians...

It’d been peaceful until the HLF from up in the hills had decided to harrass the clientele. They had some tall, skinny man employed. Someone shaky. Jittery. Someone that’d killed a bunch of PER before their friends - the same ones who’d been stopping PER attacks alongside could. It’d be fun to put the fear of God in him, right?

It had, in fact, been fun right up to the moment that Francis punched one man in the throat. At the sight of it, Aegis had held his foals close to his barrel at the table, and Nny and Fiddlesticks seemed to be perfectly fine just spectating.

Popover and Falyn had joined in after an HLF man had landed a retaliatory strike to Francis. Falyn had a barstool, but Popover - a purplish-pink Earth pony mare with an electric-blue mane - didn’t have a weapon. Instead, she had an HLF man named Holtz in a headlock, scowling as he bled from a head wound.

Francis Strang stood, blood running down one side of his skull. He held a baseball bat in hand as he faced off two HLF, a woman with a prosthetic arm and a scar, and a man with two awkward prosthetic legs. Both were potion amputees, almost certainly. Falyn was facing off another one with intricate tattoos covering his face. There’d been five, but one was unconscious, the other - whose name was Holtz - in Popover’s headlock. All four were wearing ragged, studded HLF armor, not quite potionproof, not quite bulletproof, but nowhere near Basebaw-Bat-Ay-Truth-proof.

“I thought Holtz gave him a concussion!” one HLF man asked.

“What, ya thought it’d huv a noticeable effect?” Francis asked.

“Why you-” the same HLF man yelled, and rushed at Francis with a knife.

“Nice headlock!” Aegis called out to Popover.

“Thanks!” Popover yelled back, blushing… then screaming in pain as an HLF man slammed a barstool over her skull. Holtz - the man in her forelegs - squirmed out, and kicked Popover to the side.

Popover staggered, grunted, and bucked Holtz in the gut. He careened through the air, heading towards Francis.

Who was trading blows with two other HLF, the man with prosthetic legs, and the woman with a prosthetic arm.

The man kicked upwards. Francis bent back, arms up in a semi-crouch, and drove his right fist downwards into the man’s balls.

The man made a sound that-

“SPMWUMBLAWUBLA!” Kraber says.

Everyone just stares at him.

“What?” Kraber asks. “That’s as close as I can get to the sound he made.”

With the man making such a fokkin’ bizarre sound, Francis kicked him in the face.

“You got Jones, you fucking species-traitor-” the woman with the prosthetic arm hissed, driving the patchwork of metal piping that had replaced her arm towards Francis’ face. Francis bent to the side, in a boxing move his father had called a slip, and readied a left hook to the woman’s throat...

Only for Holtz to careen just through the edges of Francis’ field of vision and knock the woman off guard.

There was nothing, Francis thought, that quite showed the chaos of a battle like watching a body careen through the air next to you.

Francis just shrugged, drew his foot back like he was playing football again, pumped it forward, and rammed it into Prosthetic Leg Man’s - Jones’ - lower jaw.

“I KICK YUIR FACE!” he yelled, dodging a wide, arcing haymaker towards his stomach, and slamming his elbow into Jones’ neck. Then kicking Jones’ face again.

Beside him, Popover - barstool held between both forelegs - had flung herself up into the air. She smashed the heavy wooden stool down on Prosthetic Arm Woman’s shoulder, and Francis watched the woman crumple down to the carpet.

“Out like a light!” Popover crowed, and the two of them bumped fist and hoof. Behind them, Falyn had grabbed a pool cue, and was trying to block the tattooed HLF man’s fists.

To limited success.

She’d gotten a black eye, but she was holding her own all the same.

“You’re Miller’s girl, aren’t you?” asked the tattooed man she was fighting.

Falyn just grunted and jammed one end of the pool cue into the man’s sternum. “Don’t talk about my dad, Willy.”

“Why not?” Willy asked. “He misses you!”

“Well, I don’t miss you!” Falyn yelled, and brought the cue down on the man she was fighting. He hissed in pain and slumped slightly.

Falyn kicked Willy in the face.

Francis flashed her a thumbs up, before Jones slammed a fist into his jaw, just below his eye. For a second, Francis couldn’t see. His eye had gone dark for a second, and he scrambled to ready another punch!

Only for another follow-up blow to the gut from Jones.

“You fokkin shithouse cricket!” Francis yelled, and headbutted Jones.

If it hurt Jones, it didn’t show. He reached down for a knife….

Only for Popover to buck him in the back of the knees. That staggered him, a bit.

Francis grinned, bent down and to the side, then kicked out to Jones’ face. He spat out blood and fell, landing awkwardly against a chair.

“Thanks, Popppy!” Francis yelled.

“Goddamn horsefucker!” Jones yelled, reaching for the pistol at his hip…

Fok. If Francis drew his own pistol, Jones would outdo him. Then he’d get a bullet to the stomach. Which was bad.

So, only one thing to do: rush forwards, baseball bat held at his side, and swi-

BONK!

“Listen to the chair leg of truth! It does not lie! What does it say? It says, ‘Shut up, Fred!’ Can you hear it?!” Falyn yelled, and brought a barstool down on Jones’ collarbone. Apparently he was named Fred. He crouched, teeth gritted in pain.

Well, that worked too.

Then, lightning-fast, one of Falyn’s feet lashed out, the sole of her boot flattening the man’s face for a second. The HLF man’s pistol, halfway raised, fell to the ground. The man just collapsed.

Another one - the one Popover had in a headlock, the one named Holtz - rushed at Francis.

This is fokkin’ great! Francis thought, his face in a wide smile from the adrenaline rush, and he drove a heavy right hook into Holtz’s stomach. Taking the opportunity, Francis kneed Holtz in the gut.

Holtz wheezed, right up till the moment Francis headbutted him, then smashed the baseball bat against his shoulder. Good, he was down…

Which left Prosthetic Arm Woman, who was unslinging a shotgun. Francis actually wouldn’t have minded standing on the fucker’s face, pulping it with a basebaw bat till the bawbag stopped twitching, but you just couldnae do that sortae thing in a pub. Not in frontae the wee bairns-

“Behind you!” Amber Maple yelled, gesturing towards the first man with one foreleg.

Yeah, like that adorable wee horsey. Her. Like a second daughter.

Francis turned in the direction she was pointing. “FOK!” he yelled.

Aegis, almost halfheartedly, placed his two forelegs in the general area of Amber’s frightened, expressive ears, before realizing it didn’t really matter. Rivet was wolfing down a bucket of popcorn nearby.

Turned out, Jones had been falling suspiciously close to the pistol. The rush of adrenaline! The sound of something in a bad ~~kontgesig~~ fokkin’ radge cracking under a blunt instrument.

“You goddamn gluesti-” the wounded man coughed, not quite at the gun yet.

“NO YA FOKKIN’ DON’T!” Francis yelled, drawing back one leg, and booting him in the face, right in the nose. Like eh wis playin football again, real fokkin’ football.

It wasn’t with his old stompin’ boots. Those were also prohibited by workplace regulations, on account of his propensity for kicking bawbags in the face.

The man tumbled backwards and awkwardly collapsed around the doorframe. Meanwhile, Popover had gotten Willy in a headlock, discoloring his intricate tattoos with one pink hoof every second.

“Alright!” another HLF woman yelled out. “Everyone, shut the hell up!”

Francis turned to see Nny sitting in a chair, Arm Woman levelling a shotgun sawn down to pistol size at Nny’s head. Francis had never liked the things. Not enough capacity for power. Too hard to reload.

But held up to a man’s head, or woman if that was what Nny identified as at the moment? It'd reduce him to a fine paste.

“You give us the money, give us the fokkin’ gluesticks for your protection,” the HLF woman snarled. “Or this bitch and his stupid hair-”

“Oh, here we go,” Aegis groaned.

In the space of a second, Nny twisted backwards, spoon in hand, as he elbowed her in the stomach. She staggered, and Nny, in a boxer’s stance, drove repeated fists into her stomach. He moved almost balletically, practically pirouetting, well-muscled legs showing under the tights.

The woman drew out a knife, grazing the side of his face just beside his eye, grazing the top of his ear. He didn’t seem to notice, and elbowed her in the throat. In that second, the HLF man Popover was holding threw her off, and she tumbled against one of the booths, thankfully landing on a set of pillows. She picked herself up, panting, only to see the man she’d formerly been holding jumping at her.

Popover yelped, and pushed away the pillows on the couches lining the side of the restaurant. The man landed against the wooden furniture, and screamed in agony. Popover drew back a foreleg, and bucked him in the face.

Fokkin kwaai braw mare, Francis thought, and punched a man in the gut. He doubled over, wheezing, and FRANCIS brought both elbows down on the man’s back. The HLF man doubled over in pain, and Francis delivered a swift kick to his face.

The HLF woman brought back her arm for another swing, and something in Nny just seemed to collapse as he fell back, the blade of the knife against his throat.

There was panic in his eyes.

“Fuckin’ faggot,” the woman said. “We’re killing him. Killing all of th-”

And all of a sudden, Fiddlesticks was behind the woman, both powerful hindlegs ramming into her left hip.

Nny dodged backwards, almost like a dancer, and caught a knife to the arm.

He staggered back, and elbowed the woman in the ribs. She was knocked backwards, and before their eyes, they could see her pulling out a gun.

“FOK!” Francis yelled.

And then suddenly, Nny was behind her. Holding a spoon and a revolver.

“ You. Insulted my hair,” Nny said, spoon to the woman’s eye, cut-down rifle of a pistol aimed at the other HLF. “Hurt my friends. It was fun at first watching Frank smack the bitch out of you, but now, you've pissed me off. I hope you're fuckmothering proud of yourself, motherfucker.”

He motioned towards one HLF man. Cocked the hammer, then the secondary one for the shotgun.

Noticing that the fight was over, Francis picked up his own revolver. “Now, go. Before I do something you’ll regret.”

“You’ll regret,” one man man stammered. “It's supposed to be-?”

“No,” Fiddlesticks said, rearing up in a boxer’s stance, “I don't think it is.”

“Walk away,” Popover said. “We’ll let you keep your weapons. Just walk away.”

“How do you know I won’t shoot you all for that?” the man with the broken collarbone asked.

“Because otherwise, I will kill you,” Francis said. He said it matter-of-factly as he drew the Ruger.

“Like hell you wi-” one man said, then the words died in his throat. Something about Francis made it abundantly clear he was not kidding. It wasn’t the slightly oversized black revolver.

“Oh, I will,” Francis said. “And it will, in fact, be like hell. Good call. Now-”

Everyone aimed their weapons at the HLF assembled in front of them. Simo with his big rifle, Quint with an M4, even Linda from behind the bar, with what looked like Francis’ old ‘Remington 1740’. As he’d called it. Really, ‘Remington 1740’ was just a catchall term for two shotguns welded together.

“Fuck off,” Aegis finished, pounding two forehooves together.

“Daaad, you said a-” Rivet started. Aegis ignored it.

“And get the hell out of my pub,” Linda snarled.

“Well said, mate,” Francis said. “Now-” he drew his own pistol. “Out.”

“This won’t be over,” the woman said. “We’re your doom, you fucking gluesticks and horsefuckers. You kill the world, and you think we can just sit by and watch? The end’s coming, for all you merry-go-round toys. Soon, you won’t be-”

“OUT!” Francis roared, as he cocked the hammer. “IF YOU DON’T WANT ME TO BLIKSEM YOU FULL OF HOLES, YA DOF FOKKIN’ WANKTOASTERS!”

And they were. The HLF scurried out of the pub, a little faster than they’d be happy to admit to those others back at base.

Far above them, perched on a hill, a man with a bolt-action rifle scoped with an incongruously ultramodern device, watched them intently. But that was not important here and now.

Here - and now - Francis was holstering his own revolver, and heading back to the kitchen. For the past few days, he’d been working in the kitchen of The Cardsharp Pub, a restaurant in Littleton that had been made from shipping containers. He’d once been an utterly ~~irredeemable kontgesig (Really? Was he really irredeemable?) named Viktor Marius Kraber~~ unimportant person. But that was the past, and nobody, least of all Francis, deserved to know about it.

Impossibly, bizarrely, he was happy.

And why shouldn’t he have been? He’d had a good week.

That, and a lot of the people of Bethlehem and Littleton loved him. As it happened, Aegis hadn't been kidding about the bounty for Tia McCreary. It had been huge, enough that Francis could have comfortably gone awhile with a job... If he hadn't given the money away to keep the town afloat.

Honestly, that was kind of a spur of the moment thing, he admitted to himself.

It wasn't.... It wasn't a bad place. He'd seen places on the news, wandered a ways up the coast after his evac ship had left him in the Deep South, towns that were little more than crumbling fiefdoms barely held together, falling to HLF or PER. Or worse, they'd been abandoned thanks to potion-bombing, or some peculiarity of wartime rationing that made supporting them an untenable prospect. Or they'd been paranoid and jumpy enough that Francis himself had called it unnerving, as they built emplacements to defend against Barrierfall.

So many memories from back then. Of desperate supply runs, fencing abandoned things. And other things best not remembered.

Got a fokking lot to make up for, he told himself as he dropped a pile of peppers, and honey-ginger-barbecued shrimp and sausage into a steaming pot of cheese grits. Oh, that smelled befok! This was Kate's old family recipe, passed down through the family for years.

“Hey, Francis! Hey Gazpacho!” called out Linda Branwen, the restaurant’s proprietor. She’d been ex-HLF, kicked off the police force in Boston during the Three Weeks of Blood for brutality that apparently stood out even by the standards of those three horrible weeks.

She didn’t like to talk about it.

“Hey!” called out Gazpacho, a red-orange stallion with a red mane and white spots along his nose and fetlocks, who was busy slicing potatoes with his horn TK.

“Evenin’, Francis,” Gazpacho said. “No panic attacks?”

“I’m fine,” Francis said. “They’ve been getting better lately.”

“Thank God,” Gazpacho sighed.

“Agreed,” Linda said. “I don’t think I could open this place with a clean conscience knowing my best shrimp and grits cook wasn’t in his right mind. Or my bouncer.”

“...What?” Gazpacho asked.

“Since when is he a bouncer?!” Popover yelled.

“Since I let him bring guns to the workplace,” Branwen said.

“It was after you changed your manecut, don’t worry, Popover. Do I get paid extra for this?” Francis asked.

“Not by much,” Branwen sighed.

“Fok,” Francis sighed, but he was smiling under it all. There wasn’t much to complain about at the moment.

Aegis, Amber Maple, and Rivet were off at one table, the one with the couches made specially for ponies, all enjoying a dinner from him. Branwen had let them get free food, cause Francis was a boarder in their house, and visiting for dinner had become something of a tradition for them. Just about nobody could pass up free food.

As Francis poked his head back from the counter, Rivet waved at him. And so was Amber, who was busy directing her attention to a mare and her filly walking into the restaurant.

There just wasn’t much to complain about at the moment.

Littleton could have been worse. But with the barrier coming, with ponies trotting down the street, working the grist mills and logging trains and farms, all in plain view of HLF militiamen, with barely any plumbing extending to Aegis’ neighborhood (Oh fok he just got that, neighborhood) and police just ignoring crimes against ponies in the area, it could have been better. Which was where he’d hoped to step in and do what he could to keep the town safe. Which would be easy, considering that Yael had pulled a few strings and-

“Enjoying your time as a PHL member?” Gazpacho called out.

Yeah, that’d happened. Yael had inducted Francis into the PHL, somehow. He’d been tempted to bring his own weaponry, but the PHL equipment was too much of a risk. So it stayed buried.

He'd kept Sylvia's rifle. It was early PHL newtech. Not as good as Johnny C's Leshiy, but it was an ACR - you could rechamber it for 7.62x39 easily, so that meant good saving on ammo. Plus, nobody had a good argument as to why he couldn't have shield disruptor grenades.

“Can’t believe I’m saying it,” Francis said, “But yes.”

“What’s so unbelievable?” Gazpacho asked, pushing his salt-and-pepper pompadoured mane out of his eyes with some minor telekinesis, and slicing through a potato.

“All this,” Francis said, surprised to feel himself smiling.

“What, the fact that you’re wearing a Ruger and an assault rifle in a kitchen?” Gazpacho asked.

It was true, Francis did have a revolver and Sylvia’s ACR on his back in case of PER, HLF, or bandits. But that wasn’t important.

“No, I mean I’m cooking shrimp and grits in new hampshire, on the other side of the earth from my home next to a mythical creature,” Francis said. “And here I am, in the apocalypse, not even questioning how fokkin radgie the world’s goat.”

“Really!” Gazpacho gasped. “I’m also making potato chips next to one!”

The two of them stared at each other and laughed.

“It’s a horrible time,” Francis said, chuckling a little, “But it’s a fokmothering bizarre one as well.”

“Amen to that,” Gazpacho said. “Say… you’re a friend of Sixstring. He told you about how he knew Cheese Sandwich?”

Francis nodded. “Sort of. I mean, really, it just raised more questions.”

“That’s Sixstring for you,” Gazpacho sighed. “Anyway. I met him in Appleoosa before something called him back to Baltimare-”

“Wait a minute,” says Babs. “I wonder if he saw the Great Equestrian falling…”

“-And he would’ve said to smile no matter what,” Gazpacho said. “Just like Pinkie.”

“I’ve a hard time believing in her ivir making anyone smile,” Francis said.

“What’d you do before the war?” Francis asked.

“I worked in a restaurant, making soup,” Gazpacho explained, telekinetically lifting the potato slices onto a tray. “Figured ‘why not stick with what you’re good at?”

“I would do that,” Francis said, “Cept I never finished med school.”

“Why not go back?” Gazpacho asked. “You’ve been good whenever someone gets an injury in the workplace.”

Actually, there were a lot of reasons. “I want tae stay on the front and help. That, and I don’t have the money.”

“Well, that’s a shame,” Gazpacho said, probably being polite, as very few people actually had the money nowadays. Going to college in the apocalypse was…. putting it lightly… complicated.

“Wait,” Francis said. “Hold on a sec. Did you say Humans were mythical?”

“Yeah, you were, till Lyra came around,” Gazpacho explained.

“Huh,” Francis said. Years ago, he’d nearly been able to appear on his mother’s vlogs. He’d been a frequent guest, but he’d had to work that day. It had been bad, yet another office conflict between fledgling PER about whether to potion someone in a fokking awful ski accident that had left someone really dondered. He’d been mentioned, and Lyra had managed to spin that into a talk about potion and how maybe it wasn’t for the best, but-

‘Why the fok can’t I think of good possibilities?’ Francis thought. ‘It’s always me as a fokkin zombie horse, or a chaos space marine, or a lonely shell of a man that’s more bosbefok than usual and thinks he’s dead…’ He would have fokkin’ loved to see a possibility where he was on that vlog, talking to Lyra.

“Well, there were legends that a human had visited Equestria and managed to vanquish a great evil,” Gazpacho explained.

“Here’s hoping that human comes back,” Francis said. “Or at least someone related to them. Not sure they’d be satisfied with what happened to whatever place they saved…”

“No, not really,” Gazpacho said. “But Lyra managed to find the ship and prove they’d visited, and she managed to turn anthropology into more than a fringe science!”

“...I wish she’d never come,” Francis said, before he could stop himself.

“Why?” Gazpacho asked.

‘And that was wrong, wasn’t it?’ Francis told himself. ‘The stuff she’d done…’

“You stupid plot-head, you’re not helping anyone,” Victory whispered in his ear. She’d been getting… indistinct lately. A shadow behind a table.

As for the other guy...

'Do you think this is somehow better than what you were? Do you think this is a better way? It is not.'

... yeah, he wasn't gone either, though he was less like a hallucination and more like a flash of thought in his mind, a flash that was recurring but easily ignored.

Francis took this as a good thing. His hallucinations had been getting better, and he’d barely even needed recreational drugs and alcohol to dull them. This time. Which was good, considering he’d developed an immunity to antidepressants in college.

“Well, I just… I wish none of you had come,” Francis said, recalling pages from the journal. “I don’t personally hate you. Lyra did wonderful things, but I’d trade all of that if Celestia had never decided we were a problem to be solved.”

“And leave us under the hoof of a tyrant?” Gazpacho asked.

“I…” Francis sighed. “Alright, there’s nae way tae say that withoot bein a bastard, is there?”

“Not really,” Gazpacho said. “Still, I think I understand. I wish I’d never had to meet you, too. Just so we’re on the same page.” She hoofshook Francis. “Still… Least we’re friends, I guess.”

“Amen to that,” Francis said, smiling.

“And even so, it’s for the best that Lyra came,” Gazpacho said. “Can’t imagine a world without the PHL.”

“That’s the sorta shit I’ve had nightmares about,” Francis agreed.

“Oh, I’ll bet you did,” Gazpacho said, passing a plate full of homemade potato chips to him.

“It was a good time, wasn’t it?” Aegis reminisces.

“Could have done it forever,” Kraber agrees. “Then things got complicated...”

Dancing Day

You’d still been in Littleton. Of course you had. You’d heard Mr. Francis Strang before on the radio, doing that strange ad for the restaurant he worked at, drugged out of his mind:

“Ladies and gentlemen, stallions and mares, did you ever want to light newfoals on fire just to see how beautiful it looked? Do you ever look up at the uncaring blue vastness up above your head, and scream: WHY?! WHYYYYY?! Did you ever look at someone that annoyed you, and wonder how they’d taste? As if eating them would make them stop annoying you?

...Are you sexually aroused by wondering how they would taste? That would be weird. Not to judge, but that would be weird. Okay, we’re being totally judgmental. If you need to stave off these horrible food cravings, then you’re probably hungry for a meal at The Cardsharp Pub. Or you’re HLF. And we’ll find you. Oh, yessssss…. Stop by! We have good shrimp and cheese grits now!”

It had simply been too bizarre not to indulge. Its surrealism had drawn in customers from all over, and it was nearly your birthday, so you and mommy had figured, ‘why not go?’ Unfortunately, the first ad had been interrupted by that weird broadcast from Equestria. At least, you thought it was Equestria.

To your surprise, there were a bunch of people you knew sitting back there. Big Aegis (Sweet Luna, he was massive enough that Johnny C could ride him like a horse!) and his foals, Amber Maple and Rivet were there… and so was Johnny C and Fiddlesticks. Johnny was, oddly enough, back in his Trickster Jane cosplay again - big, poofy yellow and orange dress, pink and blue tights, pink wig, blue makeup. Nobody seemed to question it, and he did like alright in there. Even feminine.

Fiddlesticks definitely seemed like a happy mare with her friend dressed like that, smiling and waving as you caught her eye. She was off playing the fiddle in one corner again, that priceless fiddle made of bloodoak wood from the Everfree strumming out a nice little rhythm.

There was Chalcedony and that odd human there… Bowman? Was that his name?

“Bowman!” Fiddlesticks laughed, waving over to him. “It’s been too long. How’s it hanging?”

Apparently it was.

You could also see Johnny’s friends Quint and Simo, a French-Canadian and a Finn. Simo had a big gun, that sniper rifle with the name you can’t pronounce or spell (Alfbert? Ulfbright?) next to him, leaning against the wall next to a huge wolfish-looking female husky with orange-brown, black, and gray fur, with a white face. You realize that something like the huge gun in a restaurant next to an equally huge dog would have been weird before the war. Especially in Britain, where guns weren’t all that common. But now, nobody batted an eye.

It shocks and amazes you how much you’ve seen in your life.

“I think it’s a psychological weapon,” said Quint, one of the many U.S military assigned to what the news had called an anti-HLF taskforce. Which was pretty weird, right? The PHL was a taskforce, officially, so they were a taskforce… of a taskforce? You wished you knew how militaries worked.

“Nah,” says a woman with green and pink hair. You know her name is Falyn - you’ve seen her around. “It’s not cruel enough for what we see them do.”

“I’m with the horsehair woman - I do not feel all that disturbed, and neither do Tuuri, Onni, Lalli and Nietzsche,” said Simo.

“Who-” Falyn started.

“Tuuri’s my sister, Onni and Lalli are my brothers. Nietzsche is this wolfdog here,” Simo explained, ruffling his husky’s neck, to which she panted and rolled on the floor, her tongue lolling out. “...Not sure I could guess what the Broadcast is for, though. It’s… it’s definitely trying to tell us something.”

“Aw, doggy!” Falen said, rubbing the dog’s belly.

“But what?” Quint asked. “It’s damn near incomprehensible every time. Mare that shouldn’t exist, a sound like a stallion getting crushed by a murderous animatronic, and then… something new, every time. I don’t even know who this could be directed at. I mean, who would the ‘killer of reaper’ be?”

“I heard someone else say that the HLF might have tapped into the broadcast,” said one pegasus mare lounging on a couch. She was kind of an offwhite color, and had a green and pink mane - actually, she reminded you a lot of Falyn. Wasn’t her name Blossomforth?

Quint, Falyn, Simo, Johnny C, Fiddlesticks, Aegis and his foals, they all laughed hysterically.

“HLF… using pony stuff to their advantage?!” Fiddlesticks guffawed, somehow keeping the fiddle steady as she laughed.

“Trust me,” Falyn said, “I know plenty of HLF.”

“You did seem familiar with those guys from earlier...” Simo said.

“Some of dad’s crowd,” Falyn said, offhandedly. “We… don’t talk too much anymore.”

“Wait,” Fiddlesticks said. “Miller, as in… Hiel Miller? One of Lovikov’s-”

“Like I said,” Falyn said, walking up to the bar. “We don’t talk too much anymore.”

You could hear people in the kitchen, laughing at something unrelated. One of them was a mare, one was a heavily Scottish-accented man.

“That’d be Mr. Francis,” Amber Maple had said, as the waiter came by.

“No, seriously!” Blossomforth protested, her hooves up. “I was with Yael-”

“The attack on the synagogue had me curious,” Yael says. “So, Heliotrope and I did some digging.”

“Ah yes, ‘the archangel,’” Verity sighs. “I do not miss Lovikov. At least he got ponif-”

“Oh, he wishes he did,” Kraber interrupts.

“He’s still alive?!” Verity gasps.

“Yeah, uh, Kraber left him…” Aegis said, one hoof behind his head, voice trailing off.

“Let’s not talk about that sorta thing in front of little colts and fillies,” Kraber says.

“Definitely,” Aegis says.

“And yet you talked about brutally murdering a woman earlier and giving her brain damage,” Verity says.

“Exactly,” Aegis says. “Now think about just how bad it must have been that even Viktor doesn’t want to-” he catches sight of the looks on your face, on Scootaloo’s face, and on the other foals in the room. “Yeah.”

Heliotrope’s tail

Let’s say you’re me again.

“Tell me,” Yael says, sitting at the desk. “What. Is. The Hotline.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the HLF man before us said. He was covered in blood.

“I think you’ve got a good idea of what I mean,” I said, staring down at him, but the man looked more focused on Yael at the moment. It’s easy for Yael to look intimidating. First, she’s taller than a lot of people. Second, she doesn’t sleep too often, which makes her look really pissed someti-

--Heliotrope!

--It was the only way I could think of to get you to want to sleep more. I’ve tried begging. I’ve tried pleading. I even tried hiding your meds! Seriously… you’ve been overworked.

--There’s always something, Heliotrope. No matter what we do here, no matter how many HLF or PER get shot, no matter what gets rebuilt, the world’s ending. Something’s always gonna be breaking down.

--I fokkin well know that feel.

--What do you mean, Kraber?

--I always have so much kak to work on, and skipping out on some rest is always so fokkin’ temptin. There’s always more to be done, and it can be easy to forget to just care about yourself a little. But, uh, here’s the thing. I did that once, could barely function. Lots of stuff breaks down, now, Yael, so don’t be one of them.

--That’s… thanks, Kraber.

--That was pretty insightful.

--Don’t mention it - one day of feeling like kak and being damn near paralyzed was enough. We’re in this together.

--Heh.

--Can I finish? Anyway, I’m with Yael here - who the hell expects fighting in New Hampshire? But, Yael had gotten curious. So we headed up Groveton. Not much important is in Groveton. I mean, there’s trains, and it’s not too far away from some farms that employ earth ponies. There’d been PER that came by, trying to derail a train and use the chaos to mass-ponify the small population of the town. Another little hamlet goes dark, a transportation artery is clogged, the local government goes reeling. Business as usual.

But the HLF had gotten there before us. It was weird as fuck. They were lining PER against the walls and shooting them, stripping them for gear. Which sounds good, and I’m sure that some of what they did there counts as thrilling heroics.

But unfortunately, they’d been trying to find the earth ponies hired by local farmers, assuming they were PER too. So, we stepped in, and things ended… predictably. So, when me and Yael had cleared them out, I found someone official-looking. Did the only sane thing and planted both hooves on his ribcage.

It’s… it’s kind of sad what Celestia’s made us into that we terrify and anger people. I used to have someone say I looked like an old… ‘My Pretty Pony,’ I think. And I’m assuming that means I looked like a life-sized stuffed plush stuffed animal to them?

--Kind of, yeah.

Thanks, Kraber. I still can’t believe you’re the one saying that, but that… means a lot. Don’t know what, but it means a lot of it. But now? Now I scare small children cause they think I’ll turn them into zombies. Bastards.

“You’ve been around awhile,” I said, one wing blade down at his throat. I would have liked the mouth dagger, but, well… that doesn’t quite work for interrogating. “From what the people here say, you knew the PER were coming.”

“Fuck you, gluestick,” the HLF commander said.

“Awww, sorry,” I said, doing that eyelash-batting thing that would piss off so many airponies back on the zeps. “Ain’t my type.”

“Now,” Yael said, “I’ve got plenty of distaste for torture. Officially, we don’t do that. Officially.”

--You’re not so different from us, Lieutenant Z-

--Fuck... you, Verity. It was an act! Once tried that on some PER man for what he did to my family. Didn’t help. Didn’t bring my friends back. Didn’t bring my home back. I don’t torture people. Unlike some people here…

--I refuse to admit that I did anything wrong feeding those PER to wolves.

--Oh God, why would you do that, Kraber?!

--I… Honestly? It felt more like a prank at the time. And I liked the puppies.

“But,” she said, her voice grim and somber, “For once, it’s people like you that have something we need.”

“Which is crazy,” I said. “We have better guns and armor, and here we are, politely asking someone like you for help.”

“So,” Yael said, unholstering the Jericho 941 at her hip, “I’ll ask again. What is the Hotline?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“So you don’t know how you got here,” Yael stated. “You don’t know how you were waiting for the PER - in spite of this being a rather out of the way target. And, I might add, you were searching for… Heliotrope, hold him steady?” she pulled out a phone, the Jericho unwavering. “Three PER members in particular. Jacqueline Jophish, Merciful Light, and Rio Deneter,” she read. “Seems that someone-”

Ivan Bliss, Viktor Kraber, Killer of Reaper, I thought. Why did Gestalt seem to bring him up so often? How’d she know?

“-Killed a friend, and they ended up in the area. From what I hear, they’re heading east. But there’s no way you could have known that.”

“Maybe for once, we had better intelligence than you… gaaaaaa... goddamn horsefuckers,” the HLF man said, wheezing through a gutshot. I don’t know who did it. Maybe me, maybe Yael. It had been there awhile. It wasn’t important.

“I don’t believe that,” Yael said. “No HLF man lowers themselves enough to assume PER membership. Now. If we ask politely, and you tell me, we can get you medical attention for that leg: What is the Hotline?”

“You’d use me as a test subject,” the man gurgled. “I’ve heard of the experiments you perform.”

“You’re losing blood,” I said. “Don’t argue with us too long.”

“Or what, you’ll kill me?”

“No, or you die of exsanguination,” I added. “Saw good friends of mine bleed out in the wreck of the Relentless Dawn. Back during the Crystal War. Unpleasant death.”

“Alright,” the man said. “I don’t… I honestly don’t know what the Hotline is. I’m not lying. But what I know is that we get phone calls from Defiance. They… it’s a Russian-accented man sometimes, I think it’s Lovikov. And he tells us where. We listen - it’s proven correct.”

“Maybe he has a deal with the PER?” I suggested.

“It’s like your murdering bitch of a lieutenant said,” the HLF man told me. “We don’t deal with PER. Anyone that tries, they’re shot on sight. Besides, who’d want to ponify?”

I nodded. “I approve of this.”

“Really?” the guy looked surprised, actually.

“I don’t like them anymore than you,” I said. “You think I like the bucking zombies? Plus, bad as ponification is… being the one to ponify? Bucking awful. But, I’m sure Yael has her questions.”

“First, though…” the HLF man said, “I almost wish it was PER. Then it’d make sense.”

“What is it?” Yael asked.

“He says they’re from an Archangel,” the man said.

Yael snickered.

“Exactly,” the man said in a long-suffering tone.

“I’m a woman of God,” Yael said, “But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell when I’m being bullshitted.”

“Some of them believe,” the man said. “But… if the future lies only in the imagination of God, why would he reveal it to such a-”

“Monster?”

“No,” the man said. “An utter sonovabitch.”

Dancing Day The Cardsharp

“-And she said they had some way to listen in!” Blossomforth continued.

“That is weird,” Johnny C said thoughtfully, scratching his clean-shaven chin, to go with his new, ahem, fashion choices.

“...Well, now I’m more confused than anything,” Falyn said. “I’ll… see if I can ask around. Find out what the hell any of that means.”

You’d heard of Mr. Francis. Instead of taking a bounty for himself, he’d just given it away! It had made a lot of people happy - especially cause the communities of Bethlehem and Littleton could buy new PHL and Crowe tech.

And then he’d gone and volunteered himself as a cook at a restaurant well-known for donating meals.

“I’ll have the cheese grits,” you said. You remember how good those were, don’t you? They were delicious.

“Assuming you mean the one from the pony menu,” the waitress said.

You nodded, and caught a glimpse of the TV up overhead, the one that Amber Maple, Aegis, and Rivet were studiously trying to ignore. Rivet was reading some book, as Aegis talked to them about evac plans. It was on closed captions, but you could hear a radio off somewhere.

“-Kagan Burakgazi’s trail has gone cold, though many believe he is hot on the trail of Viktor Kraber, last spotted in Portland, Maine. A question remains. Where are they? Where are they going? It is a terrible time for us, listeners. But, remain calm. We can agree to hate the Empire. We can agree to hate the PER. If nothing else, focus on your hatred of PER and Imperial forces...”

And you could hear the radio man’s voice crack a little.

“...Because we don’t have much time left. I hate to admit it. I hate to tell this to all of you, but America has been fortunate. Barrierfall is coming, and these are the last days of comparative peace that we have left.”

“Damn, that’s grim,” Falyn said.

It was something you were all too aware of. Being PHL, carrying a PHL registry card in your saddlebags certifying yourself as a legal pony, and being at the background of meetings as you eat huge chocolate chip cookies or decide to dance for a laugh, you know a lot more than any filly in your age group ever should. It’s weird, with topics at lunchtime with other foals and human children being classified by the government.

It keeps you up at night, and sometimes you cannot sleep. You hug a stuffed animal, under a fortress of blankets that will be gone if the barrier comes through and destroys the little room you and mom call home, the knowledge that each day it’s getting worse and worse, that each day someone could decide you didn’t have your membership card like that empty bastard Viktor Kraber, that Barrierfall will come and you, shut up, Shut up SHUT UP

Aegis feels much the same way. You could always see why he didn’t want to talk.

There was scary news all the time that day. Unrest close to the Barrier, minor civil wars, strikes, anti-government outrage, anti-PHL (And thankfully, anti-HLF!) rioting. It felt like there was a new wanted poster every day, though that day, you could see that one in particular had been edited:

Viktor Kraber (Alias: Ivan Bliss) Reward: $200,000 dead, $350,000 alive Murder, mass murder, conspiracy to commit murder, illegal possession of firearms, multiple assault charges, impersonating a police officer, illegally crossing borders between countries, terrorism, impersonating a child protective services officer, torture, smuggling firearms, practicing medicine without a license, arson, forgery, vandalism, kidnapping, robbery, theft of military property, impersonating PHL personnel, public drunkenness, and a really crappy attitude.

It was weird - the price for capturing him alive had gone up. Of course, you being a smart little filly, one privy to top secret PHL investigations, you knew why. The entire PHL had wanted to know just what the hell he’d done as Ivan Bliss, and why.

But then, since you were just eating cheese grits with an egg, mushrooms, and peppers, you didn’t actually think of that. You were just hungry back then, scarfing it down, and then you said a couple words that you’re sure will never make it into the history books.

“My compliments to the chef!”

And of course:

“Think I can get seconds?”

“I think he’ll be happy too, lil’ filly,” said the waitress. She sounded like an American. “Hey! Francis! A little filly loves your cheese grits!”

“And I’d wanted to say hi,” Kraber says, “Cause, you know, I was trying to be a correct ou. So I said hello to this little filly…”

Francis The Cardsharp

As he walked out, and as he waved to all the people that had come by (The Finnish sniper that had taken Johnny C’s old Ulfberht, Johnny C, Fiddlesticks, but especially Aegis and his adorable little foals) the bottom dropped out of Francis’ stomach, and suddenly, unpleasantly, he was lurched back into being Kraber.

“Hey, Francis,” Aegis said, smiling, same with his two foals. A real smile, not that rictus on a newfoal’s face. Used to be that’d get Kraber through the day, a smile that made him know he’d helped.

It didn’t do anything for him here.

Oh fok.

That filly. That filly! THAT FOKKIN’ FILLY AND HER MA! The ones from the car trunk, the one he hadn’t shot! The one that had gotten to Colebrook, the one that Johnny C and Fiddlesticks and Kiki Palmer and Aegis knew…

‘I can’t have a hand on the fokkin’ Ruger,’ Kraber told himself. What had he remembered from when he’d been acting as Begbie?! What had he learned about acting?! What?! Okay, he had to keep calm-

Somewhere, Victory fell on her back, mane in her eyes, laughing hysterically.

...He had not long for this earth. It was as if everyone was staring at him. Judging him. Aegis, Amber Maple, Rivet, Johnny C, Fiddlesticks... that Finn and that Quebecois man.

“These are the best cheese grits I’ve ever eaten!” she said, beaming.

“They’re the only ones, Day,” her mother said.

“They’re meant tae have shrimp,” Kraber explained. “But, well…”

“I understand that,” her mother said. “I mean, it is on the pony menu…”

“I think we should come here all the time!” the filly laughed.

At this point, if Kraber was catholic, or christian in general, he would have crossed himself or counted the rosary. Please, God… no…

He could hear something laughing, and assumed it was Victory laughing at his misfortune.

“Where did you learn to make these?” the filly asked. “I mean, the menu says Columbia SC shrimp and grits, you sound Scottish…”

“Hud an American wife,” Kraber explained. “Her family wis from there, an’ we met over the internet by screaming quotes from Happy Noodle Boy at each other. She moved tae Scotland with me eftir uni, but...”

“Oooh!” you say. “Oooh, ooh! Let me do it! Let me do this part!”

“Okay, you’ve been really out of focus lately,” Aegis adds. “Kraber does love the spotlight a bit too much…”

“Yeah, I kind of do,” Kraber admits.

Dancing Day The Cardsharp

You could see he didn’t look happy as he mentioned that. He sounded really nervous, in fact. Back then, you’d realized he must have been part of the evacuation of Britain… a sad time, indeed. You remembered a panic, Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust and their ‘angels of Mercy’ ponifying people up north, cities being destroyed. There was this one woman you remembered from one of the ships, a woman clutching an iPad like it was a bible, barely blinking. She’d had some terrible trauma happen, something that had broken her to the point that she couldn’t even cry. You had wanted to hug her. Wanted to talk to her, tell her it would be all right, but mommy had told you no.

She did not look as if she’d be in the mood to talk to ponies.

Francis, however, seemed like a man with whom you could empathize. And he would be. Just not for the reasons you’d think. He had a nervous smile, a thick mustache curled at the edges, and a gray Stetson hat.

He looked absolutely nothing like you expected a chef to look.

“Had?” you ask. “Was she…”

“Ponified, along wi the bairns,” said Francis, the man that had cooked the most delicious thing you’d ever eaten, those wonderful cheese grits. “I dinnae want tae talk aboot it. That recipe I’m making, it’s one of the only things I have left to remember her with.”

“That part actually was true. Kate made amazing shrimp and grits.”

“What’s a bairn?” you ask.

“Kids,” Francis said. “Or well, foals-” and at that moment, he just stopped. It was like some machine had slipped a belt. At this very moment, as you are telling Kraber this analogy, he will confirm that to be exactly what happened. The thought of his children being foals, and not just that, but someone else’s foals, everything about them taken from him.

And so, this being a natural instinct for the average filly of Equestria, you step out of your chair and hug him. He jumps a little.

“I’m so sorry,” you said, holding onto his leg. And, unsure of what to say, he kneeled down and hugs you too, fingers in your fur.

“Thanks,” he said, smiling weakly. He still looked torn up about something, though… “I needed that.”

“You look kind of familiar,” your mother said, on hoof under her chin. “Have we met?”

Francis shrugged. “Maybe. Did you get to America on one of the ships?”

Your mother nodded.

“Ah, okay,” Francis said. “I….” his voice stumbled here, and you saw something in his eye. Fear? He was terrified of something, definitely you. It looked like just looking at you was ripping into him. “...Might’ve been on a different ship…” Something about his thick Scots brogue slipped and stumbled there. “We could have met at the docks.”

“Could be it,” your mother said, clearly having noticed his shaky reaction. She was definitely suspicious, but he did seem genuinely nice.

“So you liked the cheese grits?” Francis asked, far too sudden.

“They were delicious!” you say, rubbing your tummy with your forehooves. “I wish I could get some dessert…”

“Tell you what,” Francis said, smiling, (Though there was still that look in his eyes - it was fading, fading…) “I can get you some dessert, for free… just as thanks for that.”

“Really?!” you gasped. “Thanks!”

Desserts are the favorite food of the average pony, so you reacted exactly as expected when he passed out a chocolate cake.

“Ooh! Can I have one?!” Amber gasped.

“Sure, why not?” Francis shrugged, and headed back into the ki-

The radio in front of the odd human squealed. “56. 89. 90. 212222224xe10. 800. 59. 87. 24. 42. 55.

“Not again!” Aegis groaned.

“Oh, fucking hell,” Falyn groaned, and slammed her head into a table.

“Just ignore it, guys,” Francis called over. “It’ll be over soon. It always is…”

This is Gestalt again. Crystal Empire command. Anyone? I’ve…. I’ve escaped them, somehow. Everything’s changed so much since I last left the Empire’s boundaries, and everything is so advanced. I don’t know who’s out there. I don’t know who can hear me, but Equestria kept in this cell, these horrible cells, all those cells, me and not me, in these, alll of me, in these cells, don’t I remember?”

“Eighty-one. Ninety-four. Fifty-seven. Seven hundred.”

“My eyes,” another one screamed. “They took my eyes they’ll take my eyes again!”

“Brighthoof, oh, Brighthoof! I miss you, my lovely wife…”

“No, she’s my wife…”

“Oh Faust, oh Faust, can’t remember who…”

“...Brighthoof?!” Falyn asked. “Oh, shit.”

“What do you mean?” Johnny C asked.

“She’s always talking about how she doesn’t know what happened to her husband,” Falyn said.

“Oh,” Fiddlesticks said, and her eyes went wide. “Can’t imagine the agony she must be going through, hearing this…”

“YoU lOsE feElInG,” another one said, their voice overlaid with Gestalt. “YoUr LeGs ArE hArDeR tO mOvE. No MaTtEr HoW yOu TrY, yOuR lEgS aRe NuMb. ThEn, one DAY, ONE HOUR when you…. you…. y-y-you touch your legs together they are joined. ThErE iS cRyStAl sPrEaDiNg, KnOtTiNg iTs WaY tHrOuGh YoU. You smash your hoof against the place where your legs are twain, and it hurts as if you are hitting your own body. Maybe it shatters, and there is blood. It is pouring from THE CRYSTALLINE TUMORS that have become your own flesh, and you scream, no, no, no. The purple mare in the white coat and surgical mask, her cutie mark a purple starburst, places her horn to your leg, and suddenly, there is feeling OnCe MoRe. YoUr lEg BuRnS, and you can see muscle bursting, overflowing through , and there are spikes of crystal poking their way through as your legs knot together again. There is a noise like laughter from the purple mare, and you think you recognize her…”

“There is a glow around you, a purplish-red, and you cannot move. The only feeling in your appendages is burning. Barely aware of feedback in that leg, you struggle, the mare is surprised by your strength as you break whatever field she’s holding you in as you bring your forehoof forward, to smash it again.”

‘What are you even trying to accomplish here?’ the purple mare asks. ‘It’ll be better for the good of Equestria if you sit still…’

Your hoof comes down, and you try to raise it again. You wouldn't have known this if you hadn’t been able to see it, but your foreleg does not come up. It is stuck to that knot.

The purple mare looks down at your three legs stuck together, and she levitates a notepad towards herself. ‘Interesting reaction,’ she says, and scribbles on it with a pen.

You do not know how long you are left there on that table, the strange instruments pointed at you, but each day is pain for all of you. You are as hard as crystal and yet pliable as clay, each day a bone cracks. You arch your back and screech in pain as a vertebra seems to shatter, There are strange thoughts, and you can’t hear anything at all over the growing babble. You cannot.

Out of my head, out of my head, out of my head…

Whose head is it? Your identity is fuzzy. You move your one foreleg experimentally.

You can hear your bones cracking all the while. Can feel it too. Crack. Crack CRRRRACK. It is like there is wood splintering.

One day, the purple unicorn places wires of glass into your skull, stabbing them through your eyes. You feel as if that should be important. Information flows through your head. Things you simply could not have known. Another soldier… an aviatrix pony, slave number p-404.

“But wasn’t Gestalt P-404?” Dancing Day asked, confused.

“She was,” her mother said. “What is this?!”

You strain against your bonds, against the lack of feelings to strain against.

Your body is immobile.

“Subject is responding favorably to the information feed,” the purple unicorn said, scrawling on her page.

“Hey,” you say, half-aware. “I’m not a subject, I’m… I’m…”

“Subject’s vocal cords may need removal,” the unicorn said, and you are aware that something appears to be creeping up your body. “Experiments with the anomalous earth pony’s interconnection have proven promising, and so proposals to use baseline earth ponies are unlikely to prove successful. We do not need to create new connections, as they practically have the ports already.

“I don’t know who’s listening,” another voice interrupted. But when you see me, shoot me. Aim for the head, and don’t stop firing, I can’t take this anymore. The war, the-” A pause. A scream. No, I’ll be a good pony, I swear I will, just don’t-!”

For a moment, you saw Francis seething in rage. He looked like at any minute he could unholster his gun and kill everyone, and you shrank back.

“Take your medicine, Pinkie,” Twilight Sparkle said.

“I don’t need that medicine! I’m not sick! You’re sick, Twilight! We’re all sick, we’re crumbling away!”

“I think you’ll find that I’m perfectly healthy,” Twilight said. “This is perfectly normal, and…"

This bizarre transmission of the Elements arguing abruptly cut into squeals and pops once more, but there were strange sounds underneath. Multilingual screeches of agony.

“Hulle het my my, sal hulle jou my ook gou genoeg neem.... Sie nahmen das Leben nach dem Tod, sie es ihnen gemacht. Es gibt keine Ruhe, gibt es keine mir, gibt es keine, dann gibt es nur die Zahlen und die ohrenbetäubende stummen Schreie, wir sind Greuel, jetzt und für immer! Leyfðu mér að deyja vil ég glaður deyja vil ég glaður deyja skulum deyja, gefa okkur aftur þögn, stöðva tölur! Vi kommer inte att sluta skrika tills vi frigörs.”

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the voices died down - yes, died down, and Aegis was somewhat disturbed he’d used that verb to describe them - becoming a whisper, then a hum…

Then nothing.

Nothing at all.

"That," an odd man said, a slight smile on his face, "was absolutely fascinating."

His voice was a light, chirpy, British-accented one, and he seemed remarkably cheerful, which was... unusual, to say the least. He tapped the radio, which was no longer transmitting.

Aegis

"Fascinating?" Aegis asked. "How the hell was that fascinating?!"

"Because of what it was," the man said, smiling still. "Unknown party hijacking the transmission signal. Possibly even multiple signals. That's really clever, actually. It’s done this repeatedly."

"It was horrible," Francis said flatly. “I can understand some of what it’s saying… German and Afrikaans, for once.”

“Some of it even said ‘Let me die I die I die, let us die, give us back the silence, stop the numbers!’,” Falyn added.

“Well yes, but…” the man said, cocking his head to the side. “How do you recognise Afrikaans? And how do you-” he pointed at Falyn. “Know icelandic?”

“It’s where dad’s family came from,” Falyn said, shrugging.

“I learned it because I liked District 9!” Francis said, a little too quickly.

“Really?” Falyn asked. “Great movie.”

“Thought so too. But this…. it’s… It’s horrible to hear,” Francis said. “Nonsense, of course it is, but… it’s just bizarre.”

"I’m sure, but, well, yes," the man said, "but from a technical standpoint -"

"I don't think he's interested in the technical standpoint," a new voice said. A pale grey Unicorn mare with tired, equally grey eyes and what looked like a labcoat draped over her body trotted up behind the strange man. Her mane was tied up behind her head in a ponytail that looked to be steadily falling apart, strands of thick fur gradually escaping what she’d used to force them backwards.

“Evenin’, Chalcedony,” Aegis said. “Are you… are you doing better? ”

"A little," the mare said, smiling, though it was clear to Francis she was lying through her teeth. Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, after all. "Actually, Aegis, there's something I want to ask you about later…"

"Working," the man said.

"I know, but I don't get to socialise often," Chalcedony said.

"Shame," the man said. "Socialising is about the only thing that doesn't make one depressed about this whole business. That and tinkering with technology. Might I suggest finding a hobby?"

“I tried dismembering people,” Francis said. “It didnae work.”

The man didn't respond to that, instead turning back to the radio, pulling out a small silver device and tapping it against the radio once, before the thing started buzzing.

"Sorry, but who the fok are you?" Francis asked, bewildered.

The man glanced up at him. "Do you have to swear?"

"Yes," Francis replied bluntly. “Kindae my thing.”

The man sighed. It was only now that Francis really took in his appearance, so at odds with the rest of their surroundings. He wore a long, checkered-pattern tweed coat in a rather bright shade of green, with a suede collar, under which was a shirt, some kind of cravat and a waistcoat with a watch chain, set off rather incongruously by a comfortable-looking pair of dark brown corduroy pants. His reddish hair was short, though he had a fringe that came down over his left eyebrow, under which were analytical, nigh-inscrutable brown eyes. He smiled slightly.

"Tell me," he asked, ignoring the question. "Have you heard these transmissions before?"

"Uh, yes," Francis replied, frowning. "But they're -"

"Increasing in radius, and in frequency," Chalcedony said flatly. "This is something like the twelfth individual transmission we've found. I think they’re telling a story." She glanced up at the red-head. "Doctor, what do you think?"

"Doctor?" Francis repeated. "You like PHL research or something?"

"I believe I fall into the 'or something' category," the man replied, smiling slightly, "much as certain others would love to sign me up."

"Who is this guy?" Falyn asked Chalcedony.

She shrugged. "That would be a question a lot of folks at R&D have about him. Colonel Munro almost trusts him, but I know Colonel Hex is -"

"A blithering idiot out of his depth and barely treading water with no idea about half the things he talks about?" the redheaded Doctor cut in, still examining the radio, running what looked like a small silver penlight over it. "Why yes, he is, and Munro is little better, if less bloodthirsty, and he's in a lot more pockets than I’d like. Still, I don't have to deal with Redmond anymore, so that's almost a plus." He glanced up at Kraber, a slight awkward smile on his face. "Officially, I'm not here: best to stick with that."

“Please tell me I’m not the only one that’s stupidly lost right now,” Falyn sighed.

“Trust me, you are not alone,” Aegis said.

"Secret classified kak?" Francis guessed.

"No, I just don't want to let myself know that I'm running around," the man replied absently. "I'll get tetchy with myself, and none of me want that. I'm really annoying when I'm tetchy."

"… what," Aegis asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I know the feeling,” Francis said, nodding. “I’ve seen other mes before, and they were pretty thoroughly unlikeable.”

"Oh, it's not that I'm unlikeable per se - I just take a dim view to me meddling in my own business," the man said.

“Amen to that,” Francis said. “They never shut up about it. Oh, you should be a pony like me, you should be a monster...”

“I can’t tell who’s fucking with who at this point,” Falyn said.

“Language!” the man snapped at her suddenly.

"Just ignore him," Chalcedony said tiredly. "He's got a tendency to say confusing things."

"We hadn't noticed," Aegis said. “...Actually, same goes for Francis here sometimes.”

“I think it’s kind of endearing,” Falyn said.

For a moment everyone was silent as they watched the strange man take the radio apart slightly, poke around the insides for a moment, then put it back together. He smiled and patted the small thing.

“Should be good as new,” he said.

The radio suddenly let out a start.

‘I am a herald of eternity and reckoning is at hand, and the blood of the righteous and the guilty alike is set to spill, staining the land with it’s…’

“What the hell is that?!” Falyn yelled.

“Or not?” Chalcedony suggested.

The man frowned and smacked the radio. Another burst of static zapped out.

‘… do you have a visual on the targets?’

‘Negative! They're too fast!’

‘Wasn't that an Alicorn?!’

‘What the hell do we -?!’

There was another burst of static, and the man buzzed the radio with his device, frowning.

“What the hell was that?” Francis asked. “Something about an Alicorn?”

(“I hope I never have to deal with an alicorn,” Falyn said.

“You and me both,” Johnny C said. “If any alicorn gets to the east coast… then we’d be really fucked.”

“What if it was Luna?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“That sounds really contrived….” Falyn said.)

“A glitch,” the strange man said shortly. He smacked the radio. “I’m correcting it.”

“Requesting backup at sector seven - are you seeing this, it's like the fucking blob -!”

“Maybe give up?” Chalcedony suggested.

“I have never given up before, and I will not be defeated by a radio!” the man snapped in reply.

“…my friends, it is time for that which was prophesied in the good book. Judgement Day has come at last, and it will burn clean the sin of the old world and bring about a new one. Those whose faith is false and impure will burn and their souls will forever reside in hell. Those whose faith is true and strong will live. I have spent my life believing that, and I believe it now. Our country is full of non believers: the secular, those who go against God by their very thoughts. We, the righteous, can stand against it, shielding ourselves with our faith… and purging the unclean…”

“Alright, definitely not that!” the man said. He smacked the radio with the flat of his hand. “Come on, last try -!”

"...out there, we need help!

Is there anyone out there?! ANYONE?! Are we the last ones left alive? Are we? Someone, anyone, please? Are we? Is there anybody out there? Are we the last ones left alive?! Someone! ANYONE! We need hel-”

“WHOA!” Nny interrupted. “Whoa. Bad fuckin’ memories, Bowman.”

“Working on it,” the man said.

Francis could hear the sounds of machinegun fire.

”Got them-” “FASTER-” "Don't fokking die on me, I've let enough kids and foals die already-" “Can’t go any-” “FOK!” ~static~ “Shema yisroel, adonai eloheinu, adonai echad-” “-Lord is my shepherd-” “Get that damn radio before it falls off-” “What the hell was THAT?!” Aegis yelled. “There’s people dying out there!”

“Excuse me,” Falyn said. “I need a drink. A very stiff drink.”

"Come on! They’re not dead… Not yet, and they’ll be fine. Probably. Ah, no!" the man said, whacking the machine. "None of that. Contemporaneous only, thank you! There's enough spoilers running around!"

With one final buzz, the radio stopped buzzing and staticking and was fine.

"Good as new," he said, grinning. "Actually… slightly better. If you pick up the BBC World Service from five years ago, that's my fault."

Chalcedony sighed. "Was some of that the same as last week?"

(”What the hell just happened?!” Fiddlesticks yelled.)

(”It sounds weirdly familiar,” Johnny C mused.”)

"Possibly," the man admitted sheepishly. "Least it wasn't telling everyone about the coming of Japheth the Firebird this time, let alone that -"

"That was embarrassing," Chalcedony said, cutting him off. "You sure that's not -?"

"Yes, I'm sure, so stop worrying about it," the man snapped. "I've had Munro and Hex nagging me about Japheth and Corona and all the rest of that lot for ages, and if I have to say once more that ‘it's not a problem you need to worry about’ I’ll scream."

He paused, frowning.

“Japheth the who?” someone asked.

The man sighed. "Anyway Chalcedony, take notes - we're dealing with some sort of -"

"Hey!" Francis said, grabbing the man's shoulder and spinning him around. "You can't just fokkin’ start blabbing out the technobabble! What the hell was that? Why did I hear myself there?!-”

“You did?” Fiddlesticks interrupted, only for Francis to make a gesture that signified he’d find a better way to dodge the question later.

“Who are you? What's with those transmissions?!"

The man shared a glance with his Unicorn companion, before looking back at Kraber…. no, no, Francis. Had to be Francis.

"There's something at work," he said simply. "Something - you know, I don't even know how big, but given the fact that these transmissions are being picked up with increasing frequency, I'd say fairly." He sighed. "I'm... just trying to see if I can help."

"For all I know, you're some kind of spy," Francis retorted.

"Yes, because spies act as ostentatious as him," Chalcedony said with a slight sneer.

"Shut up," Francis said, pointing at her somewhat harshly. "I don't trust either of you."

"You don't trust many people, do you?" the man commented idly.

"As it happens, no," Francis replied, scowling at him for a moment. And in that moment, he was Francis once more. “I’ve been hurt.” He paused. “No, fok that. I’ve done plenty of hurting, too.”

The man held Francis' gaze evenly, and oddly enough that small smile returned.

"Alright, my friend," he said, before holding out a hand. "Dr Richard Bowman, loose attaché to Colonel Munro's R&D office and ‘freelance helper-outter’, if that’s a word. This, as your friend pointed out, is Chalcedony - my… assistant?"

“Too lowly,” the Unicorn - Chalcedony - said with a smirk.

“Colleague?”

“Too vague.”

“Helper? Compatriot? Amigo? Comrade? Ally? Partner in crime?”

“Stick with ‘friend’.”

“They're doin’ this again?” Fiddlesticks asked in an undertone.

Johnny C sighed. “Yyyyup.”

“Oh, like you two don’t have your own in-jokes,” the man said. “Like that, uh… that dress.”

“Kiki, Fiddlesticks and I were getting schwifty back in the early days of the war,” Johnny C explained. “It was New Year, we were binge-reading Homestuck, I think I lost a bet…”

“Huh,” Quint said from the corner. “I’d just assumed you were trans the whole time, Nny.”

“Nah,” Johnny C said. “It’s just… y’know, sometimes you need to be anyone but yourself. You know?”

“Don’t I agree,” Falyn said.

Simo just buried his face in his hands.

“Ah ken, Nny,” Francis said. "More than you know.”

“I’d bet you would,” Johnny C said, raising an eyebrow.

What did that mean? ~~Kraber~~ Francis wondered. He sighed, and then clasped the man’s still-proffered hand, raising an eyebrow at his manner.

“Francis Strang," ~~Kraber~~ Francis said once the handshake was finished.

"That's a good choice, right there," Bowman said with a wink, and Kraber suddenly felt cold - did this guy know? "I've definitely had worse." He leaned in a whispered in Kraber's ear. "Just remember, being a new man isn't all it's cracked up to be, eh?"

“Better that than a new foal,” Kraber said, joking uneasily.

Bowman smiled tightly.

"Let me do you a quick favour," he said. He brought out a small card and handed it to Kraber, who took it mutely. "Call that number and - in theory - you should be connected straight to me, assuming of course you ever actually need help in a tight spot."

"'In theory'?" Chalcedony said with a raised eyebrow.

"Would you believe I've never rewired a phone before?" Bowman asked. "Besides, there's the time factor - it could reach me, or it could reach me." He threw Kraber a serious look. "Seriously, don't tell me you've seen me, I'll throw a fit."

Francis, still dumbfounded, raised an eyebrow at that. Bowman simply chuckled.

“But yeah, tight spot, call me,” he said. “I should come - assuming I haven't decided to say ‘sod the lot of you’ and go to Space Bermuda.”

“Is that likely?” Chalcedony asked.

“Space Bermuda is very nice, actually,” Bowman said.

“I mean you leaving.” She sounded… worried.

Bowman shrugged. “If Hex asks me to develop a WMD again, I might. I signed on to save lives, not end them en masse for the sake of…expedience.” He spoke it like a swear word. “If he wants a mind like mine willing to aid expedience, then he can ask me.”

The sudden harshness in his tone was strange.

“I think I’d know about that,” Francis said, and all of a sudden, he sighed, and he was Kraber. “We’ve… all got sides of ourselves that we don’t want to talk about. And no, Bowman. It’s not what you think.”

“I'm sure it’s not,” Bowman replied, nodding once.

“No, really, it isn’t,” Kraber said. “There’s… I’ve been thinking. I don’t know how I know this, but I know: Somewhere… else, other worlds, there’s another me. And he’s a right bastard.”

“Anyway," Bowman added, perhaps overly lightly, clearly trying not to be concerned. "Best be off -”

“Before you go, though,” Johnny C interrupted, and both he and Chalcedony did a double take at him. “Hello again.”

Chalcedony blinked, then blushed. “Oh! Mr C, Fiddlesticks! Almost didn’t recognize you Mr… or Mrs… That dress looks great on you, really, it’s a good look!”

Fiddlesticks nudged Johnny C, who sighed and groaned, but there was an upward curve to his mouth that suggested he was enjoying it on some level.

“It’s Mr. Heald,” Johnny C said. “I… it’s just comfy, awright?”

“Oh, it’s you, Mr Cynical,” Bowman said blandly.

“Blame my cousin,” Johnny C said, blunt like a baseball bat.

“Of course,” the Doctor said with a grimace. “Her. Hm. Anyway, how are you? Don't actually answer that, I'm not sure the answer interests me.”

“Doctor, rudeness?” Chalcedony put in.

“Six hundred and eighty seven,” Bowman repeated with a glance at his watch.

“Actually, I happen to know there’s a Reaver around here,” Fiddlesticks put in. “We asked. He said it was more.”

The Reavers are here?! ~~Francis~~ Kraber thought. Them?! Haven’t seen em in years! He wondered if they were still woedend at him. Ah, probably. He hadn’t exactly left them on good terms. Not that he'd left much with good terms anymore. It was for the best not to worry about the Reaver, though. Whoever it was, they probably wouldn’t touch him.

“Oh,” Bowman said, blinking. “Curious…” he checked his watch. “Oh - yeah, they’re at six ninety nine now. I need to get this checked.” He clucked his tongue. “How’d you find him?”

“I asked,” Johnny C said. “Politely.”

“You did?” Bowman asked, sounding incredulous.

“We both did,” Fiddlesticks added. “Like you said, Doctor. Giving them a chance.”

Bowman blinked, before a smile graced his features. “Well - there's hope for you both yet. Now all we need to do is get your cousin doing the same, Mr Cynical.”

“Don't call me that,” Johnny C said with a slight scowl.

“Ok, I won't, Ms Heald,” Bowman shrugged.

“Hey,” Fiddlesticks said. “That’s my thing.”

“Well I need something to call him,” Bowman said with a shrug.

“His name?” Francis put in.

“Nah. Names are boring,” Bowman grinned. “Why d’you think I don't use my old one?”

“Or just go with Nny?” Francis suggested. “Like the comic.”

“I wasn’t aware they had that comic over in Scotland,” Johnny C said, suspicious.

“They had comics in Scotland,” Chalcedony said with a bemused expression.

“Scotland was actually quite civilised,” Bowman said dryly. “They even had kilts. Do you have kilts? No?”

“I've got a dress if that counts,” Johnny C shrugged.

Bowman chuckled. “Well, I doubt the Scots would see it that way. Not nearly tartan enough, and of course if you're wearing underwear it ruins the whole thing.”

“I wouldn't mind seeing you in a kilt,” Fiddlesticks added.

“...Ah feel as if there isnae enough ten-foot poles in the world for me to touch this one with,” Francis said.

“I might have a few left at home,” Aegis said.

“Still nowt enough,” Francis said.

Aegis looked up at Kraber, and chuckled. “You damn right.”

Bowman was still chuckling. “Who was that Reaver you met, anyway?”

“Preacher,” Johnny said with a shrug. “Nice guy. Actually, I met him during that thing - y’know, the crystal thing?”

“Oh, yes, that mess,” Bowman said with a snort.

“Still, I tried to help him,” Johnny said. “Even gave him maple syrup from last year.”

“Why would you even have that?” Francis asked.

“Are you saying that I shouldn’t have maple syrup on me in case of maple syrup emergencies?” Johnny C asked, and once more, Francis, no, no, no fokking hell, FOK! OH FOK NO, it had to be Francis…

Kraber felt a chill. Something about that had reminded him of Pinkie Pie. She’d said that exact phrase before. When talking about pancakes over the phone, when that fokking pink mank genaaide berbok had said she wanted to make other ponies smile…

That varknaaier, that fokkin kontgesig, that fokkin poeslip had known the whole time. She’d killed his family, made him this way!

No. He’d always had this in him. Always could have monster. Always enjoyed a pehrer at a bar. But Francis didn’t. Francis had known, because he hudtae have, he had tae have known. Kraber would be pathetic tae have nowt seen it coming, read all the signs. That wis why Kraber was dead and buried, right? That… f… th… bawbag, he deserved to be fokkin’ glassed an’ thrown six feet under…

Kraber… Francis… tried to reassert himself. Francis was breathing heavily, trying not to remember what Kraber had done. The full enormity of it, all of it, he couldn’t be allowed to comprehend it. Couldn’t be allowed to go back.

“Oddly enough,” Johnny C said, “The Reaver? He said he was looking for Viktor Kraber.”

…Fok me in the keyhole. He can’t, cannae, fokking goed nie toegelaat kan word om te weet dat ek hier is! Kraber thought manically. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

“Francis?” Aegis asked, looking up at ~~Kraber~~ Francis, confused. “Are you okay?”

“K… k… fine,” ~~Francis~~ ~~Kraber~~ ~~Francis~~ Kraber said. “Ju… jist some bad memories is all. Ya nivir know what’ll remind ya of what.”

“...I’m surrounded by madmen,” Bowman said.

“Hypocrisy?” Chalcedony put in.

“Time Lo - well, contractual obligation of birth. Anyway, you wanted something?” Bowman asked.

Johnny C blinked. “You… don't have to be rude.”

Bowman sighed. “Sorry. You're probably right. I’ve had to deal with a lot more… human-ness since last time we spoke. You're actually alright.”

Johnny nodded. “Um… sorry, I guess? Anyway, Fiddlesticks and I… have an idea.”

“It’s that this has something to do with totem-proles,” Fiddlesticks interrupted.

“What makes you say that?” Chalcedony asked.

“Well, we know how totem-proles are made,” Fiddlesticks added. “It’s just… that sounds sort of similar to the process. And… we heard these broardcasts earlier.”

“Well, why didnae ya tell naebody?” Francis asked.

“Oh, hey, look at me, I’m a sexual deviant who had frostbite, brain damage, and laughs about killing a man with a steam locomotive, and claims to have seen Equus reindeer,” Johnny C said, rolling his eyes. “Clearly, I’m a trustworthy sort.”

“I’ll make sure to look into that,” Bowman said, looking as though he was taking a mental note. "Think it'll be… seventy fifth on the list."

"Seventy fifth?" Chalcedony asked.

"Yeah - has to be below certain things," Bowman said. "Supply runs, an overhaul of the old girl's primaries, find Shieldwall, look into those Cain murders…"

Chalcedony shuddered at that, but Bowman didn't notice.

“I remember that,” Aegis said. “Never… never want to see that again.”

Bowman was continuing. "…look into Armacham - seriously, something about that company's bugging me - then I need to look into that Amplifier schematic you sent me, then there's my meeting with Mikey…”

“If there's a connection, it might be worth re-prioritising our time,” Chalcedony put in.

Bowman threw Chalcedony a glance. "You think it could be connected?"

Chalcedony frowned. "I dunno - maybe? Possibly? It's been a long while since I got fresh intelligence on the process."

"Worth a gander then," Bowman nodded

“How are totem-proles made, anyway?” Kraber asked.

“You don’t want to know,” Fiddlesticks said.

"I'll second that," Chalcedony said softly. "It's… bad."

“Fine,” Kraber said. “After awhile, you learn not to ask.”

“Actually,” Rivet said. “You never did tell me how it worked, Uncle Nny.”

“Seriously,” Johnny C said. “You’ll be happier not knowing.” He paused. “Seriously, it just made sure Fiddlesticks wasn’t hungry.”

“It’s true,” she nodded. “Can you make a good breakfast later, Nny?”

“Best be off,” Bowman said. “Lots to do, and surprisingly little time to do it." He walked off, and with a final look at Kraber, Chalcedony followed. They continued speaking as they went.

“I’ll need to speak with the Reavers again,” Bowman was saying. “It's a long shot, but they might have some notion about this…”

“You sure that’s wise?” Chalcedony asked.

“No," Bowman said, "but they’ve been trustworthy so far.”

“They keep giving me filthy looks. Not that I blame them, but…”

“They won’t hurt you,” Bowman said. “Unlike the HLF you see in those wonderfully biased reports of yours, they’re not raving murderous lunatics. D'you know, I even had a charming game of bridge with Yarrow once…"

After that bizarre interlude with the unicorn and that weird PHL doctor, Kraber was trying to slip back into his Francis persona. Well, not quite ‘slipping in,’ more like ‘bouldering his way up’. And it was barely working. It had been hard to restrain himself from a reflexive gasp of fear when he saw that little filly and her mother, the ones he’d nearly killed that night.

Had it only been nine days ago? Oy v’avoy, it had all happened so fast.

What a long week. What a long fokkin’ week. It really said something that paranoia that someone might kill him for the money and panic attacks were still an improvement over Defiance life.

But, Kraber thought, and he was surprised to know it was his own thoughts, not some annoying fokking hallucination, Aegis wouldn’t.

He trusted Aegis, after all, and Aegis trusted him. Amber Maple and Rivet wouldn’t, either. They loved him, and he loved them. Plus, they really liked listening to him reading Un Lun Dun.

And playing videogames with him…

Ah, fok, it felt like family again. Like he belonged with the crazy ponies and the horsefuckers like Johnny C, Yael and Philip. They were nicer to him, they didn’t treat him like a time bomb about to go off, and he liked the various meetings. He even liked visiting that one place in White River Junction, the Main Street Museum of Art. Crazy place, but fun nonetheless.

It’d take too long to explain. He was happier here. Happier being Francis.

But that sure as fok couldn’t last. Especially not with that filly there, (‘Little Day?’) the one that had almost recognized him. She’d seen him screaming internally at the sight of her and her mother.

Would he have to kill them? He knew how to dispose of a body. It’d be easy to shadow them, and-

‘No,’ he told himself. That’s what Kraber would do. Francis would be generous and-

“This is delicious!” the filly said, wolfing down her dessert. “Mr…”

“Mr. Francis,” Francis explained. “That’s what my housemates call me.”

“Mr. Francis, I love this! It’s so good!” she plunged her muzzle into some ice cream.

“Well…” Kraber said, almost caught off-guard by that filly being so appreciative to him, “Thanks.”

It was about time for the restaurant to close up, and so everyone filtered out of the place.

Falyn hopped on a motorcycle, stashing a lever-action shotgun in one of the bike’s holsters.

“So,” Francis said, looking her over, “Feel like coming over, maybe…”

“Nah,” Falyn said. “Not tonight. Gotta look after my brothers.”

Francis nodded. “You keep em safe, yeah?”

“Absolutely, Mr. Francis,” Falyn said with a wink, and sped off into the darkness on her bike.

“Is it just me or does Falyn kind of… fade into the background?” Amber Maple asked.

“I barely heard a peep from you or Rivet,” Francis said.

Amber Maple just shrugged. “Eh.”

With that out of the way, Francis, Aegis, and his family - their family, maybe - headed back to the house. It had been nice… A damn close call, but nice. Thankfully, Yael hadn’t been around, hadn’t recognized him. Shame she wasn’t around - it was amazing how easy she could be to get along with, seeing that she just wasn’t a morning person (he could sympathize). Plus, Heliotrope could play a damn good game at overwatch.

That said, it had shaken him greatly. How many people around could notice him?

“You won’t have to worry about this if you just take the potion~!” Victory chirped, walking alongside him.

“Now you’re just getting fokking desperate,” Francis sighed, walking past a vendor selling Turkish coffee. Or at least, imitation turkish coffee, made from who-knew-what.

Ah, Turkish coffee. Reminded him of better times.

“Enjoying the night… Mr. Strang?” the coffee vendor said,

“Why do you even sell coffee this late?” Francis asked, looking over his stall.

“The watch, of course,” the coffee vendor said. “I’ve also got tea, and… say, you looking for some drugs?”

Much as Francis might have wanted to get well and truly chwee chweerekeys, (And how did anyone know about that?) now wasn’t the time to come back to his pozzy well and truly gesuip. Heh, he’d said ‘his pozzy’. Like he lived there. Like it was his and he belonged.

...And I sort of do. Kraber wouldn’t, Francis told himself, ‘but I do.

“No thanks,” Francis said, “There’s a colt and a filly need me to help.”

“...Did you adopt them?” the coffee vendor asked, confused.

“Nah, a friend recommended me to this big stallion’s house, and he lets me live there as long as I pay some of the bills and do work around…” Francis paused. “Hey, don’t you know this? It was in the newspapers.”

That had been a harrowing experience, getting his picture in a couple local papers for helping to kill all those PER in the synagogue. He hadn’t been able to stop it, and he’d practically begged for it not to happen….

But in the end, his face had gotten plastered on one page.

“That’ll bite me in the ass later,” he remembered saying.

“It really did,” you add.

Kraber sighs. “...Figures.”

“I should go,” Francis said, walking away. He would have liked a car, but the various green regulations and wartime rationing laws made it impossible. That, and he didn’t have the money. It wasn’t much of an issue though, a bit of walking was good for him.

Something about that guy hadn’t felt right.

The pauses in his sentences. The manner of speaking. What was he missing?

“G’night, Mr. Strang!” called down Blossomforth, one of the pegasi of Littleton. She typically came by when Aegis was called in for a construction job, something involving barrierfall… Francis was a bit sketchy on the details.

“Hey Blossomforth,” he called up.

“Hey, Strang,” called a woman standing on the other side of the street. “Damn, I am terrible at the whole nocturnal thing.”

“Did you see that coffee peddler?” Francis asked. “Think he could help you out.”

“That’d…” Blossomforth yawned, putting one hoof to her chin, her wings fluttering for a second as she dropped down about two feet. “That’d be great. If only Moonshine worked this beat more...”

“Wait, what?” Francis asked.

“Ever since she met John Peters - you know, the brewer -”

“I do know,” Francis sighed. “

“She’s busy making booze for everyone, is what they’re saying,” Aegis said. “And no, Rivet. You can’t have any.”

“Buck,” he muttered.

“Son,” Aegis sighed, “You only get to be a foal so long. Treasure the time you have left.”

“I don’t see one!” Blossomforth called over. “He must have moved.”

Something’s watching me, though Francis Strang, respectable chef in town. And also murder machine.

You’re just being paranoid, would be a normal reassurance. Francis, of course, was not a normal person. Normal people didn’t feed PER to wolves. Or laugh about it for days on end.

And, ever since waking up in North Africa to a tent full of newfoals with vials of potion, some of which had been his comrades, he’d learned to be para.

“You okay, Mr. Francis?” Aegis asked, looking up at him, then looking concerned as Francis’ fingers tap-danced over the wood grip of his Ruger magnum revolver.

“I’m being watched,” Francis said, sliding it out. Seven shots in the Ruger.

“You’re fine,” Amber reassured him. “You’re going to be okay.”

“No,” Francis said. “I never will be.”

It felt like it was all falling apart. The restaurant, someone had half-recognized him.The coffee vendor who simply wasn’t there anymore.

And he was totally correct. On the whole ‘being watched’ thing. Not ‘going to be okay’. This is Kraber. ‘Kraber’ and ‘Fine’ could not be said to exist on even the same planet in most occurrences within the multiverse.

A rugged HLF man with a heavy wooden bolt action rifle, held together with good luck and electrical tape, stared down at him through an incongruously high-tech scope from a little scrabble of forest on one side of Mount Eustis, just above the highway.

“What’ve we here?” the man asked, zooming in on Kraber. The L5 Photonics scope didn’t really belong, not really. First, it’d been a gift, second, on the old Mauser, it fit as well as a modern dashboard with all the glowing lights in a Model T Ford. “Little Vicky Kraber, what’re you doing?”

He’d come here because he’d heard Yael Ze'ev was coming. And where Yael Ze'ev was, HLF had a tendency to die. Not just the mediocre dogs or the ones who forgot what they were supposed to be, no - even the ones like Kraber who were too violent, too cruel, too sadistic, too crazy, and even the ones who knew the true path, like the man thanked his lucky stars he did. All of them. Yael didn’t discriminate. The town in Quebec had proven that: sure, there'd been swine and scum there… but he knew there'd been good men too, buried amongst it. And there'd been others, too. Innocents.

But of all the people he’d expected to see in this town, besides Johnny C and Fiddlesticks, (who lived around here) Kraber was at the bottom of the list.

Which should’ve been impossible.

First, Kraber down there had been reported as dead almost a week ago under mysterious circumstances, and rumors were flying. Second, he was standing around ponies, making friendly conversation. Something more than a little unlikely. Okay, more than unlikely. Impossible.

And, oddly enough, there were other HLF on the outskirts of time that he’d met. Sons of Macha, they were - in league with Aaron O’Donnell. Led by some ex-IRA man whose brother had gone newfoal, the sniper would have had low regard for them, if not for the fact that he’d seen far worse. When you’d seen Lovikov - who O'Donnell was rumored to be in contact with - being led by one of the bloody kitchen Irish wasn’t too bad. They’d called him brother, but he hadn’t returned the gesture. Something seemed wrong about them - the stench of men who'd lost their way, men who should've been strung up.

“What are you doing?” the man repeated softly.

At the moment, trying and failing to relax.

It had been a decent night, and Francis could almost forget about the little filly that had nearly recognized him.

Almost. He had just been on the cusp of calming himself, playing Overwatch (ah, the joy of playing McCree) curled up in the little nest he’d made, stuffed animals scattered around him. Kate… she’d loved the Borderlands games. Loved games of all kinds.

“...I’m worried about Rivet,” Amber Maple said to him, and Francis looked up.

“Hrmmm?” Francis asked, sliding off his headphones. Ambassador Nikai the Second was arranged on the bedspread, paws held out so it looked like he was reading Johnny C’s book. The little stuffed wolf had just gotten to the part where he and the ragtag PHL had followed the trail into the woods...

“Guess he’s a voracious reader,” she said, pointing to the stuffed wolf with her right foreleg.

“It’s what any good ambassador should do,” Francis said sagely.

“What, Lyra?” Amber Maple asked. Her big green eyes were quizzical.

“No, see, he’s an ambassador wolf, and-”

“Just screwing with you,” she said, smiling. The two of them hoofbumped, or fistbumped, or whatever you call it when a man bumps a fist with a tiny horse’s hoof.

“What’re you worried about, though?”

“Rivet wants to be like you,” Amber said.

“Holy fok no!” Francis gasped, earning a Look from Aegis, who was on the phone in the kitchen. Phones for ponies were a tricky business, so usually they involved a dial and a crank, possibly also a headset. Aegis, similarly tired from his own job on nearby farms, seemed almost lethargic as he received a call from some pony in the PHL. “Oh GOD NO! NO! OH NO! OH FOK! OH FOK NO! FOK NO! Nooo… fokkin… fokker-fokkin… FOK! FOK! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOO! NO! FOK!”

Amber trotted backwards, an uneasy look on her face.

“FOK NO!” Francis yelled. “That’s the worst fokkin thing he could… how’d the fokkin… how the fok’d he fokkin… fok...FOK!”

Aegis glared over at him.

“...ya done illustrating the diversity of the word?” Amber said, head cocked quizzically.

“Nah, I still have a bit left in me. FOK! Okay, I’m done. Tell him to get be…. tae stoap thinking ay me like that,” Francis said. “You dinnae know what I did before I came here, and if you dinnae want your ni-” Francis stopped, abruptly, and reconsidered what he was about to say.

“What?” Amber asked.

“I can say with utter certainty,” Francis said, unnerved by the calm in his voice, “that wanting tae be me is the worst thing eh can dae right now, an the worst decision eh’ll make in ehs laff.”

--ooh, me accent’s slipping! Amber says.

--It’s hard to maintain an accent while you’re that woedend, Kraber says. --And gesuip.

“It’s just… he’s been trying to get into the booze. He wants an assault saddle,” Amber said. “Dad’s busy enough he can barely deal with it.”

“What do you need me to do?” Francis asked.

“Just… make sure he doesn’t forget to be a colt sometimes,” Amber said. “He hasn’t for awhile.”

“Seriously,” Fiddlesticks said. “That foal needs help.”

The conversation did not merely derail, but careened off into the forest and exploded.

“How long have you been here?!” Amber yelped at the yellow-furred earth pony mare.

“We couldn’t sleep, so we broke in,” Fiddlesticks said.

By most standards, Francis could be considered insane. There were the voices in his head. There was the fact that his disguise was paper-thin at best and he was seriously lucky that nobody with basic facial-recognition software had found him yet. There was the fact that he thought bloodshed and violence were enjoyable, even funny. There was the insomnia. The night terrors.

However, this was just too much.

“...What,” Francis said, finally. “You… you broke… insomnia…”

“I don’t,” Amber said, forehooves to her face. “I just… oh God…”

“Hey, don’t knock it till you try it,” Nny called over, walking down the stairs. “Fiddlesticks and I couldn’t sleep, once, so we broke into a friend’s house. We were out like lights! It’s worked ever since!”

Amber fell on her side, motionless. Like an immobile plastic doll someone had pushed to the side. Her legs were perfectly inert.

“I… what,” she moaned. “You… how… why…”

“It’s Nny and Fiddlesticks, do you even care at this point?” Aegis asked, turning his attention away from the phone.

“Yes, because they’ve never broken into our house!” Francis replied. “Who even-”

“Hey, did Nny and Fiddlesticks break in again?!” Rivet called from the upstairs.

“YUP!” Amber Maple yelled back.

“Cool, ask ‘em if they brought any new comics!”

“We did!” Nny yelled back up.

“Really? You seriously haven’t seen this happen?” Fiddlesticks asked. “We did this all the time before you came here. Say, Aegis, is that truck with the beds still out back?”

Aegis nodded.

“Thanks,” Nny said. “Damnedest thing, someone actually put a grave a little bit near it.”

Amber just groaned and buried her face in her hooves. “The stuff I deal with.”

It was probably for the best that whoever was on the other end of the phone picked up at that moment.

"Hello then," Aegis said in the background. "Weird how much of this involves Boston, huh. The Carters were from Boston, Kraber went to college there... The PHL set up shop there..."

Francis paused his game, and he and Amber turned their heads to Aegis, confused.

"...she didn't make it," Aegis said. A brief pause. “Oh, Sweet Luna. No."

Another pause.

"The TV is on, why do you..."

Sutra Cross' photo - a yellow mare with a bobcut, and a blue health kit with a green cross in the center as her cutie Mark - was all over the TV.

"Sutra Cross' body has been found in Boston Harbor by one of the fishing crews. It's suspected that this is a symbolic gesture by the HLF...

"No..." Francis heard Aegis whisper. "Oh Luna, no.... Sweet Zacherle, oh Faust, oh no… God no..."

"Her body shows signs of abuse and severe trauma," the newscaster continued. "the medicine from her caravan has not resurfaced, so-"

"Those fokkin kontgesigs," Francis whispered, now halfway back to being Kraber, and Aegis was taken aback to see the raw, burning hatred in his friend's eyes. "Those bastards..."

He was shaking.

What made her so different?" Verity asks. "You'd killed plenty before then.”

“...Maybe I was acting,” Kraber suggests. “Maybe I wasn’t. But I’d just realized. From one doctor to another, that was fokkin’ pointless.”

“I miss her,” Scootaloo says, and you look at her, curious. “I mean… she was the one that got Wildfire to leave. She campaigned against the potion, she… she was like a second mother to me.”

“What happened to your parents?” you ask.

“Empire loyalists that weren’t too happy with what their fragile little filly had to say about the war,” Scootaloo says.

“I’m so sorry,” you say. “I could talk to mommy, she could help, and… and…”

“I like it, but Wildfire’s been a good mom herself,” Scootaloo explains. “Her and Sutra Cross worked together for it…”

“To a good mare,” Kraber says, raising up his bourbon.

"Wouldnae surprise me if they got high off the medication," Francis said, shaking like a leaf.

“That’s crazy!” Nny said. “They… they wouldn’t, they’re just…”

“Been spending too much time around Reavers, haven’t you?” Amber muttered.

“It’s not like that, it’s just…” Nny started.

“We know HLF, Nny,” Fiddlesticks said, nuzzling Nny just above the wasteline. “They would.”

“I’d hope yuir wrong, Fiddlesticks, but it’s something they’d dae,” Francis said. “Thae meds nivir surfaced, so the fokkin radges are keepin them. An I doubt they’d be paragons ay responsibility in nowt dippin intae the keg. Those bastards those bastards those grassin cunt bastards. They... And fir what? For fokkin what?! That isnae what ah joined the HTF fo! They tortured her, brutalized her, butchered her, stole medical supplies FIR FOKKIN WHAT?! They-"

The TV dissolved into squeals and pops as the newscaster looked taken aback, shouting at someone else, and then-

The screen was replaced with that of a person of indeterminate gender, wearing a rubber mask with fake blond hair, and big thick sunglasses you'd be surprised anyone could see out of. But then, that was the point.

"Let this be a lesson to all of you," they said, their voice so distorted it was nigh on unrecognizable. "We are the HLF, and we do not forgive. We do not forget."

Aegis and Francis stared on in rapt, horrified attention.

"The geldo scum that has infested our society is but Celestia's advance force," the person in the mask said. "They expect us to follow them. When Barrierfall comes, they will revoke the magic and tech that keeps us going. Your guns will fall to pieces. Your evac networks will crumble, the rails will shatter, and you'll be sitting ducks, ready to be ponified. We have received documents from PHL informants that say this is the case. The Archangel has told us so. And even if we didn't, I'd say it was rather obvious. Look at them, the horsefuckers and merry go round toys. We've seen enough of that, we've seen the pony capability for brainwashing. Do they seem TRUSTWORTHY?! THEYRE PONIES AND HORSEFUCKERS! THE ENEMY!"

"They just..." Aegis stared. It was almost unreal. "They declared war on the PHL. And they think, they fucking think that... Francis, you were HLF, why would they... How... You wouldn't do this, right?!”

Francis didn’t answer.

“They have invaded us, as they have anyone else,” the masked man said. “And so, we took that bitch and we dumped her in Boston Harbor. I think any American should realize the symbolism…”

“Huh?” Francis and Aegis asked, looking at each other.

“The boston tea party,” the masked man said. “Our leader, Michael Carter - who you have refused to release - would appreciate the irony. We took the poison you would peddle, and dumped it in the sea.”

"...I might have done it," Francis said. "But I sure as fok wouldnae now. You and the foals, and Ze'ev and Heliotrope and everyone else have been good enough to me I wouldn't dream of it now."

Aegis had one hoof to his face, as he nervously shifted the red bandanna that covered his head. "They declared war on the PHL…Oh, shit. I’m getting Rivet,” he said, and rushed for the stairs.

Someone ran up to the door. It was a beggar - a man with a patch of hairy, scabby skin over one of his eye sockets, on equal level to his nose at some points. The hair was black and bristly, like part of a brush. He had part of a thin, ancient red-and-white ski serving as the foot of his prosthetic leg.

“It’s HLF,” he said. He had a look of panic on the remaining ¾ of his face, and he was carrying an ancient-looking gun made of a patchwork of M16 and AR-15 parts, with a wooden stock.

Nny stared for a moment. “Paul? Where’d you even get that?”

“I have a home, you know,” said Paul the one-eyed man. “There’s HLF vehicles heading up here.”

“How can you tell they’re-” Amber started.

“The paint, the rust, the skulls, the symbols,” Paul snapped. “Does it matter? Just keep your damn heads down.”

He closed the door and rushed off down the street.

And Francis listened.

They could hear cars on the highway nearby, birds, the weathervanes creaking in the wind. But they could hear something else. Something that sounded suspiciously like charging handles being cocked, boots clomping against grass and dirt.

“Oh, shit,” Francis said, looking out the window. There were pickup trucks, battered-looking cars with awkward modifications, with a few awkwardly placed gun turrets here and there. The people they were carrying were absolutely not military. They slouched too much. Their armor and their clothes were studded with almost tribal sigils: teeth, numbers, bits and pieces from long-atomized Europe.

Nny, Fiddlesticks, Amber Maple and Francis stood in the living room.

Francis was practically plastered against the wall, his Remington ACR held close to his chest, barrel uncomfortably close to his lower jaw. Aegis was standing by the top of the stairs, in front of his son. Rivet was almost imperceptibly falling back behind his massive father. Amber was just barely out of view, behind the wall separating the staircase from the rest of the living room that Francis had turned into his bedspace.

Rivet, peering from behind his father, was watching Francis with rapt attention. He was flattened against the wall, screwing what looked like a soda can to the end of his rifle.

They could hear motors and footsteps outside. Coming closer…

FOK! Francis screamed internally. Every instinct in his body was screaming at him: leave.

‘Oh fok no. They can’t be here. They can’t… they’ll find me. And they’ll fokkin’ hurt me.’ That train of thought abruptly stopped. ‘Actually, why don’t I just kill them? That would be fokkin’ kwaai! ~~Kraber~~ Francis thought.

And then, as he stared at Amber, Aegis, Rivet, and Fiddlesticks trembling, at Nny… doing…

He looked like he’d gone too far in the opposite direction. Like the HLF’s appearance had drained him of energy.

“I have some body armor,” Nny said, his quavering voice completely at odds with the statue-like posture he had adopted. “F-f-fiddlesticks. C-c-can you-”

Right. Nny gets all whimpery, Kraber remembered. Shit. If I kill them all… a lot of people die. These five do. And I think they’re fokkin’ lekker. My damn chommies. It’s too big a risk, and… dammit. I like these people.

“Sure,” Fiddlesticks said, “I can-”

“I need tae hide,” Francis hissed. “I think I pissed off these people. If they know who I am, what I’ve done… then I’m gauntae have to hide in the woods.”

“Daddy? Mr. Francis? Everyone?” Amber Maple asked. “I’m scared.”

Author's Note

This chapter was named after a song I think you know I'm well familiar with. A song involving cooks getting killed...

Nah, I'm just kiddin. The chapter's named after a Biting Elbows song, of course this is Kill The Cooks.

Fun fact: This was originally meant to be released at the same time as the new chapter of Calm, among... other stuff I work on.... but, well, it just didn't work out. Oh well.

Hype Waltz

Hype Waltz
Editors/Co-Authors:
Jed R

Wait here please
Don't tell me things are under control please
When I know you know what it is that awaits me
And I know you know what it's gonna do to me
Fuck you start talking

I thought about
Thinking of the truth
Then I got a little angry and I chipped a tooth
perhaps if I brushed my mind more often
Then it wouldn't get darker and it wouldn't soften
Biting Elbows, Hype Waltz

“You know… I was really getting used to the quiet life.”
Vash The Stampede, Trigun.

Subjects Johnny C Philip Heald and Fiddlesticks Apple, a New Hampshire native and Apple Family member. Both were present at the Alaska Incident. Investigations still underway.

Interviewer: “Hello again.”

Johnny C: “It’s nice to see you again. Glad it’s under better circumstances.”

Fiddlesticks: “You darn right! No totem-proles, no newfoals, just free coffee and an interview. Ah, so very relaxin’...”

Interviewer: “Well, thank you, Fiddlesticks. Sorry for blowing off your interview. There was an emergency with, uh… a certain crystal pony’s psychologist. Sort of.”

Fiddlesticks: “Oh! Is ae doing alright?”

Interviewer: “At this point, I’m more worried about aer psychologist. But ae’s doing well.

Johnny C and Fiddlesticks breathe sighs of relief

Fiddlesticks: “Poor Chalcedony. Been through too much, that one.”

Johnny C: “Honestly, I feel more sorry for aer. What with being-”

Interviewer: “Look, we all know about that. Now, I understand you two were with Yael two weeks ago. During the HLF purge. You were also present for the attack on Defiance.”

Johnny C: “Yessir. Nice family outing with my cuz. Cept for the Battle of Montreal."

Fiddlesticks: “Absofrigginlutely. If not for Kraber, if not for...”

Interviewer: “It was a horrible time. I also understand that you were part of a team which, counting Kraber, are responsible for most of our breakthroughs on totem-proles. Twice over. And might I congratulate you on the Alaska Incident? Thank you so much again for the… item… that you retrieved from Alaska.”

Johnny C “You mean the totem prole?”

Interviewer: “Certainly, but I also mean the other one. Object E12-18-1”

Fiddlesticks: “Shame, too, that thing was really warm.”

Interviewer: “It certainly is. It’ll be very useful, I promise.”

Fiddlesticks: “Can’t rightly imagine how. It was nothin’. Jest doin’ a job for an ol’ friend.”

Johnny C: “Well, much as getting an Ulfberht then a Leshiy, killing newfoals, and resurrecting a steam engine is just a job. Hell, I just did what I was asked. Even gave the Ulfberht over to Simo.”

Interviewer: “You used a sword?!”

Johnny C: “I prefer hatchets and trench knives. No, an Ulfberht is a .338 rifle. Damn good gun in the wilds, especially with a Trackingpoint scope, but I like the Leshiy more.”

Interviewer: “I see. There is a project I have in mind, however, and I need your input.”

Fiddlesticks: “Ah ain’t a scientist, doubt I could help that much. You should prob’ly ask Heliotrope ‘r somepony like that. Tartarus, Ah’m a fiddler, hunter and… a-gri-cul-tural con-sul-tant. Not a tech expert.”

Johnny C: “I can’t even use a DVD player.”

Fiddlesticks: “But then, Ah can’t either. How do y’all use so many tiny buttons! The ones on that touchscreen’re smaller ‘n you’re finger!”

Johnny C: “Lots of trial and error. And, uh… a flip phone might be better.”

Fiddlesticks: “Could be. Ah do have good dexterity thanks t’the fiddlin’...”

Interviewer: “Do you two have any attention span at all?”

Johnny C: “I get bored easily.”

Fiddlesticks: “What he said.”

Interviewer: “Please. For a minute. I just need to understand your experience. And I’ll take your advice about seeing Heliotrope.”

Fiddlesticks: “Mind if Ah ask what this is fer?”

Interviewer: “A project I have planned for Barrierfall.”

Johnny C: “Could this project… stop it? Make sure we’re at least less fucked? Let me keep my life, or what’s left of it? Or left of everyone else’s?”

Interviewer: “Probably.”

Fiddlesticks: “Then we can help. What is this about?”

Interviewer: “There’s two things I need to know. First… I need you explain what happened to Spurred Weld. Second, I need you to explain Gestalt and the Hotline. I need to know the capabilities of totem-proles as best I can,”

(Fiddlesticks and Johnny C look at each other.)

Fiddlesticks: “That’s a hell of a story. But alright - see, Spurred Weld had a devil of a time keepin’ th’ train t’gether. We’d been going hours, th’ train kept juddering.”

Johnny C: “Hope I never have to see a unicorn keep a train together and steaming on green wood again.”

Fiddlesticks: “Hell of a thing!”

Johnny C: “Thanks for the mocha, by the way. You make damned good pick-me-ups.”

Fiddlesticks: “Thanks!”

Johnny C: “Good thing I had the night vision scope…”

Interviewer: “Oh God dammit!”

Johnny C: “Right. We’d decided to rest, and I was keeping watch on top of the old boxcar we’d taken to house the totem-prole, but there were still ponified miners, workers, and royal guard on our tail. Probably following the track. We’d gotten onto trackage that was actually maintained, and we were heading for civilization. Amaruq had a GPS out, and was radioing the railroad, saying we were on the tracks-”

Fiddlesticks: “Got so many weird looks when we came into the station. Ah mean, here’s that train station in the middle of Alaska, when suddenly, we all rush outta boxcar, and we start trying to call the nearest PHL, Amaruq has that 10-gauge out while he’s guarding the boxcar, Vera has her Leshiy aimed at one guy with the HLF jacket-”

Interviewer: “Vera? You mean Lov-”

Fiddlesticks: “Vera Low. There’s a steam locomotive taking up one platform right in front a diesel loco and people are missing the train, and you, Nny, y’ were practically screaming bloody murder into a cell phone…”

Johnny C: “What a clusterfuck. We… lost some friends that day. Still, hard not to smile - glad we both got through it.”

Interviewer: “Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

Fiddlesticks: “Just saying. It looked weird to everyone else in Alaska. Sandalwood took over the train, by the way… she was kinda busy.”

Johnny C “Anyway, Spurred Weld got a well-needed break, he’s sleeping in the boxcar under some blankets that we found, when suddenly, he starts screaming.”

Fiddlesticks: “Yeah. He’s swatting at his body, ramming his skull into th’ floor of the traincar, screamin’ ‘Get it off! GET IT OFF!’ So I dumped snow on his balls.”

Interviewer: “Why would you do this?”

Fiddlesticks: “You’d snap out of a psychotic break if you got snow on your balls, wouldn’t ya?”

Interviewer: “...I don’t know how to respond to that.”

Fiddlesticks: “Anyway, somethin’ bout the totem-prole got in his skull when he was sleepin’. Said he felt like he was bein’ eaten by crystal-”

Interviewer: “I see. He managed to… connect to the network somehow?”

Fiddlesticks: “If ya want t’put it that way… suppose so, yes.”

Johnny C: “Wait, son of a bitch! Don’t you remember that recording that sounded like a man getting messily disembowelled by an animatronic bear?!”

Fiddlesticks: “That one sounded more like an animatronic rabbit to me.”

Interviewer: “What are you two on about? How can you even-”

Johnny C: “Now that you mention it, Fiddly, it did sound more like a rabbit. Or a purple sociopath…”

Fiddlesticks: “Purple socio… SON OF A FUCKIN WHORE! Weld musta been remembering somepony else’s memories! That sound! Those things we saw on the Fillydelphia!”

Johnny C: “...Oh dear God in heaven.”

TAPE CORRUPTED

Kraber Francis

Kraber lay on the corrugated metal roof of Aegis’ house, staring through a pair of binoculars awkwardly trying to avoid the metallic arms (was that the word?) that would affix them to a harness on the massive stallion’s barrel.

He could see the vehicles - they were all so poorly maintained that they were no doubt HLF. Thrown together awkwardly with spare parts, with guns and spikes protruding from their frames. Graffiti, vaguely tribal slogans in various languages.

They looked to be heading straight towards Littleton’s main street.

“Fok,” he said, surprised at the quiet in his own voice. ‘They found me.’

He considered that, and shrugged. No, probably not - they were heading away from the Neighborhood. That wouldn’t make sense.

‘But what if they do find me?’

Well, whatever happened, it couldn’t end well. The HLF didn’t have much patience for defectors, or anyone that tried to stop them from… from whatever they had planned.

And suddenly Kraber was somewhere very much like here. A town in in the West, not too far from Reavers. He’d been with some Menschabwehrfraktion detachment along with Lovikov and Helmetag - old Helmetag, the man who used to run them.

They’d been hokken fonger. The old saying was that an army traveled on its stomach, and they simply couldn’t move on it. So they’d moved into a dorpie essentially taken over by HLF and far enough from anything major that it could simply fall off the map one day and nobody would notice. Really, the town that seemed to mostly coast by on inertia. He remembered the way the civvies had just scuttled across streets as gun barrels tracked them. The way one of them had been shot for, to put it lightly, stupid fokkin’ kak.

He couldn’t remember what it was, but they could’ve been shot for anything. Nobody had batted an eye. He hadn’t, either.

Kraber wished he could say that he’d left because of that. Instead, he’d just gotten bored and wandered off, then convinced the Reavers to employ him.

‘Why do I keep doing the right thing for the worst fokkin’ reasons?’ he wondered.

He also remembered the look of terror on that person’s face before the shotgun’s barrel came up to their eye, and finally understood.

‘So here’s why he was afraid the way he was,’ Kraber thought. ‘Here’s some people acting like they’re fokkin’ obligated your gratitude, like they-

He froze.

Somebody was up there.

‘I fokkin’ knew it.

Through his scope, he could see a man in odd armor, staring down the oddly advanced scope of a bolt-action rifle. It looked like a Mauser.

‘They’re on to me!

Wait. No. That was a Reaver, he was sure of it. Some guy with… with… fok it, he couldn’t remember who. And furthermore, the Reaver wasn’t aiming at him - he was staring down at the HLF. Kraber just happened to be in his scope’s field of vision.

‘So a Reaver, a sociopath, and a bunch of HLF walk into a town full of ponies…’

It was like a lightbulb went off in his head, and like he knew gravity pushed down, Aegis was the best stallion he’d ever known, and water was wet, he knew that this would not end well.

‘This is so going to get ugly.’

So, flashing the Reaver a quick middle finger, he crawled off the roof, swinging himself through an open window.

???

Kraber saw him.

The rugged HLF man stared down at the movement below, at Kraber flipping him off and clambering into the building’s windows.

Still staring down the scope, he thumbed out a text to Preston: ‘Drop what you're doing and head for Littleton. Either these people have developed consciences or they're going to massively fuck up.”

“You know other HLF say this is why they don't trust us?”

“You know I headbutted the last person who said that?”

“Point.”

Whatever these HLF were doing, the sniper had heard that it seemed genuine. That Asa Bowen really did want out.

Anyway. Yarrow had, for some reason, trusted them. But then, Yarrow was a bit desperate for other HLF to trust nowadays. They hadn't heard from Kevin in weeks, or from any of the other old hands they'd pulled together on the Purity.

“What’s going on?” the sniper asked, peering through his L5 Photonics scope, down at the men and women crowding around this little neighborhood. In fact, crowding most of the town.

“I have friends in the Sons of Macha and Menschabwehrfraktion who says that a huge detachment just up and left them. Keep an eye on them, I don't trust them.”

“Roger.”

Yarrow’s distrust had needed no explanation.

What separated the Reavers from HLF like those three was that the Reavers were full aware they’d ‘elected’ a lunatic to head their operation, and that Yarrow actually had a conscience. Too many HLF, it seemed, considered cruelty a leadership quality.

“Dear Whoever’s Listening,” the sniper whispered. “Let this not get fucked up.”

His prayer would not be answered.

Aegis

“What’s it look like?” Aegis finally asked.

~~Kraber~~ Francis looked deep in thought, stroking the awkward, uneven stubble of his chin.

“Are they outside?!” Amber Maple whisper-whimpered, backing away behind the great white furry bulk of her father. Rivet hadn’t moved, but he was shaking.

“No,” Francis said. “They’re in main street. But there’s a sniper watching them, and…” he looked down, and there was an indescribable look on his face. Equal parts fear, regret, and anger. “Look. This is going to get ugly. I don’t care how legitimate someone sounds, or if the Reavers pour out of boltholes and intimidate these bastards into submission, this. Will not. End well.”

“Can we take th-” Rivet started.

“Hide somewhere,” Francis interrupted. “Rivet, don’t provoke these people.”

There was a flash of anger on Rivet’s face, and Aegis found himself worried about his son. More than usual, anyway.

“But that’s-” he started.

“Our presence provokes these people,” Amber Maple said simply.

Aegis nodded. ‘That’s exactly right.’

“Aweh,” Francis said, and the odd hints of that absolutely-not-scottsh accent surfaced once more. “Move wrong, breathe wrong, look at them wrong, don’t look at them wrong enough…”

‘There’s something ragged in his voice. Something manic,’ Aegis thought. ‘He’s…’

And suddenly he knew.

‘He’s done this before.’

“I can’t be any more specific. But I pissed the HLF off. I left them during a… delicate time,” Francis said carefully. “Okay, it wasn’t delicate. It was exploding all around us and I wanted to be somewhere else, and as far as anyone knows, I stole a boatload of guns and left people to die. So I’m going to continue being somewhere else. Do you have a panic room somewhere?”

“Yeah,” Aegis said. “Sixstring and I dug a basement just in case.”

Francis blinked. “You never told me about that.”

“Yeah, well,” Aegis said, “I’ve got…. I have some trust issues. With my wife, and...”

He fell silent. Whatever had happened, he obviously didn’t want to talk about it.

“Daaaad,” Amber hissed.

“But Francis is-” Rivet started.

To his surprise, Francis laughed. A smile on his face. “That’s perfectly understandable. I don’t trust me either. Now if anyone asks, I was never here. You’re a single father alone with his ki… with his foals, and that mattress is for Nny.”

He opened a window and crawled through. Something about it looked, to Aegis, almost… predatory. Like one of those wild canines from africa. With the huge, wide, alert ears, and long, thin, lanky legs.

“Goodbye,” he said. “It was a good run, but I have to leave. I’m sorry for everything, but… thanks.”

It couldn’t be, Aegis thought. Something’s not right about him…

Kraber

He was heading into town. He’d kept an eye on timetables, and while he wasn’t exactly sure when a train would come through, he knew one would have to soon. There were plenty of trees lining the streets, enough to obscure him wherever he went.

He was heading down towards town, now. The lights weren’t on, which made this more easy than the times he’d had to sneak through Boston at midnight.

Thank you Lord. he thought, giving a silent prayer for the mere existence of electricity rationing.

It looked like this place had been quiet, once. Residential. The kind of place where people could have quiet lives between tourism seasons.

Not so much, anymore.

Kraber peered out between the trees just outside of a church. Staying in the shadows, he crept down, down towards the river in the middle of the valley. He was about to head down towards main street when-

Someone was ahead of him. The rusty, coppery pipe gun in their hands glinted in the moonlight.

Of fokkin’ course.

The stranger was in the standard HLF uniform. A bastardized hazmat suit, armor with spikes placed on shoulder armor and kneepads.

‘I’m being watched,’ he thought. ‘They’re all here with m-

For a second, he smirked.

They weren’t watching ~~Francis~~ Kraber. He was there. Watching them.

‘Maybe I can kill them,’ he thought. He did have a ~~silenced~~ suppressed pistol.

Then he considered this. The sound, the bloodstains, the question of what to do with the body. No, that wasn’t fokkin’ well worth it.

Still, though. Main street below was crawling with HLF. None of whom looked like they were exactly paragons of sanity or reasonable reactions to-

December 25th, 2022

”Really,” Verity says.

“Ja, and that’s fokkin’ well coming from me,” Kraber answers.

Anyway.

He needed some fokkin’ way around them. It wasn’t like he could just cross the street in plain view...

Aegis

“Into the basement,” Aegis said. He’d strapped on his assault saddle, and was covering the door as his two foals clambered down the stairs. “Now.”

“But dad-” Rivet protested.

‘I really wish we made this thing only accessible to ponies,’ Aegis thought.

“Look, Hauser, Orzala, and Blackpowder live nearby,” Rivet was pleading. “If I can get my assault saddle, maybe I can-”

Aegis stared down at him.

“Amber has one, I can’t-”

“Rivet,” Aegis said. He was not asking. He was not commanding. He was not pleading. “Now.”

Rivet headed downstairs wordlessly.

‘Good’ Aegis thought, and followed them down after closing the door and enveloping the three of them in darkness.

‘Darkness’ might have been underselling it. There weren’t any lights, weren’t any comforts other than a few mats off to the side, and there were no windows. Just a dark room buried under a shipping container. A couple square feet of blackness.

Thankfully, Aegis had night vision goggles. So, crisis sort of averted.

He picked up a walkie-talkie in his mouth, pressing one of the buttons, and pressed it to one ear with a foreleg.

“Nny? Fiddlesticks?” he asked. “How’s it looking out there? Where are you guys?”

Nny’s voice crackled to life over the walkie-talkie. “In the shit, up to here?”

“And?”

“And I told you.”

Fiddlesticks sighed. “We’re over by the baseball diamond. Hiding on one side of a roof.

“How did you-” Rivet started, eagerly. Aegis just put a hoof to his son’s mouth. He looked over to Amber - she looked to be quivering, curling up into a ball in the corner.

She was shaking.

“An excellent question,” Fiddlesticks said. “Serious though, it looks like they… they’re over by the radio station. Looks like they’re setting up broadcast equipment.”

“Huh,” Aegis said. “Of all the things I expected, this was not it.”

“They’re still a lot of men and women with big trucks and guns,” Nny pointed out. “Either way, I’m keeping an eye out.”

“Right,” Aegis said, nodding and clicking off the walkie-talkie. With that out of the way, he walked to the corner where Amber was sitting and held both foals in his huge forelegs.

“Are we going to be okay?” Amber asked.

‘She’s just as afraid as Rivet,’ Aegis thought. ‘Merciful Faust. I hope I did the right thing…’

“Don’t worry,” he said, squeezing them a bit tighter than was necessary. “We’re going to be fine.”

Kraber

Kraber crossed the street in plain view.

Calmly. Purposefully. It was amazing how far that could get him. It was how he’d ended up joining the Reavers. It was how disguising himself as Ivan Bliss had worked. It was how he’d gotten through Portland.

Of course, the fact that there was a large crowd of curious onlookers, assorted rubberneckers, and the sort of people who gawked at crime scenes helped as well. In the midst to all those people, he was just… unimportant.

It was by the time he was on Green Street, in plain view of the covered bridge across the Ammonoosuc River, that the thought occurred.

Voetsek?

What the hell. Why not? It was what he always did. And the Neighborhood would be, as a whole, of better off without him. Find out you got your wife pregnant when she was underage? Disappear into Boston’s night life, ignore classes for a bit. Afraid of balancing life with his job? Throw himself into his job so his family could at least have something like a life. Family got ponified? Leave the realm of the sane, ignore your morals, start killin’ kontgesigs! Can’t deal with the HLF anymore? Leave in the middle of a battle!

‘It is amazing that I haven’t thought more about this glaring character flaw,’ Kraber thought as he made his way through the parking lot.

The covered bridge walkway was just ahead. There’d be a train soon. As for the stuff he buried? Aegis and his foals would probably find it. Probably.

Kraber was not fokkin’ dof. He was aware that his disguise couldn’t last. That there were dark and siff things around New England. That there were plots and strategems just out of notice. Whatever Lovikov was doing with the ‘Hotline’. The rumors - hell, the actual fokkin’ confirmation - of Shieldwall’s presence. Gestalt’s transmissions.

December 25, 2022

”It’s weird to scheme about it,” Kraber says. “But for most of the time I spent in Littleton, I didn’t have any involvement with this kak.”

“Wait, seriously?” Vinyl asks. “But… this is kind of your story. That’s how you explained it to us.”

“And that’s why we’re here,” Heliotrope says. “While Gestalt was doing… uh… Gestalt things-”

Aegis just shrugs and rolls his eyes. “Okay. Long story short, he spent most of the time trying to keep his head down. I don’t know if he totally understood what was happening until-”

“About a week later,” Kraber interrupts.

Aegis blanches. Which is impressive cause he already has paper-colored fur. “...oh.”

“Ja,” Kraber says, looking downcast. He’s silent for a moment. Then: “I… wanted to keep my kop down. And I was happy with that.”

“While also killing a huge amount of PER, recording an ad that would work in Welcome To Night Vale, and trying to make friends with an entire neighborhood,” Yael says, rolling her eyes.

“I didn’t say I was fundi at it,” Kraber says. “Hey. Wait. You luister to Night Vale?”

“With Nny being… Nny… it was kind of unavoidable,” Yael says.

“Aweh. Anyway,” Kraber says. “It’s hard not to lag when I think about it, but… I didn’t know kak. I didn’t have any evidence, but I felt like it was all connected.”

“It was,” Yael says.

“And whatever the fok happened,” Kraber continues. “I wanted to voetsek. Before it got any more befok. “

“Oh no, the slang,” Vinyl groans. “It’s back! With a vengeance!”

“I’ve been talking in Scots accent for too long, this is fokkin’ kwaai!” Kraber crows. “I’d figured it was for the best that I left. I was scheming...” He pauses to think. “I don’t fokkin’ know where I’d end up. Maybe Boston, hopefully as far away as possible.”

“But you didn’t,” Aegis says.

And you think on that. No, he totally didn’t.

Aegis

Aegis could hear it all in that dark night, as he cringed deep in the recesses of the house. The place actually did have a basement. A hidey-hole under the stairs. But for some reason…

Something hadn’t made him feel right letting Francis know. For all his good qualities, something was wrong with Francis. Something… under him. Like a black oil slick, threatening to ooze out from underneath.

But he kept it under lock and key. Still, for all he’d proved himself, Aegis felt he had the right to a secret or three.

“-Things are dangerous out here,” Aegis could hear someone calling. Loud. Assertive. It was crackling over the radio upstairs, from down in town over what was almost certainly a set of speakers.

The voice of someone who wasn’t just used to being obeyed, the voice of someone who took it as an absolute certainty.

Not unlike Shieldwall, actually.

Please don’t be Shieldwall, Aegis thought, hooves clasped around his foals. He wasn’t sure if he was praying or not.

“WE ARE NOT HERE TO HARM YOU!” a woman called. Their voice was a broad Maine drawl, the kind Nny would say sounded almost Southern. “My name is Asa Bowen - and I have taken the brave men and women of both the Menschabwehrfraktion and Sons of Macha here, to Littleton. We have taken control of this town’s radio station. All above-board. All legal. I know how it sounds.”

Aegis rolled his eyes in the dark. He’d heard the woman on HLF pirate radio now and then, short snippets.

Asa Bowen. One of the Sons Of Macha, and aligning herself with Menschabwehrfraktion - the people that’d caused untold amounts of suffering in the last month of so. Neither of whom truly filled him with confidence.

“We may be the HLF,” Bowen said, “But we are here to-”

Kraber

He was crouched down low to the walls of the bridge so that nobody could see him. There was a train coming, wasn’t there?

“What, you’re here to fokkin’ press all the ponies and innocents up the gat and throw them out a fokking window?” Kraber asked under his breath, as he moved towards the train station. The lights were on. It was so close! So close he could almost touch it. What the Voice from outside had really said was the word ‘help’. As in: We are here to bring aid of some kind, along with protection.

In Kraber’s experience, what this meant in HLF terms involved killing ponies, scaling valuables and food from houses, and maybe sticking around if there was a PER attack, or PHL were nearby. It’d worked out west, in towns belonging to antigovernment types.

And then, of course, civilians would die. Collateral, of course. But that was the price of fokkin’ safety, wasn’t it? Death is better than fokkin’ ponification, so if we kill you, we’re still doing you a kindness? Was that how it worked? Was that how it fokkin’ worked? What a fokkin’ piece of shit I am, Kraber thought. I’m not thinking this cause it’s the worst-case scenario. I’m thinking this because…

Because it’s what I won’t do.

Not. Fokkin’ ever. Again.

He could imagine himself taking out a knife, shoving it into one of those fokkin throats, and twisting…

Or maybe my own, he thought. They’re probably better off without me. Happier, too, I could just-

He abruptly remembered that ice cream existed.

Fok it, nevermind. But there were more people in the woods, he thought. No. Too risky. He thought. Ah, fok, why’d I even come out here? They’re trigger-happy, they’re…

He squinted into the darkness.

...bung.

There was something taut and rigid in the HLF he saw, their faces lit by flashlights duct-taped and railed to their battle-scarred weaponry. They were scared, anyone could see that.

But they’re usually too fokkin’ dof to let ourselves be scared, Kraber thought. What has us… has them like that?

No. He killed them, as much as he’d enjoy it, it wouldn’t end well. It was for the best to just stay put.

“-Things are going to get far worse in the coming weeks,” Kraber heard a woman call out over the radio. He recognized the voice. “You know it, I know it, that’s just common sense. The PER attacks we’ve been stopping - you can even have our method of finding and stopping them, if…”

There was a strange quiet hanging over the NEIGHborhood.

Kraber didn’t know what it all meant. Knew that he shouldn’t suspect a connection to all the other weird kak going around, cause there was no fokkin’ proof.

But everything was telling him: Leave.

He heard the train coming. It looked like a passenger one this time.

Guess I could’ve done better at keeping my eye on the timetables…

Any minute it would stop here. Any minute he’d crawl into one of the cars, hide inside, and act as if he’d always been there.

"...If you let us stay,” Bowen said, audibly defeated.

‘What the fok?’ Kraber thought as he waited inside the station, reading a book. Nobody questioned it.

But then: These were Sons of Macha, and Menschabwehrfraktion. Saying they wanted to be allowed to stay.

“I know. But I’ve heard whisperings of something big. An Imperial attack,” Bowen said.

There was a shiver in her voice. Something was…. Something wasn’t right. She seemed genuinely afraid. Everyone else had noticed, and the room seemed to have fragmented into countless little discussions he had no chance of following.

“I know, we tell ourselves rumors about that all the time. They’ll come any minute now… Stuff like that. But knowing what I’ve seen, I don’t know how long they’ll be rumors. I also know that I want Lovikov as the first responder the way we want potion in our rations,” Bowen said.

Which was to say, not at all.

Smart of the pony residents to be hiding. If he was here, well. He knew exactly what he’d do.

‘Or maybe I don’t. Maybe I need to get those claymore mines and a Fostech,’ Kraber thought. ‘This was a terrible fokkin’ decision! What did I-’

Aegis

Aegis had long since learned to think of HLF as stupid. Able to be killed without much fanfare, like the Remnant Fleet forces in Titanfall 2. A vague annoyance that both factions mopped up, and absolutely impossible to reason with them. Stupid to the point of almost fearlessness.

Right?

And yet all indications were that something scared them.

What the hell could do that?! he thought.

“I always thought we could deal with people like Leonid Lovikov,” Bowen said. “Sure. Leave it to people like Yarrow, the PHL. But I’m beginning to think we can’t. He has a vision. Or…”

There was silence.

“Or he just doesn’t have a vision, falls down, barrels into somebody and destroys part of the room, and tells everyone, himself included, that it was part of the plan. This is not the man you want reacting to a possible Imperial attack. We were told that Defiance is safe, but I believe we will all be better off here. Away from Lovikov’s dream of the future, or what little we have left…”

Kraber

“...of the present,” Bowen said. “Sorry. Rambling. The point is, I’m not close enough to Lovikov’s inner circle of psychos to guess, but the implication I had… is that something big is coming. That the PER and possibly even the forces of the Solar Empire themselves are going to directly reshape the landscape. I don’t know if that’s what’ll happen, but Lovikov believes it will, so to Defiance it’s almost the same thing. I don’t know if the gluesticks have anything evil planned...”

Kraber considered the sheer fokkin’ absurdity of that sentence. ‘Oh, weird alien horses with giant eyes, that could be aaklig! Fok, my life is weird.’

“What in the fuck is this?” asked an earth pony mare with identical half-moon scars in her blue-gray fur at her flanks instead of a cutie mark. Kraber vaguely recognized her as coming back from Aegis’ trips to various farms.

‘Oh fok. Somebody must have cut them off…’

She looked like she’d packed in a hurry - several oversized suitcases sat nearby, and she looked like she hadn’t slept in a year.

“But you absolutely do not want a man like Leonid Lovikov talking about direct action, talking like he knows better,” Bowen continued. “I might as well just sell all New England to the Empire. It’d be quicker and more merciful than what Lovikov would do.”

Kraber considered this assertion. This… was not unlike Lovikov. ‘Why did I ever follow that fokkin’ kontgesig? Right, because he wasn’t my friend, just…’

He thought on it.

‘A fokkin’ enabler. I need to put varknaaiers like that behind me. Put good ponies like Aegis in front of me.’

“What the fok,” Kraber agreed as he and the cut-flank mare listened to the words coming from the speaker overhead. “What the fok indeed.”

“Lovikov’s dream of the future,” Bowen said, “Is madness. He wants the HLF to have weaponry on par with the PHL, and be unafraid to use it. He believes that there will be an Imperial attack, and that he can seize control of the PHL’s laboratories. That he can carve out his own little fiefdom with their tech. That his own arrogant amorality could win the war, like his desire to wear a jacket made of cutie marks is a strength. In a sane, world, he’ll fail. But this isn’t a sane world, and for all he’s said… I believe him about the imperial attack. I believe that there will be chaos. And I believe him when he says the Hotline is real. Because I have heard it.”

The train’s whistle sounded as it rolled towards the station. It looked like an odd assortment of locomotives - one oil-burning steam locomotive, one diesel, and some passenger cars.

“Koebaai,” Kraber said, nodding slowly. “See you later, my bru. Cheers.”

He wasn’t sure if he meant Nny, Fiddlesticks, Aegis, his foals, even Yael and Heliotrope, Sixstring, all the friends he’d made.

‘Linda’s going to be fokkin’ woedend when I don’t show up,’ Kraber thought as he walked to the ticket office. The line was short.

‘It was so easy to leave,’ he thought.

And so with that in mind, Kraber left.

He headed for the railroad line that passed through Littleton and jumped aboard a freight car, heading west. He hitchhiked across the country, meeting a lot of wacky and zany side characters. Breaking up inexplicable phenomena, like a cult in a sewer somewhere that brainwashed human and pony alike into compliance. Gambling, whoring, debauching himself across the states until finally getting shot by PHL or bounty hunters in a no-name town.

Aegis

Rivet gasped, and Aegis held his son in tighter as if that could stifle the sound. Were those… footsteps?! Growing ever-closer?!

He held his foals ever-tighter in his forelegs.

“I have heard the voice. Lovikov said it was the voice of god, and it spoke to me,” Bowen said. “Even those like you must consider that a gift from God, and I did. For a time.. It told us where to find PER, and smash the glowing spikes that PER carry. And when we did so, it was pleased. Thanks to that…“

“Angel?” someone suggested from the crowd.

“I’m not calling it that, Rumlind. Whatever that… thing is, it’s no angel. Thanks to that thing, Lovikov can get anyone on his side with a quick word. Same with the Sons of Macha, the ones who thought that they needed to protect a synagogue and found that you did it themselves. We are all that’s left of either. Lovikov took us to a cabin in the woods, an ancient place, and the voice of our friends and family, people we lost… they spoke to us from beyond ponification. They told us so many things...”

Kraber

That didn’t happen. None of the things he described to himself happened, on account of the fact that he was still in the station, still buying a ticket.

“I really want to believe it, you know,” Bowen said, and fell silent.

‘I wonder if she’s high?’ Kraber thought. But that thought dissipated when he considered the HLF that’d followed him. No way in hell that this many people would follow a woman who was high off her ass. Probably.

In spite of every instinct screaming in protest, he couldn’t run away.

‘What the fok am I doing?’

The last times he’d run away from stuff like this, there’d been a promise of something beyond. When he’d thrown himself into theater, he’d at least known he was going to enjoy it. Sure, he was overworked, but at least it was fun. When he’d thrown himself into work, at least he was providing. When he decided to kill every pony in sight, at least he could ~~tell himself~~ lie to himself and say they all deserved to die.

This time?

‘So what the fok do I do? Keep lying to myself? Bury more shit till I get gunned down like a dog in the street? It’s only a matter of time till someone finds me. There’s just… no point to so many fokkin’ things anymore. I’m fokked both ways, but at least if I’m here I’m among friends. There’s just…

There’s no fokkin’ point to running anymore. There is, really, maybe I should, but… but what’s left if I do? I fokkin’ well like my quiet life.’

The train’s brakes squealed in protest as it came towards the station.

‘I am just not feeling it,’ Kraber thought. ‘Look, what am I even supposed to do if I leave? Let my friends die? I should hide, ja, but…

“Sir?”

“Aweh?” Kraber asked, reaching to his hip for his wallet.

“The train to White River Junction,” the man behind the counter asked. “Are you leaving?”

The man behind the ticket counter looked… overstretched, as best Kraber could put it. Skin stretched taut, glistening with sweat. Glasses fogged over, slightly.

“Are you leaving?” he repeated, shaking like a leaf. “The HLF in town, the broadcasts… a lot of people are heading to greener pastures.”

It was then that Bowen’s words came back into life. “Not even that whatever Lovikov has found can tell me what Ross would’ve said. Not even that with all the things I’ve done, he’d still love me and tell me so. I want to believe the Hotline is fake! I really do!”

Kraber paused for a moment. Thought about where he’d go. About how he’d end up when he left these people that actually cared about him.

‘This is the worthwhile thing I get out of running,’ Kraber thought. ‘There’s… there’s nothing afterwards. Besides, I like Aegis. I like his foals. I like my fokkin’ quiet life.’

“Nooit,” he said, turning around. “Honestly, I’m just here to hide out.”

“Our basement,” the man behind the counter said.

Kraber raised an eyebrow. “Aweh?”

“It would be so much easier to believe that Lovikov only believes what he’d like to. That he moves the goalposts, changes the story so it was always his plan and he always knew what to do.”

‘That does totally sound like Lovikov, Kraber thought to himself.

“A lot of people had the same thought,” the man said. “There’s a secret exit somewhere too. Just in case of… you know. Barrierfall.”

“If this is how we act in peacetime,” Kraber sighed, “I don’t want to think about how that’ll go.”

“Honestly, I’m happier not thinking about it,” the man behind the counter said. “We’ll explode that bridge when we come to it.”

“You think that’s healthy?” Kraber asked.

“Personally?” asked the cut-flank mare with the suitcases. “No. Either you let these things keep you down until it’s too late, or… or you deal with them.” She looked at her flanks. “Ain’t easy.”

“But I don’t think that’s exactly what happened here,” Bowen said.

Kraber’s blood froze. “That’s good advice,” he told the mare. “By the way, where’s that basement? I… think I’m backing up the line. I... ”

He looked frantically from the ticket counter to an open doorway.

“You… kind of are,” the man behind the ticket counter said. “Anyway-” he pointed to one doorway. “There’s a staircase we covered up with a utility closet. Besides, a new customer is coming in.”

“I think that’s what Lovikov still is, but this gift, this thing… it’s the future, and it’s in the hands of a man with an astonishing capacity for self-delusion, rationalization, and cruelty,” Bowen said.

‘Okay, that is definitely Lovikov, Kraber thought, heading for the door the man had pointed towards. He was opening the door when it happened.

He couldn’t say what “it” was. Only that abruptly, the room had frozen. He should have kept going. Should have headed for the door. Should have just kept calm, personable, as he walked to their bolthole.

Probably should have stayed in Aegis’ basement.

‘The fok’s everyone looking at?’ he wondered as the room went silent. He heard the suitcase mare whimpering slightly.

And turned to see...

FOK!

Two HLF soldiers, barely more than children, stood nearby. One was female, holding an old pump shotgun. The other was male, holding a homemade assault rifle at the hip with homemade glowsights. It looked like it had been made from pipe and bits of airsoft gun. Whatever Bowen was saying seemed to melt away as Kraber saw them. It sounded like the buzz of electrical equipment, unimportant and faraway.

And it was currently being held in the direction of the mare with the suitcase.

‘...Fok. Don’t escalate this...

In truth, he didn’t really care about them, and wouldn’t lose much sleep if he shot them. But something in the pit of his stomach told him that shooting them would send the situation over the edge.

“Goddamn gluestick,” sneered the man - the boy - with the pipe gun.

”I won’t pretend we’re PHL material. Just let us stay the night. Let us stay here just a moment, let us… let us talk to them. Human to human. Human to pony, even,” Bowen said.

The mare with half moon scars on her flanks stood defiant.

“Keith,” the girl with the shotgun pleaded, “Don’t shoot her!”

“Or fucking what?” sneered the boy with the pipe gun. “You going horsefucker, Andy?”

”Lovikov… the divide he’ll create between armed and not, the things he’ll overturn… now isn’t the time for petty fighting, and I’m sorry to whoever listen that I didn’t think of it like that.”

“No,” the girl with the shotgun said. “Honestly, I don’t give a shit about her. Bowen, those Reavers… they said to avoid needless de-”

There was silence. Kraber desperately tried to be as unnoticeable as possible and fit through the doorway.

She was looking directly at him. He could feel it.

“Who’s that by the door?” asked the girl with the shotgun.

Kraber kept moving towards the door. The boy with the pipegun was already turning towards him.

Fokdammit.This is gonna get ugly, Kraber thought. I whip out a pistol, the .45 or the .44, and fokkin bliksem him.

But the surprising thing was that he didn’t really want to. They were scared, he thought. They’re…

“I’m not doing any harm,” Kraber said. Something about those words didn’t feel right. “I just want out.”

“An honest person wouldn’t have anything to hide,” said the girl with the shotgun.

“Oh, because the whole complete honesty thing is working out so well for you here,” Kraber heard himself say, and turned around to look at her. “If anything, you’re being too honest. You’re honest that you’re being a militia, so you roll into town with a metric fokton of guns. Your leader sounds like she’s having a panic attack. I’ll admit, she’s right about Lovikov, but have some damn subtlety.”

The room was silent.

‘There. I’ve shocked them enough I can leave. This is almost as good as that time I got out of a hostage situation by begging people to shoot me! Maybe I should’ve been more insistent,’ Kraber thought. “Now,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to hide out somewhere.”

“So are you hiding people we’d object to?” asked the boy with the pipe gun. Kraber looked at her. She was definitely scared - like everyone in the HLF here - but she looked oddly angry.

“There’s ponies here, so… yes?” Kraber asked.

The girl tensed. So did the boy with the pipe gun.

“When you’re done with whatever you’re doing,” Kraber said, “Give this kak up. You’re letting yourselves be monsters in the HLF. It didn’t make me happy, it didn’t bring my family back. You should…”

And then he realized. He didn’t know. He didn’t know how to describe it. But anything had to be better than being bossies and evil.

“Do something that helps other people out,” he said lamely. “Being HLF the way I was doesn’t help anyone. I work in a restaurant, I helped build houses...”

“You left us to die in Portland, you son of a bitch!” the boy with the pipegun yelled. “How dare you talk down to us like this?!”

“What are you talking about?” Kraber asked. “Left you to... “

“When the hostage situation failed,” the boy with the pipe gun said, “Someone left us to die on that rig. We had a boat. An escape route if things went south. And they did.”

“Norton,” the girl said, “Stop, just… just stop… please, he just wants out…”

“If you hadn’t left us to die, we might’ve had a chance! Lovikov might not have engaged the weapons! Carter might’ve come back, even, and then we’d have had a chance! Lovikov might not have talked to that… that goddamn thing!” Norton yelled. “It’s just more ponies trying to control us. And Lovikov’s entranced by it - he’s going crazy, and it’s all. Your. Fault. For making him so desperate. This is all on your head! You signed our death warrants, you son of a bitch!”

“Now… walk away,” the girl said.

“But he left us to die, Katie!” Norton said.

“He’s not worth it,” ‘Katie’ said. “We’ve got more important things.”

“When we’re done, the first thing we’ll do is to tell everyone you were here,” Norton said. “And tell them exactly why Portland is your fault. You bloodthirsty psycho-”

The most sensible and rational decision probably would have been to let the girl play peacemaker, or even give it a shot. Listen to Norton. To just leave and accept it, even if Kraber knew it was bullshit.

Unfortunately, this was Kraber. ‘Sensible and rational decision’ could rarely be connected with him except in the most unlikeliest of circumstances, so:

“THE FOK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!” Kraber roared. “My fokkin’ fault?! What about the kontgesigs that thought these were good ideas? Lovikov is armor surrounding an uncontrolled id, Carter just wants everything in sight dead because he’s worse at handling grief than me, and we killed innocents by the truckload! I may be controlled by my worst fokkin’ impulses, but… but I fokkin’ well do something about it! That mission on the Sorghum was doomed from the fokkin’ start! We’re kontgesigs, one and fokkin’ all!”

“Fucking look at yourself! Does… does anyone know who this is?!” Norton yelled looked around the room. “This is-”

They know who I am! ...Shit, I should’ve listened.

“Come on,” Kraber interrupted, his voice - his real voice, not the awful fokkin’ Scots accent he’d been using - sounding oddly strained. “There’s no need for-”

I have made a terrible mistake.

Kraber moved before he realized what was happening. Norton fired, one round carving through one side of his head. Kraber roared not in pain, but more from surprise than anything.

“JOU FOKKIN’ KONTGESIG!” he yelled, and fired the .44 Ruger.

The .44 pow’rball round, its point hollowed out then filled with a ball-bearing, made and custom-loaded at the end of a long day, did not simply punch through Norton’s skull. It exploded it.

Kraber cackled madly as the back of the kid’s skull exploded outward, brains and bone splattering against the walls and ceiling. A few scattered stumps of viscera were all that remained above his lower jaw.

“NORTON!” the girl screamed, only for the cut-flank mare to yell out a battle cry, jump like a horse over a hurdle, and drive one hoof into her face.

“Don’t,” the mare said.

Kraber looked on approvingly at the spatter of blood. It felt fokkin’ lekker to be back in the saddle, the wood grips of the .44 in his hand fitting as if he was born to it. The way that this fokkin’ kontgesig was dead and he was alive, the rush of adrenaline.

…I feel like I’m forgetting something, Kraber thought. Oh. Fok. My head is bleeding. Better find a bandage. Probably should have remembered that.

The girl stared up at him, whimpering. “What have you done?”

“This wasn’t my fokkin’ fault,” Kraber said, grunting in annoyance. Why’d his own blood have to get everywhere? Gaaaawd, it was so fokkin’ annoying. Head wounds always bled so much, then they got in your eyes. He reached into the bag he kept on his back. “He provoked me.”

“You could’ve done something!” the girl protested. “He was just scared, you don’t know what it’s like to hear the voices of your loved ones telling you things…”

Of course I fokkin’ do! Kraber thought. I feel like I’m still forgetting something…

“If this goes to hell, it’s on your head!” the girl yelled.

“Seeing as Norton doesn’t have much left of one?” Kraber asked.

“You could have walked away, you bastard!” the girl yelled. “You could’ve walked away!”

Then, as he heard Bowen say the Hotline might or might not be the voice of God:

Right… I shot someone near HLF. This is gonna suck.’

Aegis

They heard two bangs in rapid succession. Then another.

Aegis held his foals together.

“...Francis?” Amber whispered. “Are you okay?”

???

The sniper abruptly shut down as soon as he heard the shots.

…Ohhhhh shiiiiiiiiiit.

An automatic weapon. Then a heavy revolver. Somebody had been shooting. Who would-

Kraber!

That wasn’t supposed to happen! That wasn’t him, that sure as hell wasn’t anyone from the neighborhood below. No doubt about it, that was someone nearby, but… he didn’t see other snipers. He didn’t see anyone in the crowd of humans below aiming a rifle.

Preston, the sniper texted frantically, Get here 10 minutes ago. They’re about to get real ugly.

Not that it would matter. He couldn’t do anything, but Asa had assembled this crowd, right? They were good people. Surely they’d prevail, surely she’d-

Johnny C

One moment, Nny and Fiddlesticks been hiding on a rooftop, watching Bowen give her speech. Hearing it over the radio. With Fiddlesticks. The Leshiy had been hanging over his shoulder.

Thankfully, none of the HLF had been looking even vaguely in their general direction. Fiddlesticks hadn’t spooled up the minigun yet.

All of a sudden, there was a series of gunshots. The patter-patter of automatic weapons, then the THOOM of a heavy revolver.

“What the hell?!” Bowen yelled from atop the truck.

Nny made a vague sort of motion. He was about to head towards Bowen when Fiddlesticks gently pushed him down with one foreleg. What were they supposed to do?

Of course, within a second it turned out that she didn’t need to warn him.

BOOM

Fragments of pavement sprayed upwards, immediately behind the curious onlookers and HLF. Nny and Fiddlesticks couldn’t make out everything being said, but it was obvious they were panicking.

“Who the hell shot at-”

“Which one of you-?!

“We shouldn’t have-”

The bystanders screamed and scattered, rushing for anywhere that conceivably provide shelter. One woman pulled a hammer out of a bag, smashed the window of the Cardsharp Pub, and jumped through the jagged plate-glass hole.

Linda’s going to be so pissed, Nny thought.

“Well we’ve gotta do something!” Nny said to nobody in particular. Before his eyes, and Fiddlesticks’ eyes, Bowen was running towards the radio station. Hoping it’d provide cover. There was a group of HLF standing by, far too close for comfort.

“-Shooting at us!”

“-damn pony-pounders!”

“A BUNCH OF PIGS!” someone screamed, throwing a bottle at one HLF man in homemade armor. He staggered, the bottle falling to the ground unbroken. He reached for a rifle on his back.

“We have,” Nny said, “to do something!”

He was almost pleading at this point. Fiddlesticks gently held a foreleg to his back to hold him down, but he ignored it. Before Fiddlesticks could say anything, he’d thrown himself through a nearby window, rushing down to the street.

Everything moved so slow as the two of them rushed for the street. But then, they couldn’t have been walking, they had to have been running.

“Can you even play peacemaker?” Fiddlesticks asked as they rushed down a hallway leading to the main drag.

Nny answered by running faster.

“Nny?!” Fiddlesticks pleaded.

“I don’t know who else will,” Nny panted. “So I will.”

He and Fiddlesticks skidded onto the street. Fiddlesticks’ mouth trigger was hanging below her mouth, and Nny’s weaponry was all holstered. He held both arms outward in a concilatory posture, like he was talking to a large dog.

“Well? Help each other!” Bowen was yelling. “I’ve had enough of giving into fear. This is exactly what they want! What people like Lovikov, the Empire, Shieldwall thrive on! The more scared you are, the more uninhibited you are, that’s more power to them!”

She sounded almost like she was crying.

“These bastards, we-”

Then the front half of Bowen’s head erupted into blood. Bits of blood, brain, and bone fragment sprayed the road, and she collapsed against a truck, the top half of her head destroyed.

She didn’t have time to scream. But everyone else on the street did. The onlookers. The HLF nearby. For a second, everything stopped. Everything fell silent. At best, HLF and Littleton citizens stared at each other uneasily. At worst, they were holding weapons to each other, filtering to the sides of the street.

“Look,” said a blond man who looked for all the world like a potion-amputee going by the metal leg that looked to have been made from pipes and a crowbar. “She wanted us to have peace, so… come on, we can’t just fall into the stuff we ran away from…”

And then Nny heard it. Someone screaming at the top of their lungs:

“MURDER! THEY SHOT BOWEN! WE COME TO THEM AND THEY REPAY US LIKE THIS?! KILL THE HORSEFUCKERS AND GELDOS! NO QUARTER!”

It was a man in a gas mask, their skin horribly scarred and burnt underneath. They’d pulled up the mask so Nny could see their mouth. Something about it looked… familiar...

Oh, Nny thought. Moliere Bernhardt. That guy on the wanted poster. The HLF man who hides in the underground. Wait. Why haven’t I heard of him before? Did someone change the timeline and accidentally him into reality?

“TURN OVER A NEW LEAF, BOWEN SAYS,” Bernhardt said. “TRUST THEM, SHE SAYS. IF THIS IS HOW WE’RE REWARDED FOR OUR EFFORTS, THEN-”

Okay, focus, Nny. What would Cousin Yael do?! Nny thought frantically. Shoot somebody? No, that doesn’t work. Interpretive dance? ...No. I need a damn drink? DAMMIT THAT’S WHAT I’D DO!

So he took in a deep breath, and projected his voice. He wasn’t yelling, just talking really loudly.

“There’s no need for any of this!” he said. He wasn’t used to being commanding.

And all eyes turned to him and Fiddlesticks.

“Look,” Nny said, his voice loud enough he couldn’t quite believe it was his. “She wanted peace. She wanted away from Lovikov. I understand that, the bastard shot my dog. And that’s probably the least awful thing I saw him do. I don’t like him any more than most of you do-”

He was doing his best to talk them down, trying to disarm them.

“I SAW YOU ON THE ROOF, HORSEFUCKER!” Bernhardt yelled. “THIS IS WHAT THE PHL WANT, EVERYONE! THEY WANT US DIVIDED! THEY WANT US TO DEVOUR OURSELVES, SO THEIR PONY MASTERS CAN TAKE CONTROL! WE WATCHED THIS GREAT PEACEMAKER DIE, AND HERE IS A MAN WITH A PONY AT HIS SIDE TELLING US WHAT TO DO? A MAN WHO LEFT AN IED IN ONE OF OUR TRUCKS?!”

‘Oh,’ Nny thought distantly. ‘So that’s where I left it. Wait a damn minute, this doesn’t make sense, they’re...’

“Bowen was here because she wanted to keep from doing stupid, hateful things,” Nny said, desperately trying to sound calm. “You’re here because on some level, you didn’t want to keep doing them.”

“What’s stupider,” Bernhardt said, “Was trusting you! If the smart thing is trying to work with stupid civvies who shoot us, who let horsefuckers keep guns trained on us… let ponies walk about in town freely…. Then I WANT NO DAMN PART IN THIS!”

‘That makes no damn sense,’ Nny thought. Then he realized: ‘It doesn’t have to make sense. These are scared people who look at Fiddlesticks and think she’s the enemy, and here’s…

“AND I THINK,” Bernhardt boomed over every radio, “THAT WE’VE HAD ENOUGH OF HORSEFUCKERS TELLING US WHAT TO DO. STARTING WITH YOU, JOHN HEALD.”

...here’s me with a tiny yellow pony, reasoning with easily frightened and violent militiamen. Well shit, Nny thought, right before they opened fire on him.

He grabbed Fiddlesticks by the neck, gargantuan saddle gun and all, and rushed for an alleyway. Even on his best days in the gym, the weight would’ve been daunting. But it was either ‘refuse to pick her up’ or ‘die,’ which sort of threw off any reading on Nny’s physical strength.

“KILL THEM!”

“MOTHERFUCKER-” Fiddlesticks swore as Nny hurtled towards an alleyway, taking her with him.

Aegis

“MURDER!”

Aegis held his foals tighter, forehooves meeting.

“THEY SHOT BOWEN! KILL THE HORSEFUCKERS AND GELDOS! NO QUARTER! NO QUARTER!” someone screamed at the top of their lungs.

???

The street burst into chaos.

Well, that didn’t work, the sniper thought distantly, before realizing just what had happened. There was an HLF man with a gun, firing at the crowd, screaming madly. That was another HLF fighter, taking cover, firing at them with a goddamn belt-fed.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be!

Kraber

The entire population of the station stared at him in horror as gunfire erupted, amplified by the speakers.

I have to leave. I have to get the fok out of here! I can’t deal with all of this responsibility, all the…

His heart just wasn’t in it. First, he needed to make sure that Aegis’ his family was safe. And that the HLF nearby were as fokkin’ far from safe as you could get. Then kill every HLF man here! And then when he was done, maybe find a bandage.

Huh. I guess I have my fokkin’ priorities straight.

The sounds of gunfire roared through Littleton.

Before Kraber knew what he was doing, he was rushing out the doorway towards the bridge. He could see HLF running away, towards the east. One of them caught his eye, though.

Who was that?

There was a strange man running along with them, not quite keeping pace. His face was hidden by a gas mask. Kraber could see scarring on it, just under the flaps of the mask. It wasn’t burn scars, though - it looked like someone had taken the worst knife possible and worked them over until they stopped moving. And there was a pistol in one of his hands...

Skort, Kraber thought, which in his native tongue meant ‘be careful.’ Or possibly ‘something is wrong here.’

But before he could consider it, gunfire rang out. Kraber slid behind a nearby car, only exposing the slightest fraction of his face from behind the rear bumper.

Evidently, this was still too much face. An HLF man with an M16 turned toward him, panicked, and Kraber fired a short four-round burst out Sylvia’s ACR, nailing him through the throat.

Yet another HLF man aimed an assault rifle at Kraber.

Kraber bared his teeth, smiling, and turned, ready to fire off another unsteady burst through the man’s head. “COME ON, JOU FOKKIN KONTGESIG!” he yelled, and fired…

...in the moment immediately before a storm of bullets simply disassembled the HLF man, chopping each limb apart with an absolute lack of precision.

Kraber looked in the direction the shots had come from, and saw Nny and Fiddlesticks. Nny carried that weird Russian-Belgian Leshiy assault rifle, and Fiddlesticks had a saddle minigun.

“Thanks,” Kraber said, nodding to them. Things seemed to be calm - relatively calm, anyway.

“Don’t mention it,” Fiddlesticks said. “What were you doing out here, anyway?”

Kraber didn’t answer. It looked like he’d been where Bowen had been speaking. Where she’d set up shop. He could see her body lying against a pickup truck. ‘I think I remember her from Agua Caliente,’ he thought.

It’d been a very, very small amount of HLF that the PHL trusted to help out in Agua Caliente. Or maybe ‘trust’ wasn’t the right word. Kraber vaguely remembered her from both her wanted poster and that that fokking town. She hadn’t been even close to caring about ponies, but she’d come nonetheless. Hadn’t liked to see him, but she’d seemed....

Actually, she had really hated him.

‘So I guess that this attempt here makes her… a correct ou? Fok weet,’ Kraber thought. And here she was. A woman of average height, shot in the head with powder bur-’

Suddenly, the firefight, the destruction of the place that’d been his hometown for quite some time, the threats to his friends? Those seemed moderately less interesting.

He looked down at Bowen’s body, lying against the truck. The way the back of her head looked…

‘Powder burns?’ Kraber thought. Some of the classes he’d taken in college in Boston had sort of lapsed into mentioning ballistics. They’d mentioned that up to contact range, you might find powder burns from the propellant.

‘That can’t be good…’

“Frank?” Fiddlesticks asked. “What are you doing?”

“Looking over Bowen’s body,” Kraber said. “I just… I have a really bad feeling about why she was shot.”

“So… you didn’t have anything to do with this,” Nny said, sighing in relief.

“Why in the fok would I - okay, nevermind. I was in the forest, trying to run away,” Kraber said. “I didn’t leave these people on the fokkin’ best terms. If they found me here, they’d kill me! Hell, one of them fokkin’ well tried!”

He tapped the bloody bandage on his head.

“Why were you trying to run away?” Nny asked, holding the rifle a little too close to Kraber’s chest.

“Because these people are better off without me and I wanted to be anywhere else,” Kraber said. “I have done bad things to people. And if the HLF find out that I stopped doing bad things, they will do worse fokkin’ ka - things to me.”

Fiddlesticks’ eyes narrowed. “What, do you have some kinda bad shit quota?”

“Well-” Kraber started.

BRAKKA-BRAKKA-BRAKKA

“TAKE COVER!” Nny yelled, and slid behind someones car. Some mechanism on Fiddlesticks’ saddle minigun unfolded, and she rested her minigun on a concrete barrier.

“KILL THE HORSEFUCKERS!” one HLF man was shrieking. He was surrounded by men and women in patchwork armor, with bare shoulders for the summer heat.

Fokkin’ kontgesigs! Kraber thought. The old, familiar rage took him in its hold, and he rushed around the back of one of the brick buildings of downtown Littleton.

“Where’d he go?!” Kraber heard someone yell. Nny, Fiddlesticks, or the HLF. He didn’t know. Didn’t care.

Kraber hung close to the wall, Sylvia’s ACR ready. He took a left, slinking through a narrow alleyway between two houses, crouching low to the ground. When he reached the end of the alleyway, he saw the HLF. They’d taken cover behind some bullet-pocked cars. American cars. Old models. He held his back to the wall as he bent slightly, resting the rifle’s stock against his shoulder.

Kraber aimed in one man’s general direction, pulled the trigger, and let loose two rounds.

They didn’t just punch through the HLF man’s upper left arm. They exploded it. Blood spurted out of the stump, and they fell to the ground, gasping.

“TIME FOR SOME FOKKIN’ DISARMAMENT!” Kraber cackled, and opened fire.

The AR roared in short, controlled bursts of anywhere from two to five rounds, chattering madly. Spent casings rained from the ejection port as he pressed the trigger, aiming for arms, upper bodies, necks, and faces.

He could see Nny and Fiddlesticks blazing away at the HLF - who were backing up against someone’s house, caught on two sides by the sustained fire.

He heard screaming to his right - just down the street. Where the NEIGHborhood faded into Littleton proper. There was a house there, burning. An HLF truck, covered in homemade armor, parked nearby.

Kraber looked out and saw a few ponies and humans rushing out of the house, screaming madly. Slightly singed by the blaze.

For all of 10 seconds anyway, as a jet of flame spurted out of an HLF fighter’s weapon. Incinerating the humans and ponies that had called that place their home.

“That’s a fokkin’ flamethrower!” Kraber yelled.

???

“What the hell?!” the hidden sniper spat. This was… this was insane. They were… that…

No wonder he hadn’t felt right alongside O’Donnell’s Sons of Macha and these Menschabwehrfraktion. Even when they made a show of turning over a new leaf, even within minutes of Bowen’s speech, they were going to use a flamethrower on a civilian outpost…

What the shit was with the HLF in New Hampshire?! Attacking an oil rig and turning it into a massacre of the city on the coast, believing that they were getting messages from the afterlife, or an angel or whatever?

Which wouldn’t be as disturbing if they weren’t right too much of the time, the man thought. For a second, he remembered how Kraber had been with those ponies earlier. Crazy enough to make Kraber, of all people, be civil to ponies. Here I was thinking only Yorke managed to provoke that.

He made minute adjustments to the scope, staring down at a man with a homemade grenade launcher.

"I am human," he whispered like a reflexive prayer, and he fired.

The man's head exploded in a happy shower of blood, and the sniper grinned.

Fight the good fight the right way, or feel the hammer, you shits, he thought, lining up another shot.

Kraber

They were actually going to... They were going to...

Fok it!

Kraber rushed up to a shipping container, jumping on what looked to be a dumpster or trash barrel, and hoisting himself up onto the roof. Using one windowsill as a foothold, he jumped up even further, lifting himself up another container.

He was two stories up now. Not much for cover up here, but with luck the element of surprise would help.

Steady, steady… he told himself, trying to distance himself from the chaos all around him.

And then he saw an HLF man shooting a fleeing earth pony. Ten rounds. Back of the neck. There wasn’t much left.

Kraber didn’t actually care that much. But for a moment, he felt something. He felt like that pony very well could have been Aegis. He felt what Aegis told him about being disaffected, lost, and losing everything to come here.

And he remembered how helpless he’d felt after Reaper had just about crippled him. And he thought about how fokkin’ awful it would’ve been if he’d come all that way and died in that fokkin’ hospital.

He felt fokkin’ woedend.

“Ah, fok it,” he heard himself say. He felt himself smiling as he aimed in the general direction of the HLF man with the flamethrower below, and fired on full auto.

One lucky shot punched through one pipe bomb...

Kaboom.

"It's only a flesh wound!" Kraber laughed, shooting into the screaming, flaming HLF down below. There was a man nearby, armed with some M16. Oh, he looked pissed! He was turning for Kraber, then-

Kaboom again! His head was splattered all over the pavement.

Kraber made a quick, not-entirely-serious prayer of thanks to God for the sniper that was helping him.

"Get that fucking horsefucker!" someone screamed.

“FOKKIN’ TRY IT!” Kraber laughed again. Time to chuck, then! He slid off the roof of the shipping container, driving both boots onto an HLF man’s collarbones. He crumpled to the ground, screaming, and Kraber stomped down on his throat.

And he could hear ponies huddling inside the house. They didn’t know he’d crushed the shoulders of the man guarding the back entrance- Oh, FOK!

He could see seven HLF with an assortment of Kalashnikovs walking into the house from the front. Could see several ponies descending the stairs, heading towards him.

There was no time. He whipped his revolver free, and fired.

BANG

One HLF woman’s skull splashed out all over the room, blood spattering against the ceiling. The others braced themselves, looked for cover, but by that time it was too late.

Kraber remembered how his father had taught him to shoot, held the revolver in front of his face with both hands on the tape-wrapped wooden grip, one eye tracking the HLF through the sights, and fired. A man with a sleeveless tac-vest staggered backwards like a drunk ballerina, his arm lazily spiralling through the air.

It was like everything was going in slow motion. Before any of the HLF could find cover, he’d gunned down the remaining five with the rest of his revolver’s cylinder.

He reloaded as he strode into the house.

“YOU’RE DEAD, KONTGESIGS!” he roared, slinging the ACR over his shoulder and picking up a dropped Kalashnikov.

“It’s Francis!” one of the ponies yelled. “Oh, thank God!”

Kraber nodded taking cover behind a large pickup truck and firing two rounds from his new Kalashnikov, probably an AKM. Ugly thing. 7.62x39, judging by the kick. No-frills.

One more HLF man dropped.

“I CAN SEE THE FOKKIN ‘LIBERATION’S’ GOING WELL, YA BASTARDS!” Kraber laughed.

Perfect for the job at hand. He missed using AKMs. The kick was bad, but he remembered them from his childhood, from shooting them with his dad.

He nestled into a familiar rhythm, firing short bursts toward the heads of various HLF, filtering down the street from various HLF roadsters, massive, kitbashed cars with rams and turrets mounted onboard. “HOW MANY OF YOU FOKKIN BAWBAGS ARE THERE?!”

Another sniper round punched through a man, just as he was about to get the drop on Kraber. He thanked his friend the sniper for that one.

And then he saw it, in front of a massive HLF roadster that looked like a bastardized pickup truck. A man with an M249 was standing guard.

Perfect

The 5.56 rounds exploded through the house, right above his head, and Kraber aimed his AK, ready to fire…

Only to see the man simply fall apart, blood streaming from between his armor. He clutched his throat, falling to the ground.

As did the woman next to him.

"What the fok?" Kraber whispered. The sniper? No, couldn’t be, unless his gun shot knives…

???

It wasn’t, and it didn’t.

“Who did that?!” the sniper wondered, staring through the scope. “What di-”

He abruptly realized he’d been answering his own question. A thought struck. Those wounds… He’d been cut apart. By something he couldn’t see... Oh, fuck me with a rusty poker, he thought, and toggled through settings on the scope. Finally - thermal imaging.
There was a shape dashing to and fro, chopping HLF apart, slicing through them. Something suspiciously small, the size of a very large dog, but slimmer, with wings… A pony, then. An invisible pegasus.

Heliotrope.

Yael’s favorite little friend, assassin, right-hand or right-hoof mare. And she was here. WHAT WAS WITH THIS TOWN?!

Still, he wouldn’t fire on her, unlike some. Nevermind the ration bounty, or the fuel bounty, or the ammunition bounty some HLF had put out on her, she was here, cutting up bad rubbish. 'Sides, he didn't need an ammunition bounty for some shitty gun that looked like a Vox Populi reject from Bioshock, or the various Khyber Pass copies that had fallen into his unit’s hands. This old Mauser had served him well. Besides, he had an L5 Photonics scope. Some PHL couldn’t even afford that. And hell, if he really wanted he could have traded her in for an ASP Rifle - not that anyone he knew used ASPs all that much. Things were shite.

"This is the judgement of the righteous," the sniper murmured, popping the last round of this clip into another man. He sighed, before beginning to reload.

He heard movement around him, and he growled, his hand moving to his shotgun.

"Where's that fucking sniper?" someone was hissing. "It's bad enough our people are being torn up without…"

The sniper stood, taking a sip from the flask at his belt before smiling. A moment later, two HLF showed up, their shitty rifles making the sniper feel like he was packing overkill. Then again, in this case, Kraber's old sentiment about there being no such thing, only “dead” and “reload”, came to mind as appropriate.

They looked at him for a moment in his full Kevlar bodysuit, HLF printed on it with his name right below it, and frowned. The sniper found himself almost pitying them - they were both young. Impressionable, maybe. He knew the type. Hotheaded, bold, likely hadn’t been in a serious action since the Three Weeks if at all, a nobody before the war and so hyped up on baseless macho overconfidence as to be halfway convinced they were potion-immune.

Unless they found their way into the right crowd, they either turned into something really terrible or went nowhere at all. Both had happened here.

"Hey," one of them said. "I know you - you're with that guy, the one who…"

"Yeah," the sniper said, cutting him off. "I am."

He suddenly found himself hoping he wouldn’t have to kill them himself. C'mon, walk off like good little toddlers, leave this mess to the big boys…

"Thought you guys were off somewhere else?" the other said.

"We aren't now," the sniper said. "We've come here - and we're going to put the HLF right."

"'Right'?" the first boy said. "But there's nothing wrong with…"

“Of course you’d think that,” the sniper said. "But trust me boys, there is. You'd be better rethinking your attitudes now, maybe coming with me."

"Like fuck," the first boy said, sneering. "Lovikov mentioned you. You guys are all…"

His eyes trailed down, noticing the discarded sniper rifle. His eyes widened.

"Oh shit, you're the-!" he managed to get out, before the sniper brought his SHO Series-3 shotgun up as he ran and fired, blasting him backwards. The other man moved to fire, but the sniper smacked him across the face, growling.

"You know what makes me really sick?" he asked the boy, kneeling down by the stunned HLF soldier with an almost pitying expression on his face. "I have a lot of friends who gave their lives for our cause. A lot. And even more that were ponified. They were HLF, they were human, and they were a hundred times better than you could ever dream of being. And you know what’ll happen to HLF like them when the books get written, when the evening news rolls? They’ll be written as you, and considering you planned on attacking a refugee camp with humans and a traumatized war criminal, I think that’s a worse fate for them than ponification. They gave their blood, and you and that little shitstain Lovikov have made it so that they’ll be forgotten or worse.”

The boy tried moving, and the sniper punched him in the face.

“I think that's shit,” the sniper said. “I think we deserve better - so how's about this? I'm gonna leave a message for Yael Ze'ev and her invisible flying friend, a message to remind the world that we're not all mediocre scum like you… and you're gonna help me send it. Don't have the equipment for a blood-eagle, but this’ll do nicely."

He brought out his combat knife, cut the front of the boy’s shoddy 'uniform' open. He struggled a bit, but the sniper just punched him again.

“My name’s John Idle,” he said. “I’m HLF. I’m human. I fight the good fight.”

And John Idle began to carve. There were screams, but a bit of gratuitous punching made them go away.

“Make sure to pay postage, by the way,” Idle said, drawing a long gash across his ribcage. "And sorry about the crap handwriting - broke my pinky in 21, never quite been the same since…"

Heliotrope

As far as Heliotrope could tell, the fighting seemed to be dying down, in part because someone - likely Francis - had killed most of them. Most of the HLF seemed to be retreating at the moment for some reason.

“What the fuck is going on?!” Heliotrope yelled at nobody in particular, coming out from invisibility. The not-quite-scotsman that called himself Francis was standing nearby, staring at a dead woman.

“Far as I can tell,” ~~Kraber~~ Francis said, “Someone shot that Bowen women, and they went mad.”

“Can’t say she didn’t get what was coming to her, but-” Heliotrope started.

“No,” ~~Kraber~~ Francis said, staring at the body, with an odd unsatisfied gleam in his eyes. “She didn’t, as far as I can tell. They came to Littleton for help, then someone shot her, and… wait.”

His eyes widened. “That ain’t good.”

‘What’s he thinking about?’ Heliotrope wondered.

“She was shot at contact range,” he said finally. “I took forensics classes once, I know damn well what that looks like. There’s powder burns on her head, and, and Heliotrope, something’s not-”

And there was a scream.

Heliotrope couldn’t say how she knew, how she picked it out, but she could. She’d never heard Aegis’ foals scream like that, but something about the tone of voice made it stand out in the chaos.

“NO!” Francis roared.

“That sounds like....” Heliotrope went cold even under all her fur. ‘Like Aegis. Or his foals.’

“I know who it sounds like,” Francis said, and rushed for the house that he and Aegis shared, Heliotrope close behind.

Aegis

Meanwhile, Aegis was cowering in his house’s basement, clutching his two foals.

For absolutely no reason at all, he thought about how Francis had said he could build claymores. “No, not the sword. Give me a laser pointer or two, and…” at which point, he’d listed a few ingredients for explosives. One of them was fertilizer, apparently.

Not for the first time, he wondered just what his maybe-Scottish friend did.

‘You shouldn’t trust him,’ Fiddlesticks had said. Privately. While Francis was off at work. ‘He is lying about something. I don’t know what. I don’t know what, but he’s too unverifiable. Too evasive.

Aegis believed it at this moment. He was still wishing that he’d taken up Francis’ offers to build explosives.

He heard footsteps upstairs.

“Daddy?” Amber asked. “Are we going to be okay?”

“Yes,” Aegis lied.

He was trying not to shake. Trying not to let the fear get to him. He was failing miserably.

“Daddy will beat them up,” Rivet said. He wore the brightest damn smile.

‘Daddy might not’ Aegis thought, and that terrified him.

There was the sound of something breaking. Something shattering.

“Damn gluestick has a fancy TV and gaming equipment,” he heard someone say. “Actual new games, even! On CD! How’d he even get those?”

There was the sound of something breaking.

“Damn!” Rivet said.

“Something’s down there!” Aegis heard someone yell.

‘Ah, fuck.’ Aegis thought.

He’d swear for the years to come that it happened at a snail’s pace. That he could count every breath the HLF made as they headed into the basement. Of course, he would also swear that it happened faster than he could process and before he knew it, he was on the floor with blood issuing from one eye.

He hurt. Everywhere.

“He’s a big one then, isn’t he?” one of them sneered. He would’ve been a handsome human before the war, but years of trauma had taken their toll. Burns, dirt, grime, all of that looked to have morphed him somehow.

“GET IM!” one woman screamed, and the hate in her eyes made Aegis suddenly feel very cold inside.

He’d never be able to explain it. Why these men and women, armed with rifles that could drop him from 300 meters away, had decided not to shoot him. Maybe it was some combination of stimuli that’d lead to a physical attack over a simple shooting. Maybe they just hated them. Maybe they needed a ransom.

What he’d always be able to explain was the agony as they jammed the butts of the rifles down on him. The terrible scream he’d heard that could’ve been his, Amber’s, or Rivet’s. Rivet bucking one of them in the knee, and the high-pitched cry of agony as a rifle with a wooden stock came down on Rivet’s snout...

Maybe it was Aegis. Maybe it was Rivet.

Not like any of them could tell later.

???Idle

He looked down at his work, and wondered if the boy was still alive.

‘What a goddamn mess,’ Idle thought as he wrung his hands. He could see the two of them, Kraber and Heliotrope, rushing for somepony’s house.

He thumbed out another text.

Preston. Can you be here 15 minutes ago?

The reply came quickly: Last time, it was 10 minutes ago. How bad could it have-

Everything has gone wrong, Idle typed back. Everything. I can... He stopped typing.

He could see a motley few HLF with two squirming foals in their arms rushing towards a truck. Along with HLF escorting humans and ponies alike from the human-pony neighborhood into various vehicles.

They’re taking prisoners, Idle finished. Humans and ponies. I don’t know where this goes, but it can’t be good.

Aegis

When he came to, staggering to all four hooves, he felt a great sense of emptiness.

Something was missing.

“THEY TOOK MY FOALS!” he screamed. Louder than he’d let himself for awhile. He’d seen Amber and Rivet in the arms of those bastards, being carried the way a human might with a small dog.

He’d seen Rivet kicking, screaming, one hoof to his bloody snout.

He picked himself up off the floor, staggering up the stairs.

And, for no reason at all, he thought back to the day Francis came.

‘He’s part of this,’ Aegis thought. ‘I know I’ve seen his wanted poster before! Damn…. Who was he?’

As he dragged himself upwards, he knew. ‘Francis is part of this. He has to be. There’s something about him that needs to be stopped, something that-’

This train of thought abruptly derailed when he saw Francis hiding behind a bullet-pocked car. Someone being chopped apart by what could only be Heliotrope, judging by the blood spraying from knife wounds with no observable source.

Aegis wouldn’t have been able to get to the assault saddle. Would’ve wasted too much time by reversing.

So he did the only thing that made sense.

Kraber

They were at the house now.

The old tire swing where Kraber remembered pushing Rivet was hanging on one rope. The windows were broken. It looked like some of Aegis’ stuff had been stolen.

Kraber only vaguely noticed this. He had more important things to deal with at the moment.

‘Dodge, daddy!’ Peter yelled, his voice echoing in the chaos of Kraber’s mind. There was a man with an AR-15 that would’ve been top-of-the-line years ago, kitted with a bumpfire stock and fancy devices Kraber couldn’t name, opening fire at him. A couple others.

And dodge he did.

~~Francis~~ Kraber slipped to the side, revolver in his outstretched right hand as he just barely dodged a burst of wild, full-auto fire. It was futile and he knew it, there was only so long before he took a bullet to something important.

Just then, Aegis barreled out the door and rammed his great bulk into the man with the bumpfire stock.

Holy shit he’s strong, Kraber thought as the man with the bumpfire crumbled to the ground screaming. Aegis drove one hoof down on Bumpfire Man’s face.

Kraber fired the revolver, a wild shot just aimed in the general direction of another man with a kalashikov. The magnum punched through his shoulder, staggering him a foot…

Only for Heliotrope to open fire with the stubby little submachineguns in her assault yoke, blasting away at him and chewing up everything above the neck.

Behind him, Kraber could see a man with a Kel-tec KSG shotgun and, a woman with an AR-15. Her mouth had formed into a little ‘o’ at the sight of her friend.

Kraber didn’t waste any time. He fired the .44 again, the round impacting slightly to the left of AR-15 Woman’s nose. Half her skull exploded outwards and she twirled back like a drunk ballerina, her head looking like it’d been chopped apart at a diagonal angle. Some of the teeth on the woman’s lower jaw were exposed to the night air. Open.

AR-15 Woman was dead before she hit the ground, but for the moment she had the kinetic energy and subtlety of a landslide. Taking advantage of the confusion, Heliotrope plowed forward with both forelegs outstretched, and drove her hooves into the KSG man’s gut.

He wheezed, pulling out a knife…

Only for Heliotrope to dodge, and drive her hind legs squarely into his face. He snapped back, stumbled against one of Aegis’ bookshelves, and crumpled the floor.

“You shot,” Kraber said, punctuating the sentence by cocking the revolver. Which didn’t actually do anything, but it sure sounded intimidating. “My friends. I fokkin’ hope you’ve got something to say for yourself, kontgesig.”

Aegis

Two of the people that’d taken his foals lay dead at his door. Their heads hadn’t just been shot, they were gone.

“You shot,” Kraber was saying, aiming his revolver into the KSG man’s face. “My friends. I fokkin’ hope you’ve got something to say for yourself, kontgesig.”

The one with the KSG wasn’t dead yet. But he was screaming like he was nearly there, on account of his destroyed knee, and Francis’ boot to his fingers.

“Ya. That’s what I fokkin’ well thought. I hope you’re fokmotherin’ well proud of yourself, motherfokker,” Francis said, ignoring the man's scream of agony and the minute little cracks as he pressed down his foot. He reached down, picking up the man's stubby little bullpup shotgun.

“No, no, please,” the man stammered. “I… I didn’t even want to be here! I didn’t-”

“Should’ve thought of that earlier,” Francis said. There was something different about his voice. Some hint of an accent that was absolutely not Scottish, and a sense of something breaking. “Now, what did you do to my friend’s foals?”

“We took them,” the man said, “Leverage. We want out of here, but one of you goddamn horsefuckers shot Bowen, and…. And…” tears welled up in the man’s eyes. “Oh God, my hand, you, you don’t understand what a man like Leonid Lovikov is capable of-”

“You mistake ‘understand’ for ‘give a fok.’ Now, fokkin’ specifics, or I find other things to break,” Francis said.

“Truck!” the man exclaimed. “Heading north, towards the border, highway, don’t kill me-!”

“Francis,” Aegis said, “What are you…”

He stopped. The shotgun in his friend’s hand. Francis, covered in blood that absolutely wasn’t his.

It stained his friend’s beard and face, and two pinpricks of solid orange-brown blazed from under his unkempt mane of brown hair. But his face was calm. Deathly, deathly calm. Back at the synagogue, he had… there’d been some hints of this, but Francis’ anger wasn’t hot like he’d been back then. It was cold, with all the great ponderous energy of a slow-moving hurricane and all the warmth of a coming winter storm.

“Hey!” the man yelled up at Francis. “I know you! You’re that fucking jackass that left us to die in Portl-”

Without warning, Francis fired the shotgun one-handed, shredding the man’s face. Blood splattered his knee.

And Aegis felt nothing. Almost satisfied. He wanted to look to Heliotrope, to see if she had some objection to what Francis had done…

There wasn’t one. Just an extraodinary coldness on her face.

“Negotiations,” Francis said, “Have officially broken down.”

“You’ve uh, got something on your pants...” Aegis said weakly.

“Oh, this?” he looked down at the bloodstains. “Don’t worry. It’s not from anyone we like. Now, Aegis?" Francis said, far too calm, a smile on his face, "I know where your foals are. You ready to fok some kak up?”

“I think I am,” Heliotrope said.

“Huh,” Aegis said, curiously unconcerned. “How long have you been here?”

“Awhile. I was following the HLF,” Heliotrope said. “Tracked ‘em here, and then I saw your foals and I had to…”

She looked into Aegis’ eyes, and whatever she saw looked like it chilled her.

“I can get them back,” she said. “You just have to trust me.”

“Wait,” Francis said. “I have a better idea. Heliotrope, what kind of distraction can you make?”

“Pain is distracting,” Heliotrope suggested.

Aegis thought about protesting. Thought about telling Francis and Heliotrope to be reasonable. Then he considered the past ten minutes.

“Fuck it,” he heard himself say. “That works.”

Kraber

Slipping into cover, he fired a stolen Kalashnikov into what few HLF remained. When that ran dry, he switched to the revolver, picking off HLF with headshot after headshot. It was a familiar rhythm. Beside him, Aegis had strapped on a massive assault saddle with two belt-feds, and was blazing away into the HLF in front of them.

“DON’T DROP THE SOAP IN THIS LEAD SHOWER!” Kraber laughed, as Heliotrope flickered in and out of existence, an HLF man clutching a bullet wound or long gash whenever she flickered back into visibility.

Fok, he would not want to fight her. At least he’d known where Reaper was so he could pour bullets into her. Heliotrope, well, she could disappear and shoot him before he ever noticed.

And disappear she did, her suit flashing invisible as she practically bounced across the street, slicing through HLF, hopefully-

Hopefully? Kraber wondered. Huh. Hoping a pony wasn’t getting shot. Well, she’d been nice to him a week earlier.

He switched back to Sylvia’s rifle, firing in bursts, picking up magazines discarded on the ground or stuck to HLF improvised tac-vests, knocking empty mags out with full ones.

“Bliksem!” Kraber yelled. “JOU WANT TO COME INTO MY FOKKIN’ HOUSE AND PLAY?! AWRIGHT, LET’S FOKKIN’ PLAY! I’VE GOT THE BEST TOYS, FOKKIN’ BAWBAGS, SO BEND OVER AND TAKE IT, BITCH! LET’S SEE IF THIS IS FOKKIN’ FUN FOR YOU!”

Kraber could see body parts flying, HLF being beaten with their own guns. Ribbons of blood streamed from their throats and stomachs. Someone was screaming in agony off in the distance.

‘Eish, Heliotrope is really good at distracting them.’

And then, suddenly, it stopped, one woman holding onto something invisible.

Kraber fired his revolver into her face, the .44 round splashing blood and brains everywhere, even on a suspiciously equine-shaped patch of air...

"Scuse me," Kraber said, sliding into the street, in front of a stunned HLF member, manning a machinegun from atop a pickup truck. "Have you seen my heliotrope?"

"Wha-"

Kraber fired the revolver. “Outta my ride!” he yelled, shooting the man in the head, knocking him down to the ground with a crack.

“IT’S THE ASS-CLOWN THAT’S BEEN-” started one man with an old, battered, leather-wrapped rifle.

Ducking behind another car, Kraber fired again, the revolver literally chopping off the unfortunate bastard’s right arm, the gun falling to the ground.

The two remaining HLF in front stared at the man with the revolver and the Kalashnikov striding towards them, and Kraber smiled. “HIT ME! I FOKKING DARE YOU!”

It was at that moment that Heliotrope cut through them both, one man’s head jumping off his shoulders, the other one clutching the bloody stump of his arm… only for Kraber to shoot him in the gut, knocking him over.

Damn this seven-shooter was cool.

“I’m taking this,” Kraber announced, sliding into the driver’s seat.

“I don’t think that’s what ‘distraction’ meant back during basic,” Aegis said, jumping into the bed of the pickup truck, just behind the machinegun.

Heliotrope looked at Aegis quizzically. “Well, they can’t notice us anymore, so I consider them distracted.”

“I knew there was a reason I liked the both of you,” Kraber said, just as Nny and Fiddlesticks rolled up in a motorcycle.

Fiddlesticks had a mingun as she sat in the sidecar. Nny was holding his unfeasibly massive revolver in his right hand, the bike’s handlebars in his left.

“Don’t forget about us two,” someone called over to them. A one-eyed man with a curiously thin leg, and a pony with a guitar case.

Paul and Sixstring.

“You’ve got one eye,” Heliotrope called down to Paul. “Think you can-”

“I know damn well I can,” Paul snapped, climbing up to the back of the truck, pulling Sixstring up behind the gun mount. “Sorry about scraping the paint on this-”

“Reh, fok it,” Kraber sighed, and gunned the engine. “It’s a rental. By the way, Aegis?”

“Yeah?” the huge white stallion asked.

“Anything you want to say, there’s a radio here. Connected to the equipment they used, it sounds like,” Kraber said. “The floor is yours.”

Aegis

Aegis could hear sirens in the distance. Whatever the HLF had been doing, it hadn’t been limited to just the Neighborhood. Some of them sounded like they were coming from downtown (as much as it had a downtown) Littleton.

Francis looked over to him from the driver seat.

“Right then,” Aegis said. “I don’t know what prompted these bastards to come here, or why things went pear-shaped. I don’t know what that bucking shit about what the ‘voice of god’ and this ‘hotline’ were about. But I know we’ve lost people. They took Julie’s husband. They busted up my house. They hurt. My. Foals. And we’re going to show them...”

Aegis wasn’t accustomed to the venom in his voice, and made no effort to dial it back. He welcomed it, even.

Kraber

“...that these bastards fucked with the wrong neighborhood,” Aegis said. “Frank? Gun the engine.”

And so Kraber did, flooring the massive truck and speeding up towards Gorham. But he couldn’t help but think on Bowen’s body. The soot around the back of the head. The bruise, the burns…

Right when she’d been about to do something good, drag HLF down the same path he’d taken, she’d been shot in the head, from behind no less.

Something’s not right here, Kraber thought.

I Miss You Beau Velasco / Dare

Chapter 23: I miss You Beau Velasco / Dare
Co-Author: Jed R

Sometimes when your hopes have all been shattered
And there's nowhere to turn
You wonder how you keep going (going)
Think of all the things that really mattered
And the chances you've earned
The fire in your heart is growing (growing)
You can fly, if you try, leaving the past behind
Heaven only knows what you might find
Stan Bush, Dare

Yael
White River Junction Base

Yael sighed and fell against a bed.

“Sure would be nice,” she said to nobody in particular, “If I knew what was going on.”

“Tell me about it, Sergeant,” said Vera Low through gritted teeth. She was on the other end of the room, doing pull-ups.

“So it’s like what you went through?” Yael asked.

“Not exactly,” Vera said. “This? You have support. I have you and all your assets.”

Yael considered the Alaska Incident, and looked a bit downcast. “Sorry, soldier.”

“Is still pretty surreal,” Vera admitted. “And… would like to know what’s going on too.”

It hadn’t helped that whenever Yael tried to call Colonel Renee or Lieutenant Colonel Cheerilee, she’d gotten Babs Seed. Who’d pointed out that the two faces of the PHL were ‘busy’ with something. It also had not helped that every time Yael thought she had enough information, she’d have some thought along the lines of ‘Wait no but what if…’ and she’d felt like any information she delivered was horribly incomplete.

“Amen to that,” said the F.E.A.R man, Chen, at the far end of the room. “A-fucking men.”

Yael hadn’t wasted any time in enlisting their help as they’d taken over the basement. On their side were two cots, a TV, Yael’s gaming equipment, and a table full of weaponry that the two of them considered interesting. PER paintball guns and squirt guns, (emptied and decontaminated) a crossbowlike PER weapon, some kind of PER BFG made from scrap. Along with HLF weapons such as a crossbow firing superheated rebar, G36s, M4s that Yael had mostly kept for the expensive accessories, at least one FAL, an open-bolt .50 BMG automatic rifle that was a chore to lift, and bizarre Khyber and Darra Pass copies, with one Kalashnikov in 8mm locked in semiauto, and a few magazine-fed shotguns based on the same frame.

And of course, their own weapons, and some of the intricate devices that Heliotrope worked on in her spare time, such as a spare invisibility flightsuit.

They’d delegated F.E.A.R’s lot, at this point just the silent man, Chen, and one other man (shaven headed and goateed, with a permanent sarcastic twist to his brow), to the other side of the room. There, they’d constructed an ad-hoc laboratory, with input from Heliotrope, Ambrose Hex and PHL R&D personnel, and F.E.A.R’s expertise. Lying on one table was the communicator Yael and Heliotrope had found, but it looked… exploded, for lack of a better word. Wires and strange measuring devices ran in and out of it, and various radios lay scattered about the room. A thaumoemotive indicator sat nearby, gently spinning.

They’d also brought an array of weapons - Armacham tech, oddball guns and energy weapons.

Back on Yael’s side, however, just above her cot, there was a collage of relevant news articles and printouts.

‘Whatever I signed on for here, I didn’t fucking ask for this,’ Yael thought, looking the papers over.

“HLF Claim ‘Divine Intervention’ in preventing PER Attack on Small Town,” one read. Another, a captured HLF circular claiming the righteousness of the HLF, information from an angel, and saying that logically, the PHL was on the side of the devil. A blurry photo of a Reaver with a large gun that absolutely was not civilian-accessible or kinetic. A report from one Becker Kellman on Reavers accosting the HLF that had been about to attack their truck. A newspaper article on Gestalt’s broadcasts. A photo of an HLF fighter from Massachusetts, blood-eagled with Reaver graffiti nearby. A photo of a teleport spike. A list of recurring words and phrases in Gestalt broadcasts.

And the weapon the Reaver looked to have matched at least one Armacham gun on the other side of the room.

There’d been rumors of Reavers possessing energy weaponry for quite some time, and the thought of apprehending Kraber - perhaps having him resist arrest a bit - had been on her mind for quite some time. She’d hoped to focus on the HLF, but this conspiracy had almost literally fallen into her lap and from there it’d been inextricable.

She looked over the blurry photo of the Reaver. Kellman had been crowing about it for what felt like months. It hadn’t even been a week, but that was Becker Kellman for you. Yael had seen the effect of distrust for the PHL in bad situations - it never ended well. And honestly, who could just up and declare themselves allied with a group whose definition of ‘helping’ was destructive for all involved?

What a damn headache.

On top of that: with the Reavers, HLF, PER with such overt Imperial backing, and Gestalt, there was a feeling deep in Yael’s gut that something big was happening. So she’d asked F.E.A.R for help. Some of their personnel milled about the ad-hoc laboratory, many of whom seemed to be checking various instruments and computer readouts.

‘I have absolutely no idea what’s going on,’ Yael thought.

It was right about then that there was a sound like bells or wind chimes from the stolen communicator. Almost certainly a ringtone.

“We’ve got something!” someone yelled.

Quicker than Yael could process, she was answering the communicator.

“Three,” said the voice from the communicator and Yael craned her neck to listen. “There are three. There is the rage and grief - an incoherent, babbling mass. You hear it all the time. There is the logical process, but it is taken. And there is… me. I/we don’t know which one.”

Dammit! If only Heliotrope was here!

But then, Heliotrope had gone off to visit Aegis and Francis. Spy on them, more like, but ‘visit’ was their story and they were sticking to it.

Something simply wasn't right about Francis. His accent went in and out. His name was almost certainly false. And it was as if he’d popped out of nowhere from the train station in Littleton. He’d gotten on the train around North Conway, but beyond that?

“Actually,” Heliotrope says, “How did you get to North Conway?”

Kraber just shrugs. “Fok weet. I could’ve teleported there for all I know. My memory just sort of… of fokkin’ ends in Portland and picks back up in a hotel room.”

Imitating Heliotrope, she carefully twisted the knobs on what had once been a radio that’d been haphazardly hooked up to the communicator, and spoke into the microphone.

“Hello?” she asked.

There was no response.

“Who is this?” Yael asked, then mentally slapped herself. ‘’Who’ is probably not the right word...’

“I… guess it’s Gestalt,” the voice on the other end answered.

“So this is the bizarre thing that keeps speaking over the radio,” Vera said. “I had wondered.”

Yael knew how Heliotrope had built this, but didn’t understand how it worked. As far as Yael knew, Heliotrope had taken various crystal tech (for lack of a better word) ‘borrowed’ from PER, making something that could tap into the totem-prole networks that the PER used to communicate with Equestria.

They could be found seemingly everywhere back in Equestria - crystalline obelisks that played music, served as a computer network, gave useful information, and played horrifyingly jingoistic videogames. They’d managed to network Equestria together and allow it to coordinate themselves on an impressive level. Officially, it was computing technology that’d allow Equestria to function on a similar level to Earth.

Except not really.

Yael remembered being with Nny, Fiddlesticks, and the survivors of the ill-fated expedition to Alaska that’d turned into a battle for survival. The one he’d written a book about. The one that led to a few humans and ponies on a train from Deadhorse, Alaska, a totem-prole in tow.

And she also remembered the howl of anguish Lyra made when she found out just what totem-proles were in the first place:

Crystal ponies. Turned into machinery, the crystal overtaking their bodies and minds, shaping them into more machinery for the Empire. “Carne por la machina,” someone had said.

“Okay,” Yael said, trying to keep her voice level. “You seem more…. together... than the usual Gestalt broadcast.”

Except it was different. It was like hearing Nny imitate a cartoon character - she knew it was something or someone else, there were enough subtle details to make Yael absolutely certain it wasn’t the same mind that produced the usual borderline-indecipherable broadcasts.

“Yes, well, you don’t have to deal with the usual overflow,” Gestalt said. “The totem-prole network is…. Accidental. It was designed to emulate human-man-man-man networks before the war. Many of us have to work to get this message out there.”

A chill ran up Yael’s spine. That was one of the bits of information that, thankfully, nobody in the HLF had found yet - the invasion had been premeditated. Knowing that Queen Celestia had known of them and been angry for no reason that they existed wasn’t a comfortable truth, but all evidence pointed to it.

“There are advances in which it surpasses you-you-you-y-y-y-our internet,” Gestalt said. “But areas where the internet surpasses it. It wasn’t designed for my-my-my-my-y-y-y-your-y-y-y-our particular interface. Strong emotions of others over-over-over-our-flow through”

“Wait,” she said, her arms and legs limp and running on autopilot, “You mean… is there any information you can… On the war? Before the war?!”

“It’s not important,” Gestalt said. “What’s important is-is-is that you hear this clear as can be. The end is coming. I’m not allowed to tell you-u-u-us- what. My authority is limited.”

“What do you mean, limited?!” Yael sighed. “I hate this sort of thing. Can’t you just give us an instruction manual?”

There was a brief pause.

“What?” Gestalt asked.

“There will be an attack here,” Yael said. “You should stop the attack. It will be at this time.”

There was a brief pause on the end of the line.

“...What,” Gestalt repeated.

“I’m just saying, it sounds more convenient than what normally gets through to us,” Yael said. “You know, like the HLF are getting.”

There was an uncomfortable silence on the other end.

“What… what do you mean?” Gestalt asked.

“There’s a connection, I know it,” Yael said. “You make those broadcasts and… want to give us information. Meanwhile, the HLF actually get…”

Gestalt was silent.

“I try,” Gestalt said, in that odd voice. “I promise, I’m trying. There’s… there’s barriers in this network. Endless machinery of minds - you would visualize it as pistons and gears, all churning forth to no known goal. But I’ll do as you asked: The Solar Empire plan to attack within a month. I don’t exactly know where, but they plan to bring this area you call home to hell before Barrierfall.”

“But… how would they get past the coastal defenses?” Yael asked.

“That’s what the PER are for,” Gestalt said.

“The teleport spikes,” Yael realized. “They’re going to put something over here. Something big.”

“Exactly,” Gestalt said.

“The only question is,” Yael said, “What do the HLF-”

And suddenly Gestalt screamed at the top of its lungs.

“What the hell is that?!” Yael yelled. “Give me a status report, now!”

“Activity is off the charts!” Chen yelled. “Dammit, wish we had Jin here!”

“Come on,” someone said. Calm, grandfatherly. It sounded for all the world like Captain Cactus. “We don’t need to be like that.”

“Yeah,” someone else said. “Come on. Back to work, Gestalt...”

Gestalt screamed again, and this time it seemed like multiple voices at once.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIEEEEEEEEEERGH!” Gestalt cried, before going quiet. “NO, NO NO NO… STOP… JUST MAKE THE PAIN STOP, WE’LL DO ANYTHING...”

“Just do your job,” Captain Cactus said. “It’ll be over quick, and we can be done. I just want all of this over, as painlessly as possible. Is that so wrong?”

The radio cut out before Gestalt could give their answer.

“Well,” said the shaven-headed F.E.A.R man. “What the hell was that?”

“I… think we just found out that whatever the hell Gestalt is, he’s… she’s… whatever damn pronoun, I don’t care,” Yael sighed. “Whatever they are, they’re high up enough in the Solar Empire that I don’t trust them.”

The silence lasted all of a minute before Heliotrope’s voice crackled over Yael’s headphones.

“Hello?” Yael asked. “Heliotrope, what’s-”

“Things are going to hell over here,” Heliotrope said. “The HLF went crazy, they’re…”

“I’ll be over as soon as I can,” Yael said.

“Well… we seem to have beaten them back,” Heliotrope said. “Me, Nny, Fiddlesticks, Francis… a bunch of other townies. I forget. But they took hostages - I’m with them, trying to get the hostages back. And Yael, they’re… they’re Aegis’ foals! He’s with us too. I’m following them from midair... ”

“Heliotrope,” Yael said, reassuring her friend. “You’re rambling. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Just hurry,” Heliotrope said. “I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.”

Yael froze, then looked back to the F.E.A.R personnel. Then remembered all the times Heliotrope had suffered from a bad feeling. That time with the anti-personal mine - yes, the anti-personal mine, the person had been turned into a potion bomb that begged for mercy. Nipville. Northern Africa.

“I’ll. Be. Right, there,” Yael insisted. “It’s going to be fine.”

Except with Heliotrope’s bad feelings, it probably wouldn’t be and they both knew it.

“Alright,” Heliotrope said. “Be seeing you then, lieutenant. We’re just north of Littleton, following the highway.”

“Be seeing you, Sergeant,” Yael corrected.

Heliotrope just snorted and hung up.

Yael sighed, and looked over her weaponry table. Then back at the Armacham table.

She shrugged, picked up her Galil, and surveyed what was available. Autoshotgun? Particle gun? Arc beam? MP20 Obregon?

Her eyes alighted on a particular gun, and she blinked, a hand reaching out to it. It was an Armachan Type-8 particle weapon. They were notoriously unreliable - always overheating. They'd been designed with the intent of doubling their energy output, but the cooling system was sub-par. This one, however, had been modified - stripped back, the overheating less of an issue as a result. Inscribed on the top of the weapon in shaky permanent marker were the words ‘Sam Yarrow Special’.

Samantha Yarrow. Maxi Yarrow’s daughter. Yael remembered her. They’d served together for a little while - Sam had believed in the PHL, believed in what they were doing… until she’d gone with Yael to Nipville. After that, after Yael was demoted but allowed to stay in the PHL, Sam had left her unit and the PHL in disgust for parts unknown. And now, here was a gun she had modified herself, delivered into Yael’s waiting hands. Is this an omen?

Ignore that feeling. Focus on the job, she thought.

“Right then,” she said. “Right now, there’s HLF taking hostages in a town that did nothing to deserve it. I’m sure you know how I react to that sort of thing.”

The room was silent. The shaven-headed man looked towards Chen nervously. The mute man just stared at her, and rolled his eyes. Nothing that was discipline worthy, but still incredibly sarcastic.

“So we’re going to stop them,” Yael said.

The silent man cracked his knuckles - the loudest noise that she’d heard from him - and grabbed a VK-12 shotgun from one table.

‘Where did he even get that?’ Yael wondered.

Vera, however, grabbed an MP20 Obregon.

"But... we're not trained for HLF action," the shaven-headed F.E.A.R soldier said.

"Maybe," Yael said, "But I'm sure as hell not standing by and letting it happen. I'm taking as many people as I can with me."

The silent F.E.A.R operative shrugged.

"Ah, fuck it," said Chen. "What're they gonna do? Cut our funding again?"

"Guess it can't be worse than Amarillo," the other soldier said.

“That wasn’t my fault, Jankowski!” the first said. “Christ, you're worse than Raynes!”

“If Raynes were here, he’d be worse, trust me,” Jankowski smirked.

“I have no idea at all what that means,” Yael said, “So I’m just going to say that’s the spirit.”

Chen winced. “Please don't use that phrase. Spirits and us don't get on.”

Yael raised an eyebrow. “You serious?”

“Amarillo,” Jankowski and Chen said together.

Aegis

Aegis sat in the bed of the pickup truck, too bulky to comfortably fit in the cab. Sixstring was next to him, uneasily manning the mounted machineguns in the bed of the truck.

“Cuz,” Aegis asked. “You know how to use those?”

Sixstring looked downwards a little. “Point. Shoot.” He tapped the narrow metal circle mounted atop the four MGs. “Plus, you look through here.”

Aegis just shrugged and looked along the road, convincing himself he could see the HLF vehicles along the highway.

He couldn’t.

When they’d left Littleton, there were smashed windows almost everywhere. Something burned in the distance. The unmistakable red-and-blue of police sirens lit up the hills.

But, that was all far behind them. For now, they were on the highway. Just near the reservoir.

Francis tapped the radio Heliotrope had wired into the truck. Currently, she was far ahead of the truck, tailing the HLF from the air. They weren’t the only ones that had one - Nny and Fiddlesticks had a radio linked up on the motorcycle they’d stolen. Heliotrope had done that as the bike was moving - which had been stupid, but Nny didn’t seem to mind.

Aegis poked his head in to speak. Paul grumbled as Aegis pushed his head inwards.

“So,” Francis said, thumbing on the radio. “You called Yael?”

“Sergeant Ze’ev,” Heliotrope corrected. “For the record, she says it’s kind of stupid to try this.”

“Kay,” Aegis said, his tone of voice making it abundantly clear what he thought. Dammit. If she’d gone through even a tenth of this, if she’d seen what happened to my foals…

“She also says,” Heliotrope added, “That this is exactly the kind of thing she might do, so she’s not really in a position to throw stones, and she’s probably coming anyway.”

Francis smirked. “I never thought I’d like her this much.”

“Any idea where these people are heading?” Aegis asked.

“North,” Heliotrope said.

“Any more specific?” Aegis asked, willing himself to sound calm. That was the only way to deal with things like this. To stay. Absolutely. Damned. Calm.

Judging by the way Francis was glancing at him, it wasn’t exactly working.

“Not really,” Heliotrope said. “They’re still moving. I’m kind of disappointed at how quiet they’re being…”

“Isn’t it good that it’s quiet?” Paul asked from the back of the truck.

“Probably, but she’s right,” ~~Kraber~~ Francis said. “I was thinking we’d have some kind of huge road war.”

He was met with silence from everyone, at least as much silence as there could be in a large, moving vehicle.

“You know, HLF on motorcycles running at us, ambushing us with RPGs, I kick people off the truck?” Francis asked. “High-budget car stunts? Awesome soundtrack by Junkie XL?” he sighed. “Fokdammit, I was planning on grinding a man’s face against pavement.” He frowned. “Did our budget get cut? Are the writers busy? Is it finals week?”

“Something is very wrong with you,” Paul sighed.

Francis just raised an eyebrow and started laughing uncontrollably.

“...What,” Heliotrope asked.

“Look,” Aegis said. “Don’t worry about him, he’s just coping.”

“And you?” Heliotrope asked. “How are you coping with this?”

Aegis was silent.

“Aegis?” Heliotrope asked. “Hello?”

“Paul,” Francis was saying, “If I do something stupid, can you take the wheel?”

Francis and Paul barely knew each other. Hell, Aegis barely knew Paul. He was an American civilian (maybe) who’d lost a leg and an eye (the former probably to potion-bombing, the latter not so sure) who would stay at your house and knew his way around an M4 (definitely). He’d survive on other people’s money when he wasn’t on a job.

And somehow, at the moment, he trusted him more than Francis.

“Technically,” Paul said, “This whole thing is stupid.”

“Yeah, well, taking my foals was stupid,” Aegis said, “So I figure, why not outdo these assholes?”

“You’re being unusually talkative,” Francis said, keeping his eyes on the road.

“Yeah, well, knowing where my foals could be makes me…. upset,” Aegis said. “Hey. Francis. Would you have done this?”

Francis Kraber

‘Well, Mr. Huge Pony or Small Horse, I’m a notoriously fokkin’ evil war criminal who does bad things because they’re the only thing that brought me much of any emotion for the past few years, and I enjoy hurting people. It’s a bit of a resume-killer for a kontgesig like me, made worse by the fact that I also enjoy putting them back together. I know where they’re going because I used to live there, until I suffered a sudden, debilitating attack of conscience and tried to kill myself three times so far,’ Kraber thought. ‘So, y’know. Probably? By the way, I’m Viktor Kraber! I’d do unspeakable things to your foals up till about two weeks ago! Hey, do you have any beer?’

Of course he didn’t say that. That would have been fokkin’ dof. Instead:

“I think we’re getting closer, I’d floor this fokkin’ thing harder if I could,” Kraber said.

He saw a glimpse of Aegis’ face in the mirror. He looked… puzzled. Vaguely disgusted. Not, by any stretch of the word, trusting.

The night sky rushed overhead, and the nearby train rattled along the tracks. There’d be a hill coming up, soon. He could see the lights of another truck just around one bend. Was it an HLF truck? He didn’t know.

“Francis,” Aegis said. “Whatever your name is. You didn’t answer.”

“...But my name is Francis,” Kraber said, forcing a smile to his face as he looked at Aegis. The big stallion’s face was usually… not too expressive. There was usually a slight curve to his mouth that could’ve been a smile or a frown, and his expression didn’t seem to change too often.

Right now, there was an odd absence of… anything in Aegis’ face.

“Look,” Aegis said. “We both know you haven’t been entirely honest with me. But I need you to answer this question. Would you have done this?”

Kraber remained silent.

“And if you lie, I swear to Tartarus I will throw you out of this truck,” Aegis continued.

If Aegis was an elemental, one of those rare ponies like Firebrand of the Dragons of the East with some connection to the elements, h could have frozen a river. Even now, even in the heart of summer.

For a moment, Kraber wanted to protest. Wanted to say that he was Francis. Wanted to explain his childhood in Edinburgh, how he’d lost his family, how he’d lost everything until he met this stallion and his wonderful family, how it was the best thing, and how he’d never done anything evil, which is why he said-

Kraber didn’t want to answer, because the fact was that he had done things like this before, ripping ponies from their homes and torturing them for the crime of just being ponies.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Kraber said, focusing even harder on the road.

“You’re sure?” Aegis asked. “I mean, my countryponies have done some terrible things. Sometimes things happen, you didn’t even mean them to. Have a hard day, lose your temper, get drunk... it’d be better if we knew it now, right?”

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” Kraber said.

“Really? Sometimes guys do stuff. Doesn’t make ’em bad.”

“Actually,” Kraber said, “it does. The stuff we’re trying to prevent? That makes them bad. That makes me pretty fokkin’ awful. I can’t fix that. I can’t just… I can’t just wipe the slate clean, turn into some other person who never did any of this. But: You, your foals, everyone in the Neighborhood, and Sixstring, you showed me kindness-”

“Alright, that’s enough,” Aegis said. “Are you helping me get my foals back or not?”

“Absofokkinlutely,” Kraber said.

“All I needed to hear,” Aegis said. And then he looked slightly downcast. “I’m… sorry. For bringing that up. You’re… you wouldn’t have raped them, would you?”

Kraber found himself smiling. “I shot the last rapist I met in the dick.”

Aegis’ face abruptly failed. “Kay then. Francis. I’m not sure how to react right now. Logically, I shouldn’t trust you. You just admitted you’ve lied to me, and…” he sighed. “And I saw how you reacted there.”

“Would you have been okay if-” Kraber started.

“Francis,” Aegis said, “I am pretty fucking far from okay. My foals have been abducted. My house was vandalized. I saw you kill several people in front of me. But, if you’re not okay with what the HLF will do, and you’re gonna get them back… then we’re golden.”

“Good,” Kraber said. “Because-”

“Guys?!” Heliotrope interrupted. “Something really screwed up just happened.”

Heliotrope

Slightly earlier…

Heliotrope felt happier flying above tree cover as she watched the tractor trailer the HLF were driving northwards.

Not for the first time, she wondered what she’d gotten into after Nipville. It should have, by all rights, been reassignment to the flank end of nowhere. Nobody attacked places like this, they were supposed to be safe. Predictable. A place where they could just fade into the background, doing unimportant work up till Barrierfall.

Instead: Reports of Reavers. Shieldwall. HLF gone cultike, attacking a city. And the rumors about the Hotline or the ‘Angel’.

Oddly enough, it was the Reavers that worried her. Heliotrope and Yael had caused civilian casualties in Nipville (the reason for Sam Yarrow’s resignation, or part of it). They’d been decidedly unmerciful towards HLF wherever possible, and Heliotrope privately wondered if the Reavers would one day blood-eagle the two of them.

Thing was, though: Yael wasn’t paranoid, and stuff like this proved her right. What the HLF had done to her sister Netanya, the thing that had happened to Netanya’s pony friend, the desperate battles in the Middle East… Yael had known from those moments that the HLF couldn’t be trusted.

It wasn’t paranoia if they really were out to get you, after a-

And suddenly the lead vehicle flipped. Any suspension, anything that kept it on-balance seemed to abruptly lose any semblance of effectiveness. For a few seconds it tumbled through the air, then skidded on its side, one of its wheels toughing the ground. It was like it’d been thrown, but that didn’t make sense.

Then another HLF vehicle slammed into the wreck, spinning out on all of its wheels…

And swerving into the opposite lane of the highway.

Heliotrope hadn’t known much about human cars (There usually wasn’t a need) but even she knew what had to happen next.

Human cars swerved to avoid it, but the damage had been done - some drivers hadn’t reacted fast enough, or stopped short, smashing into the HLF vehicle.

The wrecks just piled up.

“My God,” Heliotrope breathed.

There was silence on the other end.

“Um. What?” Aegis asked.

“That can’t be good,” Francis said.

“There’s… there’s a massive pileup at the exit,” Heliotrope said. “The HLF are turning off-ramp, heading toward a town.”

“Were my foals in there?” Aegis asked.

“Um-” Heliotrope started, changing direction as she flew towards the nearby town.

“Were. My. Foals. In. There,” Aegis repeated. “If they aren’t, I swear to Luna that I’m going to-”

Heliotrope turned on her goggles’ thaum-imaging function. Barring a few residual traces, there didn’t seem to be any in there.

“No,” Heliotrope said, and heard Aegis breathe a sigh of relief.

“Oh, thank God,” Aegis sighed.

There was a pause.

“There’s more,” Heliotrope said, squinting and tapping a magnification function on her goggles. “Someone else is heading for the next town.”

“PER?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Can’t be,” Heliotrope said. “For one thing, the PER don’t have anywhere near as much ATC equipment…”

“...Fok,” Francis sighed.

“You know, you swear way too much,” Heliotrope pointed out.

“Heliotrope,” Francis said, “I have many things to apologize for in this world. That’s not one of them.”

Then a thought occurred. “Frank? Do you know who might have a lot of ATC equipment?”

“Yeah,” Francis sighed. “I have a pretty good idea.”

Idle Preston

“So,” Preston was saying. “Don’t head towards Littleton? I thought that-”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Idle said hurriedly, the motorcycle helmet holding his phone to his head. “Anyway. Some of the mediocre shitstains thought that taking pony hostages after Littleton went to hell would be a good idea.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“Why?” Preston asked. He’d placed the phone near the dashboard, putting it in speakerphone, which made it easy for the others to listen to.

“These people were scared, the one person guiding them in the right direction was dead, and they have no idea what to do?” Idle asked. “Honestly, haven’t a damn clue.”

“Great,” Amber snorted from next to Preston.

“Idle,” Preston said. “Can you meet up with us in the next town? It’s... ” He paused. “St. Johnsbury. I think?”

“Sure thing,” Idle said. “I’m pretty much on the same road as you at this point. You’ll know me when you see me.”

He clicked off the phone, and Preston sighed. He was watching the trees blur past, wishing for the umpteenth time that he’d had a happier reason to end up in America and that their job wasn’t a necessity.

And yet it was. So many people had been dispossessed, displaced, dis-everything by the Barrier, and so many of them became HLF. And under Carter, a former airline worker of all people, they got angry. Even Carter’s incarceration hadn’t changed much of anything.

“It’s a shame,” Osterman said. “I heard Yarrow had high hopes for this Bowen person.”

“He did,” Preston said, nodding solemnly.

“Hey,” said Bentham, who they’d picked up on the Purity’s voyage along the St. Lawrence Seaway. “You ever wish it was easier for people like us?”

“All the damn time,” said Jacqueline Lourdes. She’d recently joined the Reavers around the same time as Bentham, leaving behind her old group of Canadian HLF.

“Does a bear shit in the woods?” Martell asked.

“Okay, okay,” Bentham said. “Point taken.”

“Yes. Every single day of my life,” Preston said, squinting at something on the horizon. The oncoming town - well, more of a small city - seemed a bit too big… too bright…

Wait a second.

“By the way,” Preston said, “it looks like St. Johnsbury is on fire.”

“What?!” Amber yelled.

“Well scheisse,” Osterman said. “That can’t be good.”

Aegis

“Yeah,” Heliotrope said sarcastically. “That town is definitely on fire.”

“...Shit!” Nny yelled, struggling to be heard over the wind.

“Well that can’t be good,” Aegis said. “But why would the HLF…”

“I’m not completely sure about that,” Francis said, looking deep in thought. “Something isn’t right here. I don’t know what, but I don’t fokkin’ well like it.”

But before he could explain the worried look on his face, Paul interrupted. “What the hell? Dammit. I grew up there. I hope things are okay...”

“I hope so too,” Sixstring said. “I just… I wish I could’ve done something to stop this. I was around for the beginning, I just… if I’d changed enough people’s minds, spoke louder, then we, we could’ve-”

“Wait. Around from the beginning? Are you PER?” Paul demanded. “Imperial? Or-”

“Watch it, Paul. I wouldn’t have gotten my family out of Equestria without my cousin,” Aegis said, biting back the minute flash of rage he’d felt. ‘I owe damn near everything to him. My foals, my home, being a universe away from Woven Fucking Sugar,’ he thought. “He’s Equestrian Resistance, actually,” Aegis said.

“Yeah, I think you told me about this,” Francis added.

“Never… never heard about that,” Paul said, confused.

“Not every pony dissatisfied with the regime ended up stranded here,” Sixstring said. “While Aegis was on vacation to take his mind off things and eating fish-”

“Don’t you fokkin’-” Francis started, right on the verge of yelling, right before-

“Don’t worry about it,” Aegis said. He wasn’t mad about that. That was just how Sixstring always explained their shared past. And Sixstring had never judged him for leaving for Earth, it’d just been that Aegis needed some time away from politics. From home. “It’s… it’s fine. He’s my cousin, and I love him.”

“Aweh. I didn’t think you ate meat,” Francis said, confused.

“It’s just… eh,” Aegis shrugged. “Not good. Not terrible. Just, eh.”

“Anyway,” Sixstring said, pointedly ignoring the interruption, “You don’t do the kind of things Queen Celestia did without upsetting a lot of ponies. While she was using a new world to distract us from how very bucked up we’d become, I was at demonstrations. Organizing strikes. Protesting for demilitarization after the Changeling Purges and the Crystal War, asking for the removal of the Equestrian Parliament’s war hawks. I thought we were going to turn attention towards us…”

Sixstring’s face darkened.

“Then we did. The royal guards were assigned to beat us up,” Sixstring said. “We were told we were being disharmonious or something. That by disagreeing with our queen-” he spat out the word- “We were going against her and thus Equestria. And a threat to everypony in the land...” he snorted. “Bucked if I know.”

Aegis looked off to the side, then draped one massive foreleg over his cousin in a hug.

Sixstring wheezed. “Why the Faust are you so huge? Cuz, you know that your hugs are like being crushed by a bear.”

Aegis reduced the pressure. “Figured you needed it though.”

“Yeah,” Sixstring admitted. “Kinda did.”

“Bullshit!” Fiddlesticks called up from the motorcycle. “Nny’s hugs feel way more like being crushed by bears.”

“Should we challenge him to a hug-off?” Nny asked.

“Sounds relaxing,” Aegis laughed. ‘That does sound fun…’

“So then why are you here?” Paul asked.

“There was only so far underground I could go when my cover was blown,” Sixstring said. “So, I’m helping the Resistance and PHL any way I can over here.”

“Oh,” Paul said. “I think I have heard of the Equestrian Resistance. Are those weird Gestalt broadcasts part of it or-”

“No,” Sixstring interrupted. “I’ve been working to transmit them back to the Resistance, and nobody has any idea what the hell they are.”

“Wait,” Francis said. “So, we have something that keeps referencing the, uh…”

“Crystal Empire,” Aegis supplied.

“Yeah. That,” Francis said. “And it’s obviously got some connection to ponies. But nobody knows what it is? PER, Equestrian Resistance, PHL, that weird guy Aegis and I met in the bar a couple hours ago?”

“That guy was really weird,” Aegis said.

“Yup,” Sixstring said. “Spooky, huh?”

Fiddlesticks clicked on the radio in the sidecar. “Damn right.”

They were quiet as they rushed towards St. Johnsbury, just ahead. It looked like it’d been small and unremarkable once upon a time.

That time had passed.

From what Aegis knew about the local area, St. Johnsbury had been relatively important when railroads ruled the day. Then it had stopped But when the railroad had been refurbished to carry materials to support the war it had awkwardly settled back into importance.

Either the palpable uncertainty that Aegis could feel came from the town’s history…

...Or the building on fire. The civilians milling around with strange looks in their eyes.

‘Poor bastards,’ Aegis thought. There were ponies in this town allotted to various farms not too far from here - he knew more than a few of them. A lot of these people had been resettled from Europe or Africa. Most were American, but in the last four years they’d seen horror after horror. The erasure of a country, backwards in time under the Barrier.... Only for it to happen time and time again, obliterating all of Europe. People turned into childish, tittering, broken little shadows of themselves, herded into Bureaus like cattle. The borderline-pogroms that the HLF had done. Once-comfortable lives breaking like wet, rotten wood.

This had to be bringing back memories. It definitely was for Aegis.

“You-” Francis asked, then stopped.

“You were about to say ‘okay,’ weren’t you?” Aegis asked.

“Well, you did say ‘pretty fokkin far from okay,’” Francis said.

Aegis nodded. “Just… this is bringing back memories. Of the Three Weeks of Blood.”

Francis went even paler than normal. “It was a terrible time.” Something about the tone of his voice made absolutely sure he didn’t want to talk about it.

Not that the swarms of people, looking for all the world like refugees from destroyed countries (probably because some of them were) rushing out of their homes to meet them would give them any chance.

“IT’S AN HLF TRUCK!” someone yelled. A woman with an M16.

“No, there’s ponies!”

“Ain’t we had enough of-”

‘Alright,’ Aegis thought. ‘Someone has to do something. Francis and Paul are driving. Sixstring is…’

He looked over at his cousin, who just looked kind of apprehensive. Nny and Fiddlesticks, who looked to be talking about something privately.

‘Fuck it. I’ll do it.’

“EVERYBODY CALM YOUR SHIT!” Aegis bellowed.

Inexplicably, it worked. Everyone in the vicinity seemed to quiet down at the sound of Aegis’ voice. Francis looked almost surprised to see him with such presence, while Sixstring looked up to him in quiet approval.

Nny flashed Aegis a quick thumbs-up. Aegis returned it with the pony salute he’d learned from the PHL.

“We’re not HLF, PER, PHL, any three-letter group,” Aegis said. “We’re just trailing the HLF that took my foals.”

“Shouldn’t you let the military do it?” someone asked.

“Either we wait, or we settle this ourselves,” Francis said. “I’ve lost one set of children on my watch. Aegis is my best friend in the world right about now, and I’m not fokkin’ well losing his.”

“You never told me about that,” Nny said.

“Yeah, well, you didn’t ask,” Francis said. “Not a fokkin’ happy subject.”

“So, are you with them?” one man asked, jerking his thumb towards the six-wheeled APC nearby.

It was impossible for Aegis not to notice how Francis went rigid at the sight. He swore in a language Aegis couldn’t understand.

“I have never seen that APC before in my life,” Aegis said bluntly, and cast a quick look towards Francis. “We’re just here to find my foals.”

Francis had opened the door to the truck and looked to be heading around to the other end when a man made his voice heard.

“My name’s Preston,” Aegis heard someone say, and watching a large man with a larger hammer walking up to him. “Who the hell are-”

He stopped as he saw Francis.

“You,” ‘Preston’ said coldly.

“FOKDAMMIT!” Francis yelled.

Kraber

“You,” Preston said, cracking his knuckles. “Here.”

There was a pregnant pause. The noise just seemed to filter out of the surrounding area, and the civilians inched away from the two men.

The Reavers filled the void. All around Preston, Kraber could see familiar faces. Reavers wearing the same wholly incongruous armor that he remembered from the last year - though it’d been painted over with odd symbols, and seemed to have taken quite a few nicks since then. Amber Hill, John Idle, Peter McReady, Osterman, Martell…

And a few new faces too. Some that he hadn’t met. Just off in the distance, he could see Idle riding up on a motorcycle, bolt-action rifle and shotgun on his back.

“What’s going on?” one of the townsfolk asked.

‘Yarrow must’ve been going overdrive in recruiting,’ Kraber thought. Then he remembered just what that meant last time Yarrow had gone overdrive in recruiting, dredging him up from the sands of the American West. ‘They feel it too, then. They know something big’s coming.’

“Aweh. Me,” Kraber said after a moment. “Here.”

“Was… this, you?” Preston asked.

“I promise, it wasn’t me this time,” Kraber said. He hoped he sounded calm. He probably fokkin’ well didn’t, but sounding calm was preferable to the obvious outcome of the Reavers fokkin’ well shooting him. He… hadn’t exactly left things on good terms with them. “If it was, I wouldn’t be here.”

Preston said nothing, before looking at Aegis. “You trust him?”

“I trust Frank more than I trust you,” Aegis replied bluntly.

Preston snorted. “Huh. ‘Frank.’ Fair play, big pony.” He looked at Kraber again. “Problem?”

“Only if you have one,” Kraber replied, trying to keep a smirk from his face. Oh, Lord, I know I’m the worst person for you to listen to, but don’t let me piss them off right here!

“I’m a professional,” Preston replied shortly, nothing but cold disdain in his tone. “I have problems when Maxi tells me to, not before. You're not on my agenda, Frank. What's the sitrep?”

Kraber exhaled. Thank God for semi-professional fokkin’ standards! I should get those sometime. Later, though.

“Some HLF came to Littleton to… surrender? Volunteer as guards? I don’t know what the fok, but I admire the effort,” Kraber said. “Took a page from your playbook.”

None of the Reavers seemed happy to hear him say that. Martell visibly tensed, his rifle raising ever so slightly.

“Then…” Kraber said. ‘Should I tell them it was my fault? Oh God. Was it my fault?! I shot them, and then… and then there were those other…

He paused for a second, deep in thought. ‘I sparked it off, and that’s fokkin’ kak. But the other shots I heard… Couldn’t have just been me!’

“You shot someone, didn't you?” Amber Hill asked sarcastically. “And then it all went downhill from there, right?”

“You WHAT?!” Nny yelled.

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Aegis sighed, facehoofing.

“No,” Kraber said slowly. “Well, yes, but -”

“Ha! Pint’s on you, Karl,” Martell barked in tired amusement.

“Well, how the fok would you react if… fok it. I’m not going to get anywhere with this,” Kraber sighed.

“We’d react like professionals, Frank,” Amber said.

“But it wasn’t just me,” Kraber said, knowing how weak that sounded. “I’m telling you, somebody was out there just waiting for this to fail. I swear to God, to whatever anyone here finds holy, that one’s not on me!”

“An agent provocateur?” Preston asked with a frown.

Kraber paused. “How the fok do you know that word?”

“Cambridge University,” Preston smirked. “So you think that was it?”

“Uh, yeah, an agent provocateur,” Kraber repeated. “I heard a sniper rifle. And suddenly, this peacemaker has a hole in her head. And then the HLF… they go crazy.”

“Really, Frank?” Amber said, in a tone that was much inquisitive as accusatory.

“They started looting, yelling, screaming…” Fiddlesticks explained. “Tried to kill me and Nny, too!”

Nny nodded, though he still looked angry at Kraber.

“Yeah,” Idle said. “He didn’t lie about that - Someone was definitely stirring them up. I shot a few of them for it, too. Can you believe that some of them even used a flamethrower?”

“Fok… That was you?!” Kraber asked. “Damn. Thanks, that saved my ass. Anyway, they took some of the ponies there as… hostages, I think? So. There’s these foals in another HLF truck that we’re trying to find. I’m trying to help this horse-” he pointed to Aegis.

“Pony,” Aegis interrupted, deadpan, in that special Aegis kind of deadpan he used whenever he was out of his depth. Thankfully, he didn’t seem mad at Kraber.

“Sorry, you’re huge enough it throws me off a bit,” Kraber said, and turned back to the Reavers. “Look, we need to get these foals.”

“Why are you helping them?” Amber Hill asked.

The fire crackled off in the distance.

“Are you tuning me kak?!” Kraber asked incredulously, immediately regretting the use of the Cape Town slang he’d grown up using. Thankfully, nobody seemed to notice.

“You've met you, right?” Hill said, tilting her head with a smirk.

Oh, so many answers to that question, Kraber thought, though he smirked. Fok…

“Well?” Preston asked. “I’m waiting.”

“Good point,” he said, shrugging. “See, thanks to the stallion with the guitar flank-mark-”

“Hey,” Sixstring said, weakly waving with his right foreleg. “I’m here too.”

“-I live with Aegis. He gives me room and board, in return I…” Kraber sighed. On some level, this still sounded a bit humiliating. I used to be the most terrifying, badass motherfokker around and now I’m a foalsitter. Not even a babysitter… a foalsitter.”

Preston tapped his foot impatiently.

“...foalsit,” Kraber admitted.

“Bodyguard sounds cooler,” Nny called over.

“It’s what it is,” Kraber shrugged. Eh. Fok it, it’s an improvement.

“So, with us living together, being friends,” Aegis cut in. “He’s gotten to like me and my foals.”

“Really,” Idle said, folding his arms. Nny and Fiddlesticks looked at the incredulous Reavers, their eyes darting back and forth.

“It’s true!” Kraber protested. “I have. And I said I wasn’t letting another father lose his children again.”

“Buggery-fuck, you’re serious again,” Idle said. “Look. Large pony. Small horse. Whatever.”

“Eh?” Aegis asked.

“Whatever you’re doing to keep him like this,” Idle said. “Keep doing it. It's infinitely preferable to how he was before.”

“How…” Aegis asked.

“You’re better off not knowing,” Idle said.

“Seconded,” Preston agreed. He turned to his troops. “Alright! Civvie retrieval! Hostiles are mediocre dogs - accept quarter where requested, we might make something of them, but don't hesitate to take them down!”

“They kidnapped my foals,” Aegis said angrily. “I don't care if they surrender, I-”

Preston turned and gave him a Look, and even Aegis paused.

“We’re civilised creatures,” he said coldly. “We follow the rules of war. It is what makes us Not Them. Fight the right way or stay out of ours.”

“They aren't your foals,” Aegis said coldly.

“No,” Preston replied. “Mine are already dead. PER took them. I killed what was left of them. But I’m human. Not a beast. What about you?”

Without waiting for a reply, he headed off, most of his group following. Idle stayed out for a moment, smiling ruefully.

“He always was a cold motherfokker,” Kraber whispered. Not that I’m better, but…

“He’s a professional,” Idle said quietly. “More than me or some of the others - we’re just trying to be.” Then he turned to Kraber, suddenly. “Hey, honest question. Did that unicorn over there make you this way?”

“What unicorn?” Aegis asked, looking over to their stolen truck. Just in front of it, he could see an albino unicorn mare, looking incredibly out of place.

“I have no idea who that is,” Kraber said, looking profoundly confused. Could a unicorn have done that, though?

“You don't?” asked one other Reaver that Kraber didn’t know. A woman with a thick Canadian accent. “Huh. I… kind of assumed she was one of yours. She looks familiar though...”

And then a sobering thought occured.

Fok. Does it take me being brainwashed to be a good person? That’s an awful thought.
He looked back to the unicorn, only to find that she’d disappeared.

Wait, is that the Surreal Unicorn from back in White River Junction?

“Huh. She’s… gone. Well, whatever it was, I’m not questioning it,” Idle said with a sigh. “Just - I dunno, don't eff up too badly, Frank. I want to get my people home.”

He headed off after Preston.

“So, are we going with them or what?” Sixstring said.

“I like our odds better with them than without,” Kraber said. “So, we’re going with.”

“Should I tell them about calling-” Heliotrope whispered over the radio.

“We’ll explode that bridge when we come to it,” Kraber said. “Right now, we need them as reinforcements more than I need to explain and waste any more time. And I… I don’t know how willing they’d be if they knew Yael was coming.”

“Don’t you mean ‘cross’-” Sixstring started.

“I fokkin’ like explosions,” Kraber said, almost petulant.

“You worry me sometimes, big guy,” Heliotrope said. “Wait, they… they don’t know I’m here.”

“Idle probably does,” Kraber pointed out.

“Yeah, well… these people really don’t like us,” Heliotrope said. “I can see where you’re coming from, by all accounts they treat Yael like the devil. But… do you really think they might refuse to help if Yael’s coming?”

Kraber didn’t have an answer.

“I’m just asking because I don’t think they’d take it well if I came over and said so,” Heliotrope said. “I’d tell them if I could, but…”

Just nearby Kraber saw Nny, and Fiddlesticks talking to a woman with a missing right arm. She looked like a potion-amputee - they all had that look to them. ‘Brittle’ was the first word that came to mind. There was a Spanish woman in Reaver’s armor standing next to them, listening intently.

“...Took my sister,” she said. “Ran over pedestrians. Fucking HLF…”

It was hard for Kraber not to miss Preston’s sigh.

That’s my fokkin’ fault, isn’t it? he thought to himself.

“Did they set the building on fire?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“It wasn’t them,” said one man nearby. “Not all of it, anyway. It was… it was a monster.”

“A monster?” Kraber asked. “What even...”

He had no idea how to finish that sentence.

“Wha?” Aegis added. “That doesn’t make sense, what kind of…”

“Some… other group was following the HLF, too,” said a man with an American accent. Kraber had him pegged as a local, someone who lived here long before the War. “Not you. Not the Reavers. Whatever did this, it wasn’t human.”

“Then was it… a pony?” Fiddlesticks asked, looking curiously regretful as she asked it.

“No idea. Nobody got a good look at it, but it was trailing fire everywhere,” the American said.

“It’s enough to make me worry about you chasing them,” the woman with the missing arm said. “Shouldn’t you wait for the authorities?”

“They took my fucking foals,” Aegis said, snarling. “I’m not waiting to get then back.”

“Then I hope you get to them before the monster,” said the woman with the missing arm.

“Okay,” Heliotrope said, appearing out of nowhere. “Now I’m worried.”

Heliotrope

The crowd parted, and she was certain that he heard a few sounds like the pumps on shotguns, or charging handles being pulled.

Frank looked… worried, when he saw her.

“Corporal Heliotrope,” said a Spanish woman in Reaver armor. “What are you doing here?”

Heliotrope raised an eyebrow. “I… don’t know who you are.”

“Heliotrope?” Preston asked, turning around before he could get into the APC. “What are you doing here?”

“I told you over the phone,” Idle said, swinging one leg over his motorcycle. “She was in Littleton. I just didn’t think she’d…”

“Of course I’d follow them,” Heliotrope said. Who did this man think he was? “I’ve been leading them for awhile,” she continued. “Giving them information on the road.”

“Without her,” said Yael’s cousin Nny, “We wouldn’t be here.”

“I can connect my equipment to your radio, so you can get… well, the same information I’m giving them,” she said, pointing to Aegis’ truck.

“I think,” said one Reaver, an American woman with decidedly longer hair than would be regulation for anyone, “that some of us might not like one of the-”

“Verb,” said another Reaver. Heliotrope couldn’t remember her name. “Easy. Sometimes you need to accept help from the runaways.”

“Consider it an act of good faith,” Heliotrope said. “When we’re done, I’ll even undo it.”

“Would you?” asked the Reaver named Preston. “Would you really?”

“Absolutely,” Heliotrope said. She wasn’t sure if she was lying. Though… they seem well-intentioned. I just… Rewarding people who genuinely seem like they want to help with eavedropping… it’s just unconscionable, it is. “Just give me your frequency, and we’ll be all set.”

“Fine,” said Preston. He glanced at ‘Verb’. “Like Bowman says. Faith. Maxi says it to. We’re all fighting the good fight.”

‘Verb’ shook her head and sighed. “Whatever, boss. You're the boss.”

Preston smirked. “Damn right.” He motioned to Heliotrope. “I’ll key you in.”

Heliotrope hesitated. “Uh…”

“Why would I sabotage your gear?” Preston asked, with the patience of a saint. “You want us to trust you? Then trust me.”

Heliotrope hesitated a moment longer, then passed him her radio. He keyed in the frequency, and passed it back.

“It's a little battered,” he said as she fitted it back on. “I'd advise getting it checked over when we’re done.”

Heliotrope blinked. “Uh, yeah. Thanks.”

Kraber

The night was too peaceful for what had just happened in the past few hours, Heliotrope was silent, he could see the stars…

Kraber didn’t like it.

Kraber liked to think of himself as somebody who… well, ‘not easily rattled’ was something he knew did not fokkin’ well apply. He rattled like a box full of pottery fragments from a broken vase. It was more that he liked to think of himself as somebody who’d seen it all.

But whatever this ‘monster’ was? Somehow, it did not inspire confidence in the least.

Sure, it made him feel better to kow that people actually felt happy to see him. All the townies around here, they looked… they looked happy to know somebody was just as fokkin’ woedend as them, and that they were doing something about this. Though some part of him just wanted to fall to the ground on his knees, and scream something like ‘I’m not worth being welcomed! I AM A HORRIBLE FOKKIN’ PERSON’

I really hope the part of me saying that isn’t my conscience, Kraber thought. I can think about what a fokkin’ kontgesig I am later. Right now, I am going to help someone out, so fokkin’ help me-

“The monster?” Nny asked as they headed north.

“That… can’t be good,” Paul said.

Kraber laughed nervously, then wished that that the lorrie could drive faster. ‘I would fokkin’ kill a man for one of the LAVs from Dust 514. Actually, I would kill several men. Also, a Swarm Rocket Launcher. I would fokkin’ smaak that. FASTER, FOKDAMMIT!

It was only from the looks Paul gave him - and the look he could see Aegis and Sixstring giving him - that he realized he’d said it out loud.

“You okay?” Heliotrope called down. She looked down to Kraber, her head visible just through the window.

“No,” Kraber said.

The speedometer was not climbing fast enough. Kraber stared at it, wishing he was psychic, wishing that he could do anything other than press the pedal harder and hope to God that he could get to Aegis’ foals quicker.

“If they are where I think they are,” he said, “Then I’m really fokkin’ worried.”

“What do you mean?” Aegis asked.

And Kraber told him. “PER,” he said, not quite sure how he knew but absolutely certain all the same. “It’s PER chasing those HLF.”

The chain of logic was not actually… well, logical. There were a few fragmented thoughts along the lines of ‘but who else would,’ and ‘other group’. Then ‘No, maybe if’ and then the memory of Reaper. Then: ‘Who makes monsters?’

Aegis’ fur almost seemed to get whiter. “How can you be sure?”

“I’m not,” Kraber said. “But-”

He floored the gas pedal, speeding northwards. “Think about it. Who else uses things described as monsters?”

“The HLF?” Sixstring muttered.

Kraber’s train of thought nearly derailed, but he kept it on track. “Well… yeah. But no. Who could’ve just made an HLF truck crash, just like that? I’ve seen those things crash, that was like it was being thrown, not like it fokkin’ hit something.”

“I noticed that too,” Heliotrope said. “I just… I hope you’re wrong.”

“I hope so too. But… It’s the PER, I’m sure of it,” Kraber replied. ‘Can’t this fokken lorrie go faster?’ he thought, pounding the pedal so hard he had to wonder if it’d punch through the floor. Any signs of habitation were gradually beginning to thin, the trees seemingly growing closer together and looming over the road.

“I’m… gonna head up and do that observing,” Heliotrope said, “Beginning to feel like I’m not doing enough.”

“Heliotrope, you’re doing fine,” Kraber said. “I promise.”

She didn’t leave. There was… something in her eyes. Some look that told Kraber that she absolutely was not sure.

“You really mean it?” she asked.

“Yes,” Kraber said. “Look… we’re all scared.”

“Or absolutely goddamn livid,” Aegis added.

“Or both,” Kraber said. “Yeah, I think Aegis and I… we’re both. And I think we all need some reassurance.”

“Awww,” Heliotrope said, smiling slightly. “In that case... “ she tapped her earpiece. “Everyone here’s doing fine, too. Especially you, Frank. And Aegis.”

“Get a room, you two!” someone called over from the Reaver’s truck.

Heliotrope and Kraber looked at each other uncertainly. They weren’t blushing, they weren’t contemplating anything.

Kraber was more confused than anything, honestly.

“I’m… gonna go,” Heliotrope said, looking at Kraber strangely. She flew off before he could say anything.

He’d been driving about ten minutes before Heliotrope saw it.

“There’s wreckage ahead,” she said. “Looks like… HLF truck, I think. Maybe a car?”

“Are my foals there?” Aegis yelled.

“No,” Heliotrope said. “No signs of life.”

Kraber believed her by the time he saw it.

The HLF truck looked like the carcass of a great beast. The trailer had ruptured outwards, and there was a fleshy mass on the road. They were going too fast for Kraber to know what it was.

There looked to be a car wrapped around a tree - not that the crumplezone had folded around it, just that it had been wrapped like a particularly pliable band of metal.

“What,” Paul said. “Just… seriously, what?!”

“Is this… is this normal for car crashes?” Sixstring asked.

“No,” Kraber said. “No, it’s not.”

“Hey,” Nny called over to the truck full of Reavers. “Just so we’re clear, this had nothing to do with you guys, right?”

“How could we?” one Reaver called down from the APC’s turret. “We only just got here!”

“Guys?” Heliotrope asked. “There’s something wrong with the next town…”

It was just then that they saw the town of Lyndonville, just ahead. Kraber had been there once or twice, checking with their usual arms dealers, picking up recruits.

Kraber had liked it, more or less, just for its quiet.

It wasn’t so quiet anymore. A couple buildings looked to have been flattened. None of the lights were on except for one building, a great sixties-era brick monstrosity.

“Thaumic readings are off the damn charts,” Heliotrope said. “Whatever’s happening there is big. And magical.”

“Fok,” Kraber said.

Aegis

“Sixstring?” Aegis asked. “You have a pair of binoculars?”

Wordlessly, Sixstring reached into a saddlebag and picked out a set. They looked strangely modified, a curly wire snaking to one lens, and a crystal in a glass box on one side.

Aegis stared down the lenses. It looked like they’d turned the town into a processing center of some kind - He could see humans and ponies that were leading humans into what looked like a former school, jabbing them with blunt-ended spears.

Whenever a human took the strangely blunt ends of the spear, they’d convulse and scream. Aegis looked through the binoculars at one of the building’s windows.

He tapped on a switch that’d been awkwardly fastened to the top, zooming in on one window. He stared through one window, watching a man twist and warp, his silhouette melting like a candle.

But the thing that really commanded Aegis’ attention was the purple glow.

“They have a portal,” Heliotrope said.

Everyone went silent. Reavers, Aegis’ truck, Nny, Fiddlesticks.

“But why here?!” Nny wailed. “Why, for God’s sake, can’t I just-”

“I don’t know,” Heliotrope admitted. “But we’re stopping this. Here. And. Now.”

“I have an idea,” Kraber said. “Heliotrope, can you distract them?”

“Is this the painful kind of distraction, or…” Heliotrope asked.

“No,” Kraber said. “Eh, probably. Death is distracting, so use that on anyone that could spot us. I have a plan!”

“You,” Idle said. “You have a plan.”

“Strange, isn’t it?” Kraber asked. “I don’t think I’m actually calming down. I think I’m so angry that I’ve come full circle.”

Kraber

One of the PER was a bearded man in street clothes. He looked to be carrying a rifle, with what looked like an attached flare launcher. Contrary to popular belief, PER did carry human weaponry, as potion vials had a distinct lack of range, penetration, and velocity compared to conventional guns.

As Kraber demonstrated, gunning the engine and ramming the bastard with the truck.

He awkwardly fumped against the grill, tumbling over the windshield and landing behind them in a broken heap.

“Potion this, bitch!” Kraber laughed, as the body tumbled through the air.

On the street nearby, the Reaver APC had come to a standstill, firing off its turret at the PER guards, the improvised Conversion station, anywhere but the crowd of humans being herded inside the school. The high-calibre turret didn't “kill” things so much as it “splattered” them.

“Bullets taste like chicken, don't they?!” called the gunner maniacally.

“Potion them!” screamed an earth pony with a pickaxe for a cutie mark. “They came for the prisoners, let’s get them some-”

There was a rattling, roaring sound from the back of the truck. Aegis tapped on the roof, just behind Kraber.

The earth pony with the pickaxe cutie mark had fallen silent. And he’d probably just fallen in general, but there wasn’t enough of his body left to tell.

Kraber grinned, noticing three newfoals rushing towards them, each carrying parts of what looked like a large crossbow.

He flung the steering wheel to the right, spinning the truck out at speeds it simply was not meant to reach.

“Wha-?!” Aegis yelled, but it was lost in the roar and squeal of tires as the rear of the truck hit each newfoal, one by one. Each went sailing up through the air, awkwardly tumbling.

Then Kraber floored the truck, catapulting it through another newfoal.

“What the hell is wrong with your driving?!” Paul yelled.

“Blame my upbringing!” Kraber yelled, throwing open the door. “Aegis, we’re getting your foals. Paul, Sixstring? Hold down the fort.”

Aegis hopped out of the bed of the truck. It noticeably shook and rattled as he hit the pavement. The two of them rushed into the street, guns ready.

A human woman stepped out of cover. She held a paintball gun, watching the two of them running full-tilt into the town’s center. She looked at Kraber, her gun already shouldered-

BANG

Kraber held the revolver in one outstretched hand, still running.

Neither Aegis nor Kraber would be able to explain it, but one second the PER woman was shouldering her paintball gun. The next, Kraber’s revolver had been in one hand with no indication as to how it had moved so quickly.

And then the PER woman’s skull was gone, her headless body collapsing to the ground like a puppet with cut strings.

“So,” Kraber said, striding forward. “Couple of us, whole army of PER. Doesn’t look fair for them.”

Kraber would later learn that, at that moment, Aegis desperately wanted to someday make a one-liner that badass. He strode forward with Aegis, taking measured, accurate shots with the massive pistol and assault saddle, respectively. Where either one of them pulled the trigger, someone fell.

And then suddenly, the clattering of a submachinegun and pain.

“FOK!!” Kraber roared, staggering backwards. His body armor had caught most of the hits, but the 9mm rounds at this range hurt. At least, on some level, he understood that it hurt.

Mostly he just understood that he was absolutely pissed off that this PER asshole had gotten him. With a gun, no less!

One round had gouged through his triceps on his left arm, and he pulled himself back to his feet. Still bleeding.

“Thought you bawbags hated the things!” he called, left arm to the bleeding runnel through his arm.

He looked around, wildly, viewing a PER man with what looked like a crossbow firing ineffectually at Reavers. It was off in the distance, but it was all Kraber needed.

Suddenly his bleeding arm didn’t matter. It was a difficult shot with a pistol, but Kraber managed. The .44 Magnum spat fire and smoke, its muzzle flash illuminating everything for a brief second. Kraber saw the crossbowman collapse like a marionette whose strings had been cut, blood spraying from just above where his neck used to be.

“Needs must as Tartarus drives!” a PER woman said, walking out from behind a house with what looked like a sawed-off shotgun.

Fokdammit! Wrong one!

Then she saw Kraber.

“It’s you!” the woman gasped. “Oh, I can’t imagine what kind of form Shieldwall will give me as a rew-”

Aegis chomped down on the mouth trigger that hung just below his lower jaw, stitching through the PER human with a flurry of bullets.

“Guess we’ll never know,” Aegis said, surveying the damage.

‘Aegis… he saved my life! Wait… I should probably do something about the bleeding. I’m bleeding, right?’ Kraber thought. “Oh, fokkin’ thank you so much!” he gasped, sighing in relief, carefully moving into cover. “Aegis - you have any strips of cloth I can use? I need to stop the bleeding.”

Aegis nodded, galloping towards the man Kraber had shot in the face, dragging his corpse over by the feet.

Kraber stared down at it. “Little unsanitary, but-” he grabbed a knife, cutting off a long strip of it and wrapping the fabric around his bleeding arm. “-It’ll do. Thanks, Aegis. You’re the best bru I’ve had in awhile.”

Aegis was silent. For a few seconds, Kraber could see something dawning on his broad, slablike, unsubtle face.

“What’re friends for?” Aegis asked, finally.

“Yeah,” Kraber said, finding himself smiling. “Friends.”

He holstered the revolver, trading it out for the Kalashnikov he’d stolen back in Littleton. Goddammit I missed using Kalashnikovs!

“Now,” Aegis said, “Where do you think my foals are?”

Kraber pointed to the school. The one that was being used as a spur-of-the-moment Conversion Bureau.

“Oh, Tartarus no!” Aegis yelled.

“It’s the most heavily guarded place,” Kraber said. “Besides, if we get in there, PER die. Not seeing a downside.”

“You need your head examined, Frank,” Aegis said.

“Tell me something I don’t know!” Francis laughed, and they rushed for the line of humans feeding into the Bureau. The Reavers looked to be doing so as well, trying to organize the frantic mess of nearly ponified humans.

It was chaos. Their combined forces seemed to have wiped out of most of the PER, and the Reavers were moving prisoners to nearby buildings. To places that sounded at least somewhat safe.

Kraber saw a PER man with what looked like a crossbow, and drilled him through the head with the Kalashnikov.

“Didn’t think you’d be inviting Reavers,” Heliotrope said, reappearing next to them. “Can’t believe it, Frank, but it looks like you have a knack for this. You could be a decent squad leader, someday.”

“Like thit’ll evir fokkin’ happen,” Kraber said, rolling his eyes. Honestly, watching her just appear doesn’t even surprise me.

“So,” she asked. “You’re here till Yael comes. What do we do?”

“The Reavers look like they have it covered pummeling the hell out of PER, and that building looks important,” Kraber said. “We flank around, and cut the PER down as they’re retreating.”

“Paul? Sixstring?” Heliotrope asked, one hoof to a button just by her ear. “I need you to cover us. We’re going in.”

As the three of them looked up the street, they could see the battle taking place. Nny, taking potshots with the odd rifle he’d been given, as Fiddlesticks opened fire with her saddle minigun.

There really couldn’t be too many PER left, Kraber reflected, taking a look over at Paul and Sixstring in the truck.

Right up until the moment the truck exploded.

Kraber would never truly be able to describe how it happened. One minute, it’d been there, Paul in the driver’s seat, Sixstring blazing away with her machinegun.

The next, it’d been like a meteorite hit the truck, impacting with such force that it left a crater. That the truck lay folded upwards in the middle, not quite bisected, each half on fire. The guns twisted into vaguely noodle-like shapes. Paul’s neck lolling at an improbable angle.

One hoof on the machineguns.

No, Kraber thought. No… No no no no…

The hoof rolled off bonelessly. Something stood in the ruins of what might have once been either Sixstring or the truck.

I was just some fokkin’ bergie to him. I gave him cash for a ticket, and that chommie gave me everything. I had a family. A quiet life. I was fokkin’ happy, goddammit. Thanks to him!

He found himself slumping to the ground.

“Sixstring,” he said. “No…”

Aegis

‘Cousin Sixstring! And… that guy!’ Aegis thought frantically.

“Sixstring,” Francis said, just subtly collapsing. “No…”

“He knew the risks,” Aegis said, but he was trying to reassure Francis. “He knew the…”

Francis looked downcast.

“Uh,” Aegis said, pointing with one foreleg towards the flaming wreck of the car. “Francis, there’s something in there, there’s-”

Something walked out from the flames, and the flames followed, wreathing it. Something pony-shaped.

“That can’t be good,” Heliotrope said, almost conversational.

The flames licked against the pony coming from the truck’s wreckage. And it laughed maniacally.

“Guys,” Heliotrope said. “Run.”

Aegis and Francis didn’t need to be told twice. Aegis picked himself up and galloped away from the laughing flame-pony, Francis close behind him.

And still the flaming pony laughed.

If the humans the Reavers were steadily moving had seemed at least somewhat calm at their unexpected rescuers, then this had undone everything.

People rushed away, screaming.

And then, just as suddenly as the chaos came, it stopped. An extraordinary coldness deeply out of place with the summer heat seeped into the town’s air.

A pony stepped out of the doors to the school. He was as white as Aegis, but not as stocky. So pale that Aegis actually had to squint to see his eyes. He had a deep indigo mane, the only bit of color on his body.

It was as if the life had been beaten out of him everywhere else.

“It’s him!” Heliotrope hissed, a look of abject hatred on her face.

“Son of a fokkin’ whore, what the fok is going on, fok this fokkin’-!” Francis hissed.

“Who the hell is-?” Aegis asked.

“Shieldwall,” Heliotrope said, and Aegis’s blood ran cold. The face from the wanted posters.

Oh no. The PER, they, they attacked the HLF, and… and my foals are with him...

“Who,” he said, “Is screwing. With my. Work.”

“Shit!” Osterman snapped from his firing position. “Are you seeing this?!”

“Yes,” Preston said evenly. He motioned to Martell and Amber. “Keep these people moving! However you can!”

Amber waved and motioned to Martell, and the two of them moved to try and keep the remaining people in some semblance of order.

Preston, meanwhile, scowled. God, if you're out there, I think we’re due a little divine intervention.

“I think He’s busy,” a voice said from next to Preston. He glanced to his left, to see an albino mare with red eyes staring up at him with a neutral expression. “But I'll see what I can do.”

“Wait,” said one Reaver. A woman named Lourdes. “You’re the same unicorn from St. Johnsbury. Who-”

And then she was gone. Preston blinked, and shook his head.

Remind me to talk to Preacher after all this, he thought. Because clearly I'm not as with it as I thought I was.

Heliotrope

“WHO’S SCREWING WITH MY WORK?!” Shieldwall repeated at the top of his lungs.

It was an immensely arrogant move, standing in the midst of several humans with weaponry. Letting them stare right into the face of the enemy.

Shieldwall did it anyway.

“I’m in the middle of something important,” he said. His voice was loud. Too loud. There was some kind sorcerous enchantment nearby, Heliotrope was sure of it. “You all. Have. To wait your turn.”

The area fell silent.

Heliotrope stared over at Nny. He was trembling in rage, a stolen LMG in both hands. Fiddlesticks was next to him, her mouth firmly on the

“All these people ponified, and for what?!” Aegis yelled.

“You apes and traitors think I’m ponifying people? Here?” Shieldwall laughed.

“I saw somebody getting ponified, you piece of shit,” Aegis said. “Unlike you, I know exactly what that does.”

“That was just getting ponypower,” Shieldwall said. “Half the people we took? The HLF? These backward little villagers?”

“Fiddlesticks, hold me back,” Nny said, almost conversationally.

“I haven’t done anything to them,” Shieldwall said. “Does a surgeon yearn for a clean sterile operating room, or the grime of the battlefield? I just kept them so that I could work in peace.”

Aegis’ blood went cold.

“Are my foals with them?” Aegis asked.

“There’s no need for that, Claw Hammer,” Shieldwall sneered. “That’s right. I know your real name. I know that you think you’re like a superhero. Honestly, I thought you’d be happy about where I put them? Aren’t they safer?”

“They’re not with me,” Aegis said. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s the same thing.”

“All of you fighting out here,” Shieldwall said. “And for what? For war? Martial law? Chaos? Bigotry? This world makes a big show of how it can choose, Claw Hammer. Maybe you thought you could share in it, but look at how it is now. Most of the people I’ve sent through the portal for processing were HLF. Is this how you thank me?”

“That isn’t what we-” Amber started.

“Spare me,” Shieldwall said. “This world is too stupid to know what’s best for it. And as the divine instrument of the pony form, of Celestia… I will save it. Whether all of you like it or n-”

It was right about then that Francis lost his temper.

Atypically, there was no joke. There was no setup. There was just a sudden absence of emotion from Francis, and he was opening fire with the ACR. “EAT MY DICK!” he yelled, blazing away with the ACR.

Nny and Fiddlesticks shrugged, opening up full-auto with their weaponry.

And then everyone was firing, Shieldwall’s voice drowned out by the roar of countless firearms.

“Enough!!” Shieldwall yelled, inexplicably unharmed.

And then Aegis saw it. The bullets, rockets, all of them - they had simply hung in the air above the head of a yellowish unicorn with a brown and orange mane, collected in a massive ball of lead. His horn’s magic radiated in a bright orange color.

“I thought you’d be like that. Firewhirler?” Shieldwall said, turning to the flaming pegasus.

Then he turned to the yellowish and brown unicorn at his side. “Vanilla Ice?”

Shieldwall then looked at them all, murder in his eyes.

“Kill.”

Aegis had just enough time to consider the sheer absurdity of the latter’s name before the screaming started.

The absurdly-named unicorn closed his eyes, and his horn TK glowed with such brightness that it became almost white.

“GET DOWN!” Francis yelled.

Then Vanilla Ice let loose.

The captured bullets exploded outwards in a veritable tidal wave of lead. It wasn’t as fast or damaging as it would’ve been if it’d been fired from the barrel of a gun, but it was close. Very, very close.

They were catapulted through the air, tumbling end over end. Some of them penetrated the humans that the Reavers had been trying to rescue.

They hit everything in a wide, almost horizontal spread, peppering every surface in Vanilla Ice’s field of vision. Cars. Buildings. Trees. People.

Sometimes they tumbled inside people’s bodies.

They all fell silent. Like that, the unicorn had slashed through the hostages that they’d hoped to take. Managed to hit almost everyone, Reaver, townspeople, and PHL alike.

“I think,” Shieldwall said, smirking, “That this might just be my masterpiece.”

It was just then that it hit Aegis. They were in the middle of nowhere, no support, facing down PER…

‘Oh no.’

Author's Note

Well. I was hoping I could update one a month, but well that didn't work, did it?

Anyway, here's the new chapter of Light Despondent. Only two more left till I finish this arc! By the way, there is absolutely nobody named Beau Velasco in this chapter. I just really like The Death Set. So... right here, we see one of the first real appearances of the Reavers in this chapter. The best and most moral of the HLF, attempting to keep things together at a time of need. What will happen? And how will the Reavers react to Yael appearing in the next chapter?

Find out next time, on LIGHT DESPONDENT!

Let It Die

Author's Note

"But wait," some of you may be asking, "Isn't the old Spectrumverse canceled? And doesn't that mean that Light Despondent is over?"

Yeah. It does. This will be the last update of Light Despondent as it currently is. Any more writing I do for Spectrum, or fimfic (assuming that I don't end up creating a non-TCB idea) will take place in the new SPECTRUM continuity reboot. Because - and I can't stress this enough - I can't write in the old continuity.

I just... I just can't. And so I'm posting this last chapter, written by me and Jed, because, well, why not? It was pretty much complete, it was around, and this is as close to closure as I can give you, what with the chapter immediately after this being unfinished indefinitely.

If you want more Light Despondent, more Fluffy, then check out my most recent stories, Light Despondent Remixed and The Slow Mutants.

EDIT: So I probably should've mentioned this earlier, but this chapter is... pretty unfinished all the same. This is the state it was in when I copypasted it from google docs, and the state it will probably remain in. Forever.

Let It Die

Light Despondent 24: Let It Die / We're Sorry / Fury Oh Fury
Co-authors/editors:
Jed R
RoyalPsycho

”It’s not shame that makes a man a failure, Carl. It’s giving into it.”
--Donnelly Ferguson, Astro City

“WE’LL FIGHT, until we fall,
We’ll rise, to take a stand!
We’ll fight! Until we fall!
We’ll rise, to take a stand!

Till we die! Let it, DIE! ”
--Survive Said The Prophet, Let It Die

Speaking to Lieutenant Steven Chen, F.E.A.R.

Interviewer (I): “Lieutenant, it would be safe to say you've dealt with paranormal incidents before this one, correct?”

Chen (C): “What, you actually believe it?”

I: “I don't think any of us are in a position to dispute you, Lieutenant.”

C: “Alright, then yes. Mainly Amarillo, but there have been a few fucked up things over the years.”

I: “Alright then.” Pause. “You’ll have to tell me about a few of them…”

C: “Well, there’s a bunch of stuff in the files. Mostly, I just deal with… I dunno, would you believe the ‘less insane insane stuff’?”

I: “After all these years, I just might.” Pause. “For now, though, tell me about the Albino.”

There is a pause as Chen considers this.

C: “Definitely through the looking glass with that one.”

I: “What do you mean?”

C: “You read the report, right? That thing was not normal, no way.” He pauses. “I mean, it had already been active when we got there. The PER… it… I don't know what you’d call what it did. The only one we found after just kept gibbering stuff about being sorry and begging to not be forgotten.” (Pause.) “And then there was the standoff.”

I: “What standoff?”

C: “Man, I know F.E.A.R guys say this a lot, but you had to be there.”

I: “I’ve honestly lost count of how many times I’ve heard that…”

Kraber

One minute, it had been summer in Lyndonville.

The next, the yellowish and brown unicorn stallion had let loose his magic and it had become winter. Snow littered the streets, icicles dripped from roofs.

Then the enflamed pegasus would rush forward and melt it all, singing every visible surface. And somewhere, voice sorcerously enhanced, was Shieldwall, laughing.

He wasn’t laughing like a crazy pony, or like a foal, like.... Like an unsettling amount of Solar Empire ponies seemed to, actually. He was laughing with undeniable glee.

Sounds like I do when I get to really enjoying hurting things… Kraber thought. Not a pleasant thought.

“Why didn’t you use the shield disruptors?” Aegis hissed at him, seemingly more annoyed than anything.

“Because I forgot it in the chaos!” Kraber hissed. “Not to mention, the bastard ran away as soon as the unicorn did that fokkin’ district 9 trick with the bullets!”

“RETREAT TO THE RAILYARD!” someone was calling. Almost certainly a Reaver.

Kraber didn’t know specifically who said it, but assumed it was a good enough idea. Aegis and Heliotrope ran and flew (respectively) along behind him, panting heavily. Anything to get away from the town’s main drag. It looked for all the world as if the town was tearing itself to bits before their eyes, buildings burning, freezing, then repeating in minutes.

Somewhere, he could see the Reavers moving citizens along, taking up firing positions behind buildings and cars, behind anything. They were struggling to move civilians back into the main village, leading them over the bridge back towards the town.

God, if you’re listening, Kraber thought, Don’t let me die to something with such a fokkin’ stupid name.

“Found yooooooooooou,” someone cooed. It didn’t sound like Vanilla Ice, it was probably…

The flame newfoal. It was trotting towards them from one side of the intersection. Its wings were folded against its sides.

Fok, Kraber thought.

The three of them were cornered now.

“GUYS!” Nny yelled futilely, Fiddlesticks next to him. Neither one looked tas if they were willing to fire their weapons at the newfoals, going by how close their friends were.

“Oh, it’s so cruel to separate a family,” said Vanilla Ice. “Tell you what, Claw Hammer... You come with us, and maybe we let the two of them live.”

Like fok they would, Kraber thought.

“We’ll even fix you,” Firewhirler drawled. “Make you a better father. A better pony. And you’ll never have to think about these humans and Betrayers ever again.

Kraber and Heliotrope looked at each other. Then to Aegis.

Fok no.

The way Aegis was looking at the two newfoals that were without a doubt anomalous, it must’ve been almost tempting.

Do they do that? Essentially newfoal-ify their own ponies in all but body? That’s kind of fokked up, but if the Queen Kontgesig is that much of a fokkin’ control freak...

“Hey,” Kraber asked, looking over to Heliotrope, pointedly ignoring the two newfoals. “Do they…” he looked over at Heliotrope, pushed all his fingers together in a vaguely triangular shape, and twisted them against the side of his head.

She caught the meaning pretty quick.

“Not that I know of,” Heliotrope said. “But when has Equestria promising to ‘make you better’ ever meant something good?”

Kraber thought back on all the times he’d heard that and realized just how pissed off he was.

“Our offer still stands,” Vanilla Ice said.

“I have an offer of similar philosophical import,” Kraber said, and he stood silently for a few seconds.

The two newfoals looked at him expectantly.

“KISS MY ASS!” he yelled, and opened fire on the two of them.

It fell into chaos almost immediately. Aegis galloped off into the distance, hooves beating against pavement as he followed the Reavers. Heliotrope spread her wings and ascended, guns roaring in full-auto, bullets rushing towards Vanilla Ice - who was projecting some kind of shield.

Aegis

Aegis could barely tell what was going on around him. He felt like he was standing on the beach, cresting waves splashing all over him.

That was as best he could describe the feeling of being caught in the middle of so many people. All around him, people fled from the school, following the road towards a bridge.

And behind them, newfoals.

They were stupid, sure, but they were much faster runners than humans.

“Get gunners out, anything with range!” he heard Shieldwall yelling, his voice still sorcerously enhanced by… by whatever spell it was that let them hear it. Whatever it was, Aegis had no idea. “I want these useless apes and Betrayers dead or ponified ten minutes ago!”

Aegis could see just behind the school. It looked like they were wheeling something out from behind it. A gun? A bomb? Aegis couldn’t guess.

“IN!” he could hear the Reaver APC gunner yelling, as someone with an SMG waved towards it open doors.

The townsfolk, the refugees, the former HLF… whoever the people that Shieldwall had been abducting were… didn’t need to be told twice. They swarmed after the APC, rushing in the general direction of the river to Aegis’ back.

Aegis tried his best to ignore it, even with the hateful looks some of the rushing humans flashed at him.

He looked through his assault saddle’s goggles, scanning for newfoals or PER, and fired off his assault saddle in short, staggered bursts.

Wherever he pointed his machineguns, PER died.

“Small horse!” yelled the SMG-wielding Reaver guarding the door. “Get in! There’s room enough!”

“NO!” Aegis yelled, trotting backwards in the direction of the APC. “I’d take up too much room, get more people in!”

Reaver characterizing section.

Off to the side, he could see Frank and Heliotrope fighting the two anomalous newfoals. They were moving towards what looked like a field...

Kraber

Do they play football here? Kraber wondered idly, as he and Heliotrope rushed across the green field.

Firewhirler followed Heliotrope, and flames licked off of her wings. Firewhirler’s mane, already the color of flames, seemed to actually become enflamed, trailing behind her as she flew for Heliotrope.

“JOU BASTARD!” he roared, as Firewhirler chased after Heliotrope. No matter how many bullets lanced towards the flaming pegasus, none of them seemed to hit.

Oh, that is fokkin’ kak!

It was just then that Heliotrope flickered out of existence. Vanilla Ice scanned the nearby area, his eyes narrowing.

“WE’LL FIND YOU!” he yelled, firing blasts of freezing vapor from his horn.

“Huh? Where did she-” Firewhirler wondered, absentmindedly, before a bullet gouged through part of her leg.

“FOKKIN’ HIT!” Kraber yelled.

She went silent for a second, and turned to Kraber.

Yay, I pissed it off, Kraber thought. Fokkin’ lekker for me.

“Are you shooting me?” Firewhirler asked sweetly, “That’s adorable. Now RUN!”

Kraber would have. He tried, anyway, but his legs simply refused to move.

Fok fok fok, no no fokkin’ no… why can’t I move my fokkin’ legs! No no no, fokkin’ no...

He looked down to see that his legs were frozen to the grass. He could barely feel his feet, and he could see a thin trail of ice winding through the road to Vanilla Ice’s hooftips.

Are you tuning me kak?! Ice does NOT work that way!

Except right here, now, it was. Freezing him to the pavement, the cold jabbing into his legs like needles.

Kraber roared incoherently, unholstering Sylvia’s ACR and opening fire in their general direction. “COME ON, HAVE A FOKKIN’ GO! JOU FOKKIN’ THINK YOU’RE HARD ENOUGH?!”

“No,” Vanilla Ice said, his horn glowing. “Hate to break it to you, Kraber. But it looks like you’re on thin ice.”

His horn glowed, and raw telekinetic force pounded against Kraber’s skull. It was like being beaten with an icicle the size of a baseball bat. Kraber rocked back and forth, barely able to feel his face. My gun, my gun, where’s my fokkin’-

That train of though derailed as a thought occurred to him. If he couldn’t break out of the ice, he had a good idea of what might get him out. He’d landed close to Firewhirler, too. She had a vial of potion in her mouth. If he could lure Firewhirler up, he could… He could…!

He fell to the ground, wheezing. And close to Firewhirler, too!

Perfect.

Now if only he felt like it’d been perfect. Something about his ankles didn’t feel right, and he looked to be frozen to the ground. Every bit of him hurt beyond belief. His hands, he couldn’t move his fokkin’ hands, he was stuck propping himself up on his left arm, this was so fokkin’ uncomfortable!

“I can’t believe it was that easy,” Vanilla Ice said, smirking. “This ape, he’s Shieldwall’s nemesis. He killed his brother-”

“Who?” Kraber asked. Should I be concerned I don’t know who that is? Huh, I think I remember. It was back in-

“GET SOME!” Heliotrope yelled, visible once more, her guns firing on full-auto and fragmenting against Vanilla Ice‘s shield.

Nevermind, I forgot.

“YOU BETRAYER WHORE!” Vanilla Ice screamed. His horn glowed, and he stomped down on the ground with both forehooves.

It was like the ground split and ice came out from within the fissure, cutting through the field’s grass in an uneven, zigzagging line.

Kraber could see frost accumulating on something hidden in midair. FOK!

“GOT YOU!” Vanilla Ice yelled. “I FOUND YOU!”

He bowed his head, firing a blast of freezing vapor from his horn. The frost-encrusted spot rushed up into the air.

For a second, Kraber could see the outline of a pony.

Vanilla Ice growled - not like you’d imagine from a horse, more like some kind of large carnivore - and galloped towards it, screaming at the top of his lungs.

“FRANK!” Heliotrope yelled, “Frank, I promise, I’ll get you! You’ll be fine, just hang in there!”

“Just for that,” Firewhirler said, that inspid fokkin’ newfoal grin on her face, “I’m potioning him now.’

“What a fokkin’ ridiculous way to die,” Kraber said, surprised at his own calm.

“It’s not death,” Firewhirler said. “It’s transcending. Now, you have a choice… the only one the Solar Empire needs you to ever fulfill. Do you want to drink, or… do I have to drench you?”

She was giggling madly.

And Kraber smirked. He couldn’t move his hands, but he could move his neck.

Idea!

“Just let me say one thing before I drink it,” he said.

“Oh, very well,” she sighed, and flittered up to him. “It’s not like you can do anything this way…”

She reached into one of her saddlebags - apparently made of a fireproof material - and pulled out a vial of potion.

“Come closer,” Kraber said, taunting Firewhirler. “There's something you need to know…”

John Idle

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Idle rushed over the bridge, making his way to the main body of the town.

PER were so much easier to fight when they’d been under the delusion that all they needed to get by in the world was more Potion. It’d been almost therapeutic, back then.

You could have PER who’d drowned every bit of a person’s soul or self under the Potion, convinced it was the only weapon they needed. The only moral weapon suitable to be used by Celestia’s army. PER who went unarmed, drunk on the thanks of the newfoals that they created and the capacity of the potion to simply stop everything.

They didn’t last.

Either these PER were killed, ponified, ponified then killed, or they had to adapt. Which was why they all had PER with more-or-less modern weaponry, blazing away in their general direction. Official PER doctrine involved shooting to wound, but years of fighting had taught Idle that was a fool’s game. If someone shot him through the leg - like these PER might - there was a good chance he’d bleed to death from an artery rather than simply become incapacitated.

John legged it, not even stopping to fire pot shots as he raced for the APC, which - sensibly - was further back from this mess than those freaky Newfoals (Oh, not again! Not again!) could apparently reach. The back ramp opened, almost as if Sykes had gotten the message just from his running. Bentham was already on the turret.

“What the hell, John?!” he yelled. “What are you doing?!”

“Strategising!” Idle yelled back. He ran up the ramp. “What do we have?!”

Ellie Sykes turned in her chair. “What do you mean ‘what do we have’?”

“I mean ‘what do we fucking have’?!?!” Idle snapped. “Tell me you brought something big!”

“Yeah,” Bentham said, hopping down the hatch. “The APC.”

“Nothing more portable?” Idle asked desperately.

“No,” Bentham said with a grimace. “What's going on out there?”

“Fucking weirdo super-newfoals, that's what!” Idle replied. He scowled. “Alright, what do we have?”

“Standard shit,” Sykes said. “Seegert pistols, Hill had a Type-7, the rest of the team had PK470’s and G2A2s. Think we might have a SHO shotty somewhere…”

Idle blinked and grinned. “Hell, I’ll take a shotgun at this point.”

Sykes shrugged and went to the driver’s cab, retrieving the shotgun and tossing it to Idle.

“Not really ‘heavy ordnance’,” Bentham commented.

Idle racked the shotgun and gave a predatory grin that a video game fan might have described as not unlike the Doom Marine from the original game.

“True,” he said, “but dayum does it feel good!”

Aegis

They’d holed up in what Aegis would uncharitably consider the warehouse district. You can probably guess the kind of place. Poorer houses with overgrown lawns just to the side of the tracks, old buildings the railroad had once used, unused cars. A railroad siding nobody really seemed to know the purpose of anymore. Scraggly lines of trees.

Most everybody seemed to have holed up around there as Shieldwall’s newfoals rampaged through the town. But nobody knew how long that’d last.

If only there was a unicorn! Aegis thought. Unicorns were - if he was putting it bluntly - something of a story breaker power. When he’d fought in Europe, helping to evacuate his foals and so many others, a unicorn had usually been able to come up with something useful at the time.

Now. Hypothetically, if there’d been a unicorn with them, if they’d thought things through, if Aegis had pressganged in one of his unicorn neighbors (who was in all likelihood hiding, but hopefully not dead) then they could just get a cloaking spell. A ‘please ignore me’ spell.

No luck on that one. There they were, hiding in a warehouse’s basement with all the refugees they’d managed to get inside. Thankfully, the civilians had - mostly - been evacuated out of town limits.

“Everyone okay?” Heliotrope’s voice came in on the radio.

“Variable definitions,” Aegis said grimly. He looked around - several of the Reavers had joined him in this basement, which was less concerning than it would have been on any other day.

Yay, he thought. Enemy of my enemy still applies.

Aegis recognised one of them - a man called Osterman - but he didn't know the others names. Not that it mattered much.

“Hey Karl,” one of them, a woman, said quietly. “Where's Preston?”

“He and I got separated, and there's too much interference for our radios,” Osterman replied quietly. “But don't worry, Amber. He's got Jack, Pete and Eloise with him, he should be fine.”

The woman - Amber - snorted. “Chances are none of us will be ‘fine’.”

“Hey, you guys have decent gear,” Aegis pointed out. “Pre-war top of the range! You've got to be able to do something!”

“This is not exactly what we came prepared for,” one of them, a man with a red stripe down one arm, said grimly. “The APC is still out there, and Sykes is no doubt pulling the craziest moves of her life to keep it moving, and we were expecting PER.”

“But we didn't come armed to take down these freaky newfoals,” Amber added. She hefted her own weapon, an ATC Type-7. “This might.”

“If we get a shot in,” the red-striped Reaver snarked.

“Better than nothing,” Osterman said grimly. “Still leaves the question of the civilians in the area.”

“Well, what can we do?” Amber asked.

Osterman motioned, and he and his Reavers went up the stairs to the front hall of the warehouse. Aegis followed, wondering what they had planned. Once upstairs, Osterman pointed across the street. Gunfire was still cracking across the way, but it was sporadic, the fighting further away from them now. There were still a few PER taking pot shots at anyone they saw, but not many.

“I noticed a locomotive and several freight cars,” Osterman said grimly. “We can take those, drive everyone out of here.”

Aegis frowned. “That sounds… almost suicidal.”

He noticed the red-striped Reaver giving him a dirty look, but Osterman simply shrugged.

“If we fail,” the Reaver said, giving him a look, “then it's the only option.” He threw a glance at the other Reavers. “Amber, you're up for escort duty. The rest of you - we hold the line.”

“Yarrow for Valhalla,” muttered the red-striped soldier. “Guess the road might be endin’ here.”

Aegis frowned. “You'd really die to save these people?”

Osterman gave him a look. “Of course. We’re HLF. Human Liberation Front. We take the name seriously.”

“Oh,” Aegis said. “Then I should probably tell you, you… miiiiiight not need to die. We kind of called for PHL reinforcements earlier. We just don’t know when they’ll get here.”

Osterman and Amber exchanged a look. The red-striped Reaver just snorted derisively.

“So they could get here to save the day,” he summarised, “or they could get here to find ashes and grotesqueries.”

“Uh… yeah,” Aegis said sheepishly. “Sounds less hopeful when you say it like that.”

“Most things do,” Amber said cynically. “Any reason you didn’t tell us about this?”

“Either way, we’re not going,” Osterman said. He turned to Amber. “Alright, get moving, I’ll cover you.”

She nodded and jogged off, taking potshots at the PER as she went. Any shots in her direction couldn't get through the heavy armour she wore. Osterman laid down a few lines of suppressing fire with his assault rifle, but none of it made contact - the PER’s position was too secure.

“Dammit,” he muttered.

“Excuse me,” a voice said from behind them. Osterman turned, frowning, and Aegis blinked.

Well, it looks like there are miracles after all.

A Unicorn was standing with them: she looked like she had some kind of Albinism, with red eye, white fur and mane, and no visible cutie mark. She wore a white robe and had a golden-hilted sword girt at her side.

“Hello,” the mare said blandly. “Can I help?”

“How did you -” the red-striped soldier began.

“Yes!” Aegis said excitedly, cutting him off. “Yes you can! Oh, thank the Lord. Can you help us fight these PER? They’ve got us pinned here.”

“PER?” the mare asked as though she’d never heard the term, before frowning as a group of PER broke cover. “Oh. Those people. One moment.”

Her eyes widened slightly, and then the PER stopped moving. There was a moment of almost silence, and then suddenly one of them brought a pistol up and put it in her mouth. There was an almost apathetic crack as blood sprayed from the back of her head, and she dropped like a stone. Another drew a knife and stabbed himself in the throat. Some of them knelt, before banging their heads against the cold hard ground until they stilled and slumped.

Aegis blinked. What the absolute fuck.

A moment later, they were all dead, except one girl who had covered her head with her arms and was gibbering loud nonsense.

Their warehouse erupted into screams of what could have been exultation or fear.

“The hell did you…”

“Thank you God!”

“She sure as hell saved our bacon!”

“What the-?!”

“Good goddamn riddance!”

Aegis stared in shock at the devastation in front of him, not sure how to react.

“The one in the blue shirt who put both barrels to his head was going to ponify someone next week,” the mare commented idly. “That person, saved from ponification, would have had a daughter, who will now be conceived and grow up to cure Syphilis. The dead man in the bowler hat would have done something horrific in Quebec City, and been rewarded for his atrocity as an administrator for PER-held territory there. It’s curious, consequence. I wonder if I've done the right thing.”

“But… there won’t be any PER there for more than a year,” Aegis said, confused. Montreal was, by all accounts, the safest city on the East Coast. PHL R&D, for whatever reason, had set up shop there. Back during the Europe Evacuation, it had a steady pool of volunteers for the PHL, most of whom stayed there. It had some of the most advanced tech.

PER holding Montreal just seemed so… so faraway, somehow.

“As far as you know,” the mare said cryptically.

“Say what?” Osterman said. “What… what did you do?”

The mare tilted her head. “I said hello. Now if I may be excused. There are other people I must also say hello to.”

Everyone stared at her, uncomprehending.

Aegis blinked again, uncertain how to comprehend what he was seeing. Y’know, when I thought ‘story breaker’, I wasn't thinking ‘Deus Ex Machina’.

Then she looked to Aegis. “You. I can lead you to your foals.”

“She could be…” Osterman started, but his voice just seemed to peter out as it gone. Someone more pessimistic would have deemed it more pony magic, but Aegis wasn’t so sure.

Maybe, just maybe, the unicorn’s presence was so bizarre that nobody could truly comprehend just what she was.

But then, what else could she be but a friend?

So Aegis started trotting behind her.

The two of them trotted out from the warehouse, carefully trotting over the railroad tracks. Aegis kept his mouth trigger firmly within his jaws, though he wasn’t biting hard enough to open fire.

All around him, he saw dead PER.

“Hey! Huge pony!” he heard someone yelling from the APC turret. “Where you going? Hey!”

The two of them trotted by a hardware store, and Aegis saw Nny and Fiddlesticks in cover behind a car, their guns trained on the dead PER, if only because they didn’t seem to know where else to point their weapons.

“Aegis!” Fiddlesticks yelled. “Where are you going?! Who’s that?”

He didn’t answer.

Kraber

“Oh,” Firewhirler said, taking the potion out of her mouth with one hoof. “I get it. You think I’ll melt the ice?”

“Well. Ja?” Kraber asked.

“It’s not going to work!” Firewhirler laughed. She was so close that Kraber’s head could almost touch her. Almost… “That’s Vanilla’s ice, and I can control my flames. I-”

And then Kraber realized he was going to get ponified. That there was absolutely nothing left to lose.

‘If I have my mind left, and I fokkin’ go out,’ Kraber thought, ‘I’m going out my fokkin’ way!’

So Kraber remembered one of the thin, large-eared canines from back home. The African Wild Dogs. Painted Dogs. Painted Wolves. Strandwolves. Whatever the fok.

He wondered how one of them - specifically Mianda - might think, and bit down on Firewhirler’s ear.

It burned him as he held it in his teeth. He hurt all over from the position he was stuck in, from the ice, from supporting himself with his left arm so long, from the fact that Firewhirler’s ear was the hottest thing he’d ever eaten.

Yet he kept on biting, thinking strandwolf thoughts.

“LET GO OF MY EAR, YOU BUCKING APE!” Firewhirler screamed, and he heard the clink of the potion vial dropping to the ground.. “I swear, I’ll-!”

Then she stopped talking, and started screaming. Something had given, and Firewhirler was tumbling back, burning like a shooting star.

But then, Kraber was rolling to the side, finally free… with Firewhirler’s ear in his mouth, drenched in the meltwater from the stupidly-named unicorn’s ice.

She burns brighter when she’s in motion, Kraber thought idly, even as he was picking himself up and running in the direction of his discarded ACR. ...Kwaai.

He grabbed it by the barrel and rushed across the bridge behind him, looking for cover. There was a house on this side of the river - large enough he probably wouldn’t be noticed.

Lekker!

He ran out from the field, past the bleachers. He’d seen a footpath there, leading right up to the RIVER. Before he knew it, he found himself pounding along the trail, breathing raggedly.

He turned to the right and rushed down a narrow footbridge over the river, feet pounding against the wooden slats. He was in a narrow strip of trees now - not quite a forest, but it was the first thing that came to mind.

“Hiding in the kindling?! Firewhirler laughed from off in the distance as Kraber rounded a corner, still running.

He pelted through a parking lot, and slid into hiding behind what looked like it could’ve been another school.

Just off in the distance, he could see the Reavers moving towards a railyard.

He couldn’t let himself relax, not when those two monsters were there, ready to strike. For all he knew, they could be right next to hi-

“Frank?!” someone hissed.

Kraber shouldered his ACR, standing and aiming before he knew it.

Heliotrope

Heliotrope couldn’t believe it and there he was, right in front of her. Near this building that looked like it could’ve been a school. Frank, looking a bit singed, a bit worse for wear, his skin a bit… a bit too raw-pink near his mouth, pants soaked. Pointing his obviously stolen ACR at her. But otherwise fine.

She had to stay silent, but seeing him survive was just too bizarre.

“How did you survive?!” she hissed.

Frank spat something out onto the grass at their feet.

“Guess you could say I gave her an earful,” he said, and it was just then that Heliotrope saw it. He’d just spat out a pony’s ear.

“Oh, Frank, no…”

“Frank yes,” Frank whispered bluntly. “I have an idea. See… I was just trying to rip her ear off out of spite. But when she flew back, the ice melted. She got hotter…”

“When she was moving!” the two of them chorused at once.

The building behind them rumbled, and they could hear Firewhirler and Vanilla Ice laughing in the background.

“So,” Frank said, “We have to immobilize her!”

“Any plans for getting rid of Vanilla Ice?” Heliotrope asked.

“Publish a terrible biography, get him to star in a critically panned movie, and drive him into a self-destructive spiral of drugs?” Frank asked.

“What,” Heliotrope said. ‘What the hell does that even mean?!’

“Joking,” Frank said, panting slightly. “All I’ve got so far is the one-liner for when he dies.”

“One day, you’ll have to explain what that means,” Heliotrope said, as the two of them approached the main body of the town.

Heliotrope heard sporadic from her right, far-off. And it absolutely wasn’t from the same direction as the Reavers. Though there was something odd - it ended far too quickly. She could hear a shotgun, an SMG, maybe a rifle, all firing at once… and then all stopping.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Gunfire?” Frank asked sardonically.

“No,” Heliotrope said. “I’m telling you, something’s not-”

“GET DOWN!” Nny screamed from the other end of the street.

Heliotrope folded her wings to the side of her body, and flattened herself against the road. Frank did the same.

FSSSSSSSS

A beam of frozen vapor lanced above their heads. Just nearby, they could see Nny and Fiddlesticks, in cover at the end of the street. And beyond that, they could see the Reaver’s defensive lines - the APC, firing away with its automatic grenade launcher. An unremarkable, rusty diesel locomotive with freight cars, resting comfortably on a siding.

And...

Dead bodies littered the street. Heliotrope saw two dead PER men lying in the middle of the street. One woman in a shirt that had once been blue lay on the ground, both barrels of a double-barreled shotgun to her chin. Another wore a bowler hat, and had slashed open their wrists.

“They killed themselves,” Heliotrope breathed. “What could even…”

“What the fok is this?” Frank asked, looking over the carnage. “Actually, whatever did this, can I have some?”

“You can’t run forever!” Vanilla Ice yelled.

Heliotrope kept flying. “There’s a car nearby,” she said. “We can take cover behind that. Try and think of our next move.”

Frank ran just behind her, avoiding the corpses like an Olympic runner over hurdles. Finally, they came to a mostly-empty parking lot, though there were still a few scattered cars there.

Frank and Heliotrope slid behind a large pickup truck, not too far from Nny and Fiddlesticks. Heliotrope could see them, and whatever had happened they looked awful. Fiddlesticks was wheezing - it looked like she’d gotten hit, somewhere.

Blood ran down Nny’s skull, just over his eye. They both looked to be rubbed in grime, bruised, overall battered. But they were still standing.

“Frank! Heliotrope!” Nny yelled. “Aegis, he… he ran away, and the PER all died…”

“Wait, Aegis is gone?!” Frank asked, a panicked look in his eyes. “What happened? Is he okay?”

“What happened to these PER?” Heliotrope added.

“Okay,” Fiddlesticks said, taking deep breaths. “I’ll explain everything. We’re holding the trainyard, but just barely. Thanks to the Reavers. But something… really screwed up just happened.”

“How screwed up?” Frank asked.

“A unicorn just sort of… appeared,” Johnny C said. “She walked out from the trainyard, and I think she made the PER kill themselves. And Aegis was following her. We told him to stop, yelled for him, but he…”

“Didn’t say much of anything, really,” Fiddlesticks said. “So, on the one hoof, we’ve got some territory for ourselves. On the other, I have no damn idea what’s going on.”

“What did she look like?” Heliotrope asked.

“She was an albino,” Johnny C said. “Definitely not a newfoal. I could see a sword on her side.”

“Huh,” Frank said. “I’ve met her.”

What?! Heliotrope thought. Everyone stared at him.

“She appeared while I was in White River Junction,” Frank said. “I didn’t know what she could do, but-”

“BURN THEM!” they all heard Firewhirler scream. “BURN THEM ALL!”

“Ah, fokdammit,” Frank said.

“I guess you’ll have to explain it later,” Nny said.

“What the hell makes you think I can do that? I have no idea how to explain,” Frank said.

Heliotrope peered up over the car, and swore when she saw it. Firewhirler and Vanilla Ice trotted up to the lot, to the area they’d carved out through superior firepower. There was a small herd of newfoals following both of them, in all the colors of the rainbow.

“If anyone has a plan,” Nny said, his rifle shaking in his hands, “I’d love to hear it.”

“We need to paralyze the flaming one,” Heliotrope said. “I’m thinking, we need to distract them both while somebody runs back to the Reavers, gets a Penetrator, and-”

Wordlessly, Nny reached into Fiddlesticks’ saddlebags, and pulled out an HV Penetrator rifle that absolutely could not have fit inside.

“...Why?!” Heliotrope breathed.

“[url=https://www.fimfiction.net/story/312770/2/snowbound/chapter-two-that-haunted-melody] That old thing? We’ve left that in there almost a year!” Fiddlesticks said, a wry smile on her face.

“We’re going to keep Firewhirler occupied,” Heliotrope said. “We need you to lock her down. Can you do that, John?”

Nny got a weird look on his face. Almost despairing. No, I can’t. What if I fail. Heliotrope could tell he wanted to say something like that.

But instead, he made what could almost be considered a smile, and picked himself up. The gargantuan assault rifle looked like it barely fit in his hands.

“...Can I have one?” Frank asked, looking like he was almost drooling over it.

“You can look, but you can’t touch,” Nny said, shouldering the thing.

Suddenly, the parking lot became far hotter. Heliotrope could feel her skin blistering under her fur, and the invisibility suit. But she ignored it.

“Hello, Johnny,” Firewhirler cackled.

“How many of you,” Frank asked, “Do I have to kill. To get my friend’s foals back.”

“Over my dead body,” Vanilla Ice called.

“If you insist,” Frank said, smirking.

Crap. He took that as a challenge, Heliotrope thought, watching Firewhirler draw closer. The stump of her missing ear was an ugly green-white-pink. It looked like she’d cauterized the wound herself. “Remember me, Johnny-boy? How I died of frostbite?”

Nny was impassive.

“The fuck are you?” he asked, bluntly.

Preston.

Preston pressed himself against the wall of a living room in a small house, hearing small arms fire impacting against the brickwork. He was fortunate - this living room, unusually for American houses, had only one, comparatively small outside window.

The PER’s attack had forced him to fall back, his people scattering. Verbinski, Rodriguez and McReady were with him, along with a few civvies they'd been protecting, but he didn't know where the rest of his team had ended up. He hoped they were keeping themselves alive and human. He'd killed enough of his own friends to save them.

“Who the fuck are you people?!” one of the civilians he was protecting, a nervous looking woman, swore at him. “Some kind of PHL special ops?!”

“No,” Preston said quietly.

“Does it matter who we are?” Verbinski muttered. “We’re risking our asses keeping you people human.”

“I know who you are,” a man with a balding pate said darkly. “You're HLF. Your friend had a red stripe down his arm, I recognise that symbol - I saw it before, when I was at Agua Caliente before they retired me.”

“You were at Agua Caliente?” Rodriguez asked. “Huh - so were we. Well, me and Preston anyway - you were still with the Sternguard, right Verb?”

“That's right,” Verbinski said with a sigh. “Poor old Stan.”

“Save memory lane for later, people,” Preston said quietly. He looked out of the small window, and sighed. “PER out there are laying down a decent suppressing fire -”

“HLF?!” the woman hissed, as she looked from Preston to Verbinski to Rodriguez and back again. “Get the fuck away from me!”

She moved to race out of the door, but Rodriguez grabbed her and flung her to the ground.

“Keep down you moron!” she yelled. A hail of bullets tore through the hallway outside the living room, and the woman paled. Rodriguez swore, before stepping out and laying down a quick hail of fire with her Andra FD-99 SMG.

“One guy trying his luck,” she muttered. “Think I winged him.”

“I’ll check,” McReady said, popping his head around the corner. He came back a second later, shaking his head. “Ah, shit, bastard potioned himself…”

“Hang on,” Rodriguez said, pulling a grenade from her belt. She threw it down the corridor. “Down!”

Everyone covered their ears, and the explosion shook the house. A moment passed, and then Rodriguez popped her head back around.

“He's dead,” she said. “Grotesquery bits all over the corridor. Pity the bastard who has to clean that shit.”

“The fuck are HLF doing here with ponies?” the man asked. “I saw your APC come in with that big pony and his friends. What gives?”

“We’re the smart ones, asshole,” Verbinski said with a smirk. “We know when to not go apeshit on people.”

“Unlike you,” Rodriguez said to the woman. “What the fuck were you thinking?!”

“HLF killed my friend,” the woman growled. “You fucking mad dogs should have all been -”

Preston held up a finger. “Hold that thought.”

He motioned McReady towards the window. The other man moved there carefully, and Preston held up two fingers, before making one half length. McReady nodded, before popping up, his rifle blazing as he fired off a few shots, taking out a PER stallion as he and a human rushed the house, a bandolier of potion on his belt. The vial splattered, hitting his human ally, but the Reaver’s rounds killed him too before he could do much more than cry out.

McReady sighed and got back behind cover. “Sorry about that, just saving your lives. You were saying?”

The woman blinked. “I - you -”

“Just leave it,” the man said tiredly. He looked at McReady. “Thanks, I guess.”

“You're welcome,” McReady replied. “I guess.”

Preston looked to be thinking about something.

“Boss?” Verbinski asked.

The big man motioned to the hall. “Rodriguez, go see if there's another entrance. Don't want to be caught on the back foot.”

“Gotcha,” Rodriguez said. “Verb, cover me.”

“Got your back,” Verbinski said, following her.

They crouch-walked out of the room, carefully heading for the back of the house.

“So,” the man asked. “You got a special name, your lot? Like Thenardier Guards, Christian Marines, Menschab-whatever?”

“Reavers,” Preston said tightly.

“Reavers,” the woman repeated scornfully. “Like the Marvel villains, those cyborg douches? Or the things from Firefly?”

“Viking term, actually,” the man said quietly. “A kind of raider. Though I assume that's your group’s ‘theme’, right? Vikings? I heard one of you yelling something about Valhalla earlier.”

“This really the time?” McReady asked.

Preston shook his head. “Whatever questions you've got about us, I'm sure they can wait.”

“If you're protecting me, I’ve a right to know who the fuck you are and what you represent,” the man replied testily. “All the HLF I've seen are -”

“We represent protecting your sorry arse at the moment,” McReady snapped irritably, “which I’d have thought was the most important thing at the present moment.” He glanced out of the window to the other side of the street, and frowned. “Huh.”

“What?” the man asked.

“They've stopped firing,” Preston said after a moment. “The sound of guns stopped before I sent Verb and Jack out to check the back.”

McReady looked again. “Looks like something’s distracting them - God knows what.”

Aegis

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozft-BDgOBE] He watched the Albino mare trotting gracefully through a collection of dead PER.

Need to keep a brave face, he reminded himself.

The PER just seemed to melt out of the trees once he crossed the river. A man with an axe coated in potion stepped out from behind a tree, a blond man with a homemade double-barrel made of pipe, a girl with a knife, and a brunette with a paintball gun.

“TRAITORS!” the ax-wielding PER man screamed, rushing at the two of them.

“Oh, you’re one to talk,” Aegis said almost contemptuously, ready to aim, ready bite down on the mouth trigger for his assault saddle-!

The Albino held out a foreleg to Aegis’ barrel in what was almost certainly a gentle reminder to let her handle it.

If you can handle it… Aegis thought uneasily, watching the Albino stare down the axe-wielding PER man.

Something strange happened as the man ran towards them. Or rather, something didn’t happen. The man didn’t keep running. He didn’t swing the axe. He just sort of stumbled, and fell to one knee awkwardly in a pose that had to be painful.

And then he screamed, a high piercing wail that made Aegis momentarily tap a forehoof to one ear to see if it was bleeding.

It wasn’t. The PER man probably was, though - blood issued forth from his nose, dripping along his lips, down his chin, even into his open mouth.

It was the look in his eyes that made Aegis stagger back, openmouthed. It was a look he’d rarely, if ever, seen on PER. Guilt. Reproach. Self-loathing. It actually looked… kind of like Frank’s default face, come to think of it.

“God, oh God, this is what happens,” the man sobbed, tears coming from his eyes. “That’s it, an endless nightmare. They have no mouths behind their smiles and they must scream! AND I’VE MADE THEM DO IT!”

He turned the head of the axe to himself and swung it into his nose.

It didn’t kill him, even with the blood spilling out from the ruins of his nose. He had to try several more times, ramming it into his skull until Aegis could barely see any face left.

“HENRY!” the man with the homemade shotgun screamed, swinging his weapon towards at Aegis and the Albino. “SWEET CELESTIA, I’LL… I’LL-”

He didn’t fire. Instead, with a complete absence of any expression on his face, he flipped the shotgun upwards as if it was the most natural thing in the world, both barrels to the underside of his chin.

“I am beyond redemption,” the shotgunner said calmly, and fired. His head exploded outwards, painting a wall in brains and blood.

A woman nearby - barely more than a child, her hair almost waist-length - held a knife to a wall, the butt of the grip held to the bricks so the tip pointed directly to her ear. Aegis swore he’d seen her at the party over in White River Junction, the one where ~~Kraber~~ Frank had nearly killed Popover.

Oh, jeez, Aegis thought, his mind somewhere else as he desperately tried not to notice the horror only a few feet away. I forgot about Popover! Is she okay?! Is she-

The woman screamed. “LINSEY! GOD, WHAT’D I TURN YOU INTO?! I TOOK ADVANTAGE OF YOU, MADE YOU SOMEONE ELSE, AND I’M SO SORRY!”

And she headbutted the knife with the side of her head, the knife piercing through her ear, directly into her brain. As with the axe-wielding man, it took multiple tries for her to finally end it. What looked like enough blood to fill a decently-sized water bottle spilled out onto the floor.

“W-what in Luna’s name are you doing to them?” Aegis asked, forcing stoicism into his voice and probably failing. I have to stay calm, he thought. For everyone’s sake. They need to know that Claw Hammer - not Aegis is a rock in the river, they need to know…

But it was just him and the Albino. She probably didn’t care.

“I’m not doing anything to them,” the Albino mare said. “I’m just letting them understand. The fundamental, objective truth about themselves and what they have done. They’re doing this on their own. Making their own decisions based on new knowledge.”

Another PER soldier, this one a brunette girl, looked down at what looked like a paintball gun and tossed it to the ground. It cracked in half, potion spilling out, and she fled into the darkness beyond.

“Few of them are capable of knowing the truth,” she said. “For those with pretensions of transhumanism, they can be quite small-minded.” She glanced at him. “I can show you the same truth I showed them, if you like.”

Aegis shook his head. “I’d… uh, rather not. I get the feeling it'd be -”

...abandonedyourwifewhenshewasscreaminginsideherownmindtrappedpervertedyourlandisinvadedandconqueredandyouranandtoldyourselftheyhadchangedontheirown…

Aegis shook his head, eyes widening. “What - what was -”

“Objective knowledge,” she said, her tone neutral. “Nothing more.”

“I… I…”

…abandonedhertothedepthsoftormentanddespaorandfledinsteadoftryingtosaveherorbringherfromthatplaceofhorror…

“Don't. Don't do that. Please.” He felt sick, a wave of guilt and nausea he didn't quite understand and didn't want to almost making me him vomit. “I don't want that truth.”

The Albino tilted her head. “You are sad. I understand. Don't be afraid. All will be well. Maybe even with her.”

And with that, she trotted merrily down the street, leaving the bodies in her wake.

Somehow, Aegis was left with the impression that she had other people to meet today. Having got a glimpse of what they had seen, he found a wave of pity rising up to the forefront of his mind.

Kraber

Kraber knew from experience that running into a newfoal that claimed to know you was never fun. They’d guilt-trip you, insult you, all while telling you things only your friend could have known. They’d laugh at you. Mock you.

As Firewhirler was doing at this very moment.

“Why, I’m your friend!” Firewhirler said sarcastically, batting her eyes at Nny. He looked sickened. Disgusted. “Yours and Fiddlesticks.”

“Firewhirler,” Vanilla Ice said, “This is just getting old. Burn them already so we can go!”

“In a minute,” Firewhirler said, “I just want to be sure John and Fiddlesticks understand just. How. THANKFUL. I am.”

“Should I…” Kraber asked, looking from Nny to the two super-newfoals. “Did ya… did ya huv something?”

Nny was shaking again. Sweating. Eyes darting from side to side. “N-no,” he said finally. “I have no idea who this is. I’m pretty sure I’d remember leaving a woman to freeze to death.”

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T-fEbu-s68] “That is something you’d probably remember,” Kraber agreed, nodding.

“Not even gonna ask,” Heliotrope said, shaking her head.

For the best, Kraber thought.

“I can tell you who I was. I can forgive you. I can make sure you make up for what you did,” Firewhirler said, twitching. “All. You need. To do. Is go. Pony.”

If there was anything Kraber had learned about the remnants of a newfoal’s mind, it was that you didn’t get an answer until it was too late. Or at all.

So he responded in the most appropriate way he knew when it came to newfoals attempting to convince someone to be ponified.

“I’M GONNA REDECORATE THIS FOKKIN’ TOWN WITH YOUR FACE, VARKNAAIERS!” Kraber yelled, and shot a newfoal stallion just where neck met barrel, practically cutting the once-human in half.

Lengthwise.

‘Didn’t think that was possible, but I’m just not gonna question it!’ Kraber thought.

Nny flashed one middle finger to Firewhirler and started firing. “Like hell I will, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!”

And all hell broke loose.

“BURN!” Firewhirler screamed, and shot forwards like a bullet. Towards Nny…

Who ducked and rolled behind a car, swearing in barely-complete sentences. He poked himself up from behind the hood and fired, desperately trying to lead his target.

“PIECE OF SHIT COCKF-” Nny swore, watching the heavy Penetrator rounds miss Firewhirler by… Well, Kraber couldn’t quite tell from the tracers, but it was a lot.

Firewhirler laughed as the heavy projectiles missed her, again and again.

Which left her heading straight for Kraber.

He swore and rolled to the right as Firewhirler flew overhead, trailing fire behind her. I really wish I’d brought a fokkin’ helmet! Kraber thought, wondering if his hair was singed, or if his face had gotten any more burnt.

With Firewhirler came newfoals. Thankfully, not the kind Shieldwall was known for, just the usual garden-variety chargers.

Good.

Kraber aimed for a pegasus newfoal with twin potion bandoliers encircling their body, and fired. The newfoal hurtled towards the ground, its face ramming against the pavement, one wing flapping uselessly.

“Oh, JOHNNNNNYYYYYY! FIIIIIDDLESTIIIIIIIIICKS!” Firewhirler crooned. “I missed you! Remember when you let me die, Nny?!”

Kraber didn’t think too hard about it. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen newfoals claim that somebody had let them die.

Nny was cursing a blue streak, practically bouncing from sidewalk to sidewalk, Penetrator in hand. He was firing it semiautomatically, nailing newfoals to the pavement.

Like every fokkin’ plan, everything in Kraber’s damn life, no no no stop, it’d gone awry. Immobilizing Firewhirler with a Penetrator had proven easier said than done.

A rock slammed into Kraber’s face, and he staggered slightly. He could see a newfoal levitating another group of rocks in its horn TK, ready to throw them.

“WHO FOKKIN’ THREW THAT SHIT?!” Kraber yelled, unholstering his revolver and firing.

THOOM

The .44 round sheared through the newfoal’s skull, splashing blood everywhere. The stones exploded outwards, embedding themselves in houses, and at least one unfortunate newfoal.

He heard the pneumatic click of a paintball gun, and dove behind a car. Just far away enough that he probably wouldn’t be hit. He watched, fuming as purple dots of potion splattered against the fiberglass body of the car.

He’d… well, borrowed a facemask. It was hopefully enough to prevent the purple siff liquid from getting him, but he never felt truly safe with potion splattering his gear. Some of his friends had been like that, moved wrong, and then you might sloooooooowly start growing fur…

Six rounds left in the revolver. Five newfoals. And that prick with the paintball gun.

I can fokkin’ do this!

He crawled to the other side of the car, sighted the revolver in, and fired. A newfoal simply lost everything between its forelegs and skull, flopping to the ground bonelessly.

The little splats of potion flew lightly overhead, but he ignored it. He was fokkin’ woedend.

“JOU WANT ME IN JOU FOKKIN’ EMPIRE! HERE! HAVE SOME FOKKIN’ MORE, I FOKKIN’ HOPE JOU CHOKE ON IT, BLIKSEM!”

He squeezed the trigger. The revolver kicked in his hand, and-

FOK! MISSED!

A magnum round landed harmlessly in the support beam of a house’s porch.

He fired again. Another miss.

Stay calm, Viktor, he thought. Stay-

That didn’t last. He fired again, punching through a sea-green newfoal mare. Her skull simply vanished, the remnants of her head splashing outwards.

“WE’RE GONNA FIND YOU, HUMAN!” one purple newfoal screamed, at the top of his lungs. “AND WE’RE GONNA MAKE SURE YOU THANK US FOR ALL THIS TROUBLE!”

“THE FOK DOES THAT EVEN MEEEEEAN!” Kraber yelled, aiming for a headshot.

But at the last second, the purple newfoal dashed to the left, just towards cover. Kraber struggled to track the sudden movement, and fired again...

Only for the newfoal to collapse, screaming and hemorrhaging blood like a fountain. Kraber had somehow threaded the needle with the .44, its heavy magnum round nailing the moving target between its legs...

“RIGHT IN THE FOKKIN’ EIERS!” Kraber yelled, as the newfoal bled out. Some would say that it was a stupid way to kill a newfoal. They were probably right, but there was only so much an inborn lack of pain receptors could do in the event of a major artery being fokkin’ vernietig.

“He got Woodpulp!” a newfoal yelled.

Kraber thumbed a speedloader into the cylinder, and snapped the revolver closed. All he could think at that revelation, no matter how little sense it made, was ‘Seriously? His actual name was Woodpulp? Somepony must have really fokkin’ hated him.’

And then the newfoal slaughter simply… ended. At least on his end.

Firewhirler shot in front of the newfoals, sparks trailing behind her.

“They were saved!” she pleaded. “Just like me, just like-”

“FOK JOURSELF!” Kraber yelled, firing off his ACR. He smiled, waiting for them to impact, waiting for some indicator that he’d finally fokkin’ hit the thing.

Except he hadn’t.

Vanilla Ice was projecting a shield around Firewhirler with his horn. Nothing made of ice, just a normal unicorn bullshit energy shield.

“GETTIN’ FOKKIN’ TIRED OF THIS!” Kraber yelled, and fired off a shield-disruptor from the grenade launcher. It made the telltale foop as it was fired…

Only to impact uselessly against a wall of ice almost a foot thick, along with the bolts from Nny’s Penetrator.

“DIE!” Vanilla Ice screamed, and the wall exploded into seemingly hundreds of shards…

Al of which hung suspended in midair, the sharp ends pointing at Kraber.

FOK FOK FOK FOK FOK- Kraber thought, and sprinted to the left, to a space between houses. Behind him, shards of ice shattered against the pavement.

Can’t I even get in one fokkin’ hit on the fokkin’ kontgesig?! he thought.

Right before the ice wall had just exploded out of the ground, Kraber thought he’d seen Vanilla Ice smirking.

“You’re running out of aaaaaammo, Johnny-boy! Firewhirler laughed. “Just like I did back in Alaska.”

“I HAVE NO IDEA WHO YOU ARE!” Nny yelled, opening fire.

“Here’s the thing, Johnnyboy! Fiddly pony!” Firewhirler cackled. “See… last time I tried to show one of you apes mercy, I lost an ear. I know one of you will trick me, so I’m just going to kill you.”

“Firewhirler!” Vanilla Ice yelled. “If you’re gonna kill them, just do it. Quit screwing around.”

It was then that Kraber saw Heliotrope vanish, and he smirked. Good. He rushed to the other side of the street, ready to aim for Vanilla Ice through a narrow gap between the ice wall and a house…

Only to watch the ice wall crumble.

Vanilla Ice vanished too, his horn glowing as he teleported in front of Kraber.

“Let’s leave those three to whatever,” he said. “I’m taking you down.”

Preston

“Jack hasn't reported,” McReady said quietly.

“Rodriguez, report?” Preston asked, tapping his helmet radio.

“Clear as a whistle, boss,” Rodriguez replied. “PER bodies but no sign of anything living.”

“What could have caused that?” the man asked. Preston was frowning.

“Rodriguez, vocab-check,” he said.

“Seriously?” Rodriguez replied. “Wouldn’t me answering to my own fucking name be a clue by now?”

“You never know,” Preston said tightly. “If you're sure it's clear, get back here and help keep an eye on these civvies. Verb, you and I are going to try and find Bentham and Sykes in the APC, see if we can get them back in the thick of it, lay down some heavier fire. If we can link up with Karl and the others, that’ll help.”

“What about Idle?” McReady asked.

Preston shrugged. “Lost track of him at the outset. We’ll hopefully run into him again, if he didn't already link up with the APC.”

Kraber

He had the best one-liner lined up, and no way to use it. No plan. No nothing.

Vanilla Ice flung blasts of ice towards him, and Kraber zigzagged across the street, intermittently firing one of his rifles. Either the stolen Kalashnikov or the ACR.

I’m running low on ammo!

But he couldn’t let that bother him.

Maybe… one in five of his bullets was actually hitting. At least that was how it felt.

“See, magic comes from the soul,” Vanilla Ice laughed. “Way Shieldwall figures it, newfoals get given a newborn soul, full of all kinds of energy we don’t use. That’s why I’m so powerful, human. That’s why I’m gonna put you-”

“If you say ‘on ice,’” Kraber interrupted, “I’M GONNA SHIT ON YOU! THEN SHIT ON THAT FOKKIN’ SHIT! THEN YOU’LL BE COVERED IN SHIT!”

Vanilla Ice just looked…

Well, he still had the ‘characteristic’ - much as a Newfoal could be said to have one - grin of a newfoal, but it looked sarcastic. Less sincere than normal.

It was then that he stopped casting spells, and Kraber watched four of his bullets hang in midair over the unicorn’s horn. Aweh, He thought to himself. The only sane option is to-

And then it occurred to him.

Wait a minute, I’m mentally ill! FOK THE SANE OPTION, YOU’RE IN THE KRABER ZONE, VARKNAAIERS!! he thought, and started firing again, sweeping the ACR to the right, pointing it slightly upwards.

It was stupid. It was a plan only a dom nool would conceive. It was probably just wasting ammo. But then, here was Kraber. Fighting a unicorn with the same name as a rapper he didn’t even like that much.

He watched the bullets curve towards Vanilla Ice’s horn, and moved them ever so slightly.

“You’re a terrible shot, you know that?” Vanilla Ice asked, laughing. “I-”

And then Kraber saw it. A bullet missing the unicorn’s horn, impacting just behind his tail. He didn’t seem to have noticed.

He wouldn’t be able to replicate the shot, not ever again. Wouldn’t be able to replicate the fraction-of-a-millimeter adjustment to the ACR’s position, could never copy this spectacular feat of un-aim.

Ten rounds left. It always comes back to ten rounds against newfoals, doesn’t it? Kraber thought, and let loose.

Vanilla Ice had a second for his expression to change before the bullets curved past his horn, punching into his ribs.

Preston vs. PER

Kraber

Kraber rushed forward, revolver and 1911 in hand. He held them both in front of his face, pulling each trigger simultaneously. Unloading every bullet into the fokkin’ abomination’s body.

It looked to Kraber like the newfoal was struggling. Struggling to keep smiling, to keep standing up, to cast a spell - any spell! - to do anything.

Better not give the fokkin’ poes kakker naipoes the opportunity! Kraber thought, peppering the newfoal’s body with bullets.

They weren’t doing as much as he’d hoped. Vanilla Ice’s horn gave off a unicorn’s telltale glow, and the wounds seemed to be healing almost as fast as Kraber could make them.

Still. ‘Almost.’

So Kraber kept firing.

‘Just once, I’d like an anomalous newfoal I can kill with a bullet to the head! ‘Hi, I’m Fuck You Viktor the Pretty Private! I’m gonna-’ KABOOM, BABY!’ Kraber thought, holstering his revolver with his right hand and bringing it back with a fresh magazine of .45 ammo.

“CELESTIA-FORSAKEN SON OF A-” Vanilla Ice yelled, and stomped down with both forehooves. The ice exploded out from cracks between pavement, but Kraber was ready this time.

He jumped to the left the moment Ice’s hooves touched pavement, catapulting himself across the street and sliding behind another car.

Don’t know how much more of this I can take! he thought, reloading his revolver and switching to his Kalashnikov. Wait, that came out of the ground, can’t he still-

And Kraber ran. Ice erupted from the pavement, then the sidewalk concrete where he’d just been standing. Blades of grass turned grey-brown where the ice touched them, but Kraber was long gone at that point, rushing by yet another car.

I have two magazines left for this thing, he thought with dawning horror.

Another ice wall sprang up under the nearest car, and before Kraber knew it, the damn thing was dropping down towards him.

Fok!

He scrambled out of the way, just barely avoiding it as it crashed to the ground.

“Where are you…” Vanilla Ice said, suddenly and inexplicably singsongy.

Kraber didn't answer, running faster. Somewhat southerly, just towards what looked like a hardware store.

Aweh, what did I do last time?! To Reaper?!

The bullets to the flank looked like they'd hurt the fokkin thing, but he wasn't sure that'd last. This would be so much fokkin easier if the unicorn couldn't cast spells!

Wait a minute.

If I can shatter his horn, I’ll be fine! Wait, fok, how do I do that?

Kraber didn’t have time to think on it, rolling to the side as a ball of frozen vapor flew within inches of him, leaving rime ice crusting his right shoulder.

And now my burns have frostbite. Fokkin’ lekker, he thought sarcastically.

Heliotrope

Heliotrope yelped and ducked as Firewhirler shot over her head. Heliotrope could almost feel the tips of her ears being singed.

Balls of flame flickered off from the trail of thaums Firewhirler left in her wake, dropping down to the pavement below her.

‘One of those hits me, I’m dead!’ Heliotrope thought, blazing away with her submachineguns. Or, maybe she wouldn’t be dead, but it’d still hurt like hell.

It was not an easy fight in any sense of the word. Firewhirler would zigzag side to side, fire trailing behind her like a comet, and Heliotrope would struggle to center a burst of automatic fire on her.

Why is she so damn fast?! Heliotrope screamed internally.

Sparks and fireballs trailed from Firewhirler’s wake to the street below. Heliotrope followed her on a zigzagging path through the town, Nny and Fiddlesticks following along or helping Frank to kill Vanilla Ice.

At least, that was what Heliotrope could guess as she shot down the town’s main drag in hot pursuit of Firewhirler. It was hard to focus on much of anything but Firewhirler.

As far as Heliotrope could tell, Firewhirler was the most impossibly erratic flier she’d ever seen, bouncing from side to side of the street, up and down, above the houses and practically skimming the pavement.

Heliotrope cursed under her breath as Firewhirler skimmed the wall of one house on the right side of the street, and kicked off with all four legs, catapulting herself down, almost parallel to the street.

It was a sloppy maneuver, the kind they told Heliotrope to avoid in flight school. But Firewhirler did it anyway.

Heliotrope banked to the right, willing her wings to flap faster as she pursued the newfoal.

“Try and catch me, Betrayer!” Firewhirler cackled, corkscrewing across the street in a flaming spiral.

And Heliotrope followed, firing her guns sparingly.

FUCK! she thought, as one 9x32mm round flew what looked like two inches above Firewhirler’s barrel. MISSED!

She gritted her teeth as she coaxed more and more speed out of her wings. How could this weird newfoal, this abomination be faster, she’d-

WALL!

There was a wall ahead of her made of ice. The kind of thing that only that other newfoal, Vanilla Ice could have made. Out of the corner of her eye, Heliotrope could see him smirking.

Not for long though. Firewhirler flew straight up into the air like a rocket, perpendicular to the street.

Heliotrope left her wings spread out, using them to aim her upwards, and followed.

‘Will this thing just die?!’ she thought incredulously, and bit down on the mouth trigger for her assault yoke so hard she thought she heard something crack.

If she hadn’t been clenching her teeth, she might have been screaming.

Firewhirler laughed mockingly and twisted to the side in that same annoying corkscrew motion. And for a moment, it didn’t matter to Heliotrope, who simply angled herself towards Firewhirler and spun through the center of Firewhirler’s corkscrew, her SMGs roaring at her sides.

Dammit, dammit, dammit! Heliotrope thought, screaming internally as she watched Firewhirler slow. Watched her seemingly tire for a second.

I have the perfect shot, Heliotrope told herself as she squinted, the reticle on her assault saddle’s aiming goggles turning red as it centered on Firewhirler.

Except she didn’t. She wasn’t able to make any shot. Her guns were dry.

Not now not now not now! Heliotrope thought frantically, and she saw Firewhirler smirk. That’s why she slowed down, Heliotrope thought.

Still smirking, Firewhirler twisted to the right, dropping like a meteor, one hoof outstretched. It was too late to dodge.

Firewhirler punched Heliotrope in the face. And it hurt! Heliotrope’s jaw burned in agony, and she hoped that it wasn’t literal burning.

Heliotrope screamed in agony and fell, tumbling, to the pavement below.

No no no! she thought, only realizing after a second that she was screaming as she struggled to maintain control. Her wings flapped, though she could barely think straight, could barely breathe from the heavy blow.

The ground was coming closer, closer, closer!

“NO!” Heliotrope yelled, flapping her wings ever more frantically, desperately trying to keep herself aloft.

She pulled herself into a quarter loop, finally leveling about two feet above the ground, flying parallel to the street

“TIME TO FINISH THE JOB!” Firewhirler yelled, a malice in her voice that Heliotrope had never heard.

Heliotrope banked to the right, twisting around Nny and Fiddlesticks, each staring at her openmouthed.

“AND TO FINISH THEM T-” Firewhirler started.

A line of rounds from Fiddlesticks’ machinegun stitched through Firewhirler’s flank, blood spattering out and evaporating through Firewhirler’s absurd body heat.

“COME ON, YOU BITCH!” Fiddlesticks screamed, running from side to side, gun still blazing. Beside her, Nny was opening fire with his assault rifle - the Leshiy, not the Penetrator.

“So annoying!” Firewhirler yelled, twisting to the left in what could be considered another corkscrewing motion, flying parallel to the ground.

“We have to exhaust her eventually!” Heliotrope yelled, looking for a place to reload.

She cast a quick look to ~~Kraber~~ Frank, who was running along the sidewalk, firing away with a Kalashnikov.

‘Dear Luna, Faust, God, anyone out there, please let him have this under control!”

Heliotrope turned invisible and shot down to a space between two houses like a bullet, fast enough that she likely would have left a purplish-pink and blue trail behind her.

“You can hide,” Firewhirler yelled, “But you can’t… Uh… HIDE!”

‘They really have us on the ropes!’ Heliotrope thought, sweat running through her fur under her invisibility flightsuit. She was shuddering. Wheezing from the exertion. Back in Equestria, flying this fast, pushing herself this far would have practically had her marefriends dragging her out of the gym. ‘Yael, for the love of all that is pure and holy, where are you?!’

She reached into her saddlebags, pulling out two fresh mags for the SMGs in her mouth. Reloading was easy enough - there was a PHL enchantment near the magwell that would align the two mags come hell or high water. Yes, even if Heliotrope was flying at ridiculous speeds and should have by all rights lost her grip on them and left them spiralling backwards through the air.

Frank did not look like he was in control as he rushed from side to side, bobbing and weaving as his heavy, brutal assault rifle barked out round after round. Every line of spiked ice that the newfoal would spawn, every ball of frozen vapor - like the antithesis to the bread-and-butter fire spells used by unicorn Royal Guard - bowling towards him, he seemed to just barely dodge.

Or not dodge at all.

What looked like an icicle flew out from just above Vanilla Ice’s horn, and rammed into Frank’s leg.

“GARRRGH!” Frank howled in what could have been pain or anger, yanking the icicle out and throwing it to the ground. It shattered at his feet, but he kept going. He swore in a language Heliotrope couldn’t understand (That was weird. Wasn’t he Scottish?) and fired off another burst from his Kalashnikov, the bullets impacting Vanilla Ice’s left foreleg.

The newfoal stumbled slightly, and Frank rushed forward.

‘Stupid! What are you even trying to-’ Heliotrope thought haltingly.

And before her eyes, he rammed his boot up into the newfoal’s face. There was a slight crack, and the newfoal’s smile seemed to falter.

He’d broken the thing’s jaw.

Frank grunted, and - holding the Kalashnikov by the barrel like a golf club - drove the wooden stock into the newfoal’s skull, just above the horn. The newfoal grunted in what could have pain, and Frank took advantage of that moment.

“SON! OF! A! BITCH!” Frank yelled, punctuating each word by mashing the Kalashnikov’s stock against the newfoal’s skull. “WILL! YOU! JUST! FOKKIN’! DIE?! JOU! FOKKIN! BAWBAG?!”

There were wet clunking sounds as stock impacted face.

Eh, he’s fine, Heliotrope thought approvingly, and banked to the left, wings outstretched. She wasn’t firing this time, and somehow the breeze rushing over her was almost relaxing. Almost.

She folded her left wing slightly, extending her right, and curved around towards Firewhirler, firing her SMGs full auto.

It was an easy shot. Or rather, an easy eight shots, as Firewhirler was desperately bobbing and weaving to avoid Fiddlesticks’ minigun…

But not Heliotrope herself.

The bullets punched through Firewhirler’s wings, and the flaming pegasus dropped to the ground, blood spewing from her barrel, trailing burnt feathers.

“Not… gonna die… like this!” Firewhirler yelled, and dashed forward, flying down the street like a comet, sparks flickering from her mane and tail as she raced down the street.

Towards Frank!

Heliotrope didn’t need to look at Nny or Fiddletsicks for confirmation that they knew. All three of them rushed for Francis, firing desperate shots in Firewhirler’s direction.

They were too late, and Heliotrope had just enough time to see Firewhirler smirk, to hear her laugh mockingly as Firewhirler hit Frank like an airborne bulldozer.

“FRANK!” Heliotrope yelled, just as Frank was flung off Vanilla Ice. With a look of either or pain on his face, he tumbled through the air, towards the plate-glass window of the hardware store.

She rushed to help him, but-

The newfoals that had accompanied Firewhirler and Vanilla Ice stood in front of the three of them, each wearing smiles so wide it looked like their faces would split in half.

“Well?” one demanded. “Betrayers? Human?”

Heliotrope spread her wings. “Get the hell out of my way.”

Kraber

Suddenly, everything went white. Glass was spiralling through the air all around him, and he could dimly perceive the shards bouncing off his skin, lightly cutting him.

KRANCH

Kraber yelled wordlessly, not sure if he was angry or in pain, as he tumbled bonelessly across the floor.

And here I was, hoping they had it under control! Kraber thought, as his head smashed into - and bounced off - a wooden crate. FOKKIN’ DAMMIT!

He wasn’t completely sure if he was angry or if he hurt. The two sensations had been blurred for awhile. But then, he was standing up, staggering to his feet. Can’t hurt that much, right? he told himself. ‘Gonna bliksem her so hard she’ll be a puddle on the fokkin floor!’

The alarms screamed as he staggered to his feet, but he paid it no mind, trying to guess where he was. Looked like a hardware store.

That's sort of helpful….

“You,” Firewhirler snarled. Kraber couldn’t tell where her voice was coming from.

Kraber slid behind a large vending machine, Kalashnikov in hand. He tried to stay silent.

“Everyone in this town is just so intent on driving me mad,” Firewhirler said, and Kraber could almost imagine the heat radiating off her. “The Betrayers. Yael’s puppet. The lying sack of fat who says I laid my life down for him. And now there's you. The spanner in the works. It's enough to make me want to flare up and burn this place to the ground! Burn every board humans have ever nailed together till there's not! Even! A SPECK! OF ASH!”

Her voice sounded like it was coming from in front of Kraber now.

“But Shieldwall won't let me,” she said, almost petulant.

Kraber shouldered his Kalashnikov and stared into the store beyond. He could see a flickering light off in the distance, off towards the right.

He crouched low to the ground, by the cash registers, heading away from that light.

“He wants to keep all that tinder if only for a little bit,” she said. “Can you imagine? How boring that'll be?”

The light disappeared, and suddenly the room went icy cold.

“Hello, Frank,” Vanilla Ice said, and Kraber could just hear the smirk in his voice.

Oh fok no.

“Two of you and one of me?” Kraber asked. “Doesn’t seem very fokkin’ fair for you!”

“You’re right,” Vanilla Ice said, and Kraber heard his hooves on the linoleum floor. “It ain’t a fight for us. It’s pest control and we’re gonna squish you like a bug.”

Kraber looked to the other side of the vending machine. The emergency lights didn’t reveal any shadows, and as far as he knew they weren’t anywhere.

But he could hear hoofsteps!

Can’t let them find me!

He crouched low to the ground, sliding behind a crate full of unidentifiable junk. He couldn’t explain where he was going, or what his plan was. All he knew was that they’d find him eventually.

First thing first - he had to leave. Going to the back of the store would be fokkin’ dof. He’d just be in an area with more space for the newfoals to hide.

Only question was how to get out of there.

He could hear more hoofsteps from over by the window. Kraber couldn’t tell who it was, but his best guess was that it was Vanilla Ice. On account of Firewhirler rarely touching the ground.

So then where is she?

Carefully checking if anyone was watching, he kept low to the ground, not quite crouching and not quite walking towards one aisle. He held his back to one shelf, Kalashnikov readied.

He looked side to side.

“I think you need to chill,” Vanilla Ice said, and Kraber could hear more and more hoofsteps. “Come on. You gonna be way happier like this. You never have to worry about being afraid, or depressed, or lonely, or unhappy ever again. Don’t I sound happy?”

If Kraber had not heard some variation of this speech every time he killed an intelligent enough newfoal, it might have still had some impact. Maybe.

Of course. No emotions. Nothing to actually make happiness mean something. And it all sounds so fokkin’ lekker dux I could shit fokkin’ rainbows. And don’t I-’

“-sound wonderful? You can become…”

Something more than human, OH MY FOKKIN’ GOD WHY ARE THEY SUCH FOKKIN’ BABBELBEKKIES, SWEET LORD WILL THEY JUST HOLD THEIR FOKKIN’ BEKS, GAAAAAAAWD... Kraber thought.

“Can you imagine what you’d become? How glorious this very opportunity is? If you give yourself over to Shieldwall’s work, you can become like us. This is the best opportunity you can have.”

The voice looked to be heading over to Kraber’s old crate. His eyes darted from side to side, and he made his way to another aisle. And where the hell is Firewhirler?!

“I’m begging you,” Vanilla Ice said. “You know what newfoals like us are used for by most of the Empire. That’s why I’m so grateful to Shieldwall. He made me… me. Don’t let yourself be swept up in the chaos, just let yourself… become something new and beautiful. You’ll be happier that way.”

‘Okay,’ Kraber thought. ‘That is something new.’

It was weird. Newfoals simply didn’t make pleas like that. Appeal to your fears. Sound so… understanding, if newfoals could be said to have that. It might’ve been absurd, but Kraber felt sure that the emotion was somehow genuine. Newfoals never had complex emotions. And Newfoals never sounded so genuinely worried. Could it be that Vanilla Ice meant it? That Shieldwall would truly be better than whatever the Solar Empire did to him?

Ah, fok it. Still killing him, Kraber thought, crouching near the floor, just hiding himself with one aisle. An aisle lined with what looked like heavy tools of some kind. Saws, circular saws, nailguns, chainsaws… Sledgehammers. ‘Okay, this could work…’

“And you’ll be happy like us,” Firewhirler cooed. “Do you want to be another playmate? Don’t you want to be pretty just like us?”

‘Why does so much of their dialogue sound like it’s from fetish comics?’ Kraber wondered as he inched toward the window.

Her voice was from the opposite end of the store as Vanilla Ice. She sounded…. closer. Like

The window was so close… so fokkin’ CLOSE!

Heliotrope

“It’s got me!” Nny screamed at the top of his lungs, struggling to move in the newfoal unicorn’s TK. A vial of potion levitated towards him.

With a strength Heliotrope didn’t know she had, she reached for a knife, wings outstretched, and rocketed towards it. She had about five knives outstretched as she flew towards the newfoal. One in each foreleg. The blades strapped to her wings that’d give her a cutting edge if she needed to fly through some newfoals. And the one in their mouth.

Heliotrope chopped through the newfoal like a hot knife through butter, each blade rushing in and out, across and through the unicorn’s body.

It simply seemed to forget everything about how to hold together. Its legs, skull, organs, and most of its blood exploded outward in wildly different directions.

“Oh, thank God!” Nny said, one hand to his chest. “I could’ve been ponified.”

“Heliotrope,” Fiddlesticks said, wheezing slightly, “We’d be dead in the water without you.”

“Just doing my part,” Heliotrope said, a weak smile on her face. ‘Tartarus, I am tired. Damn, I cut him up!’

Her blood ran a little bit cold when she realized just how satisfied she seemed. ‘Am I… am I enjoying this? Am I enjoying it, killing these things?’

It was a sobering thought.

“Now,” she said, “Hate to cut and run-” she suppressed a quick chuckle at that awful joke. “But we’ve got a friend in need.”

She pointed to the hardware store.

“Nny?” Heliotrope asked. “How much Penetrator ammo do you have left?”

“A mag or two,” Nny said, checking the oversized assault rifle. “I think… I think I’m going to need to husband the ammo.”

“You do that,” Heliotrope said. “Nny, it’s all up to you. You’re the only one with something that can stop her.”

Nny swallowed nervously. “Well,” he said, “Can’t be the hardest thing I’ve done.”

He’ll be fine, Heliotrope thought. I know how Nny is. He’s not going to fail something like this if there’s no other choice.

She surveyed the front of the hardware store. The glass was either shattered or splayed out from the windows like curiously flat icicles. The door was… well, she had to squint to see if there still was one. It lay broken in front of the store, simultaneously burnt, waterlogged, shattered, and frozen.

Heliotrope tapped a button on her goggles, staring through the store. Immediately, the view from her goggles changed - the store was rendered in a spectrum of purples, greens, blues, yellows, reds, and orange.

She rarely used heat vision, but she appreciated the utility of it. Especially at times like this.

Where are you… she thought, scanning the store.

After a second, she saw it. A newfoal on top of one of the shelving units. Where’s the other one?! she thought frantically, eyes darting from side to side over the store before it occurred to her. Okay. Vanilla Ice can control ice, so it makes sense I wouldn’t see him…

She looked down and saw Frank, making his way to the entrance.

Right below the one newfoal she could see.

There was no time to warn him. Somehow, Heliotrope knew in her heart of hearts that if she yelled, Firewhirler and Vanilla Ice would pounce for Frank.

So she did the only thing she could: She turned on her cloaking function and shot through the window, heading for Firewhirler.

In that moment, Firewhirler spread her wings and jumped from the aisle, heading for Frank.

“NO YOU FUCKING DON’T!” Heliotrope yelled, curving to the right, her foreleg knives and wing blades extended.

Frank looked up. “FOK!” he yelled, scrambling out of the way.

Firewhirler had less than a second to stare open-mouthed before Heliotrope cut through her. Barely three feet below them, Frank looked up at them, looking… surprised? Angry? A bit of both? It could have been both.

“You saved my life!” he gasped. “Heliotrope, thank you!”

Then he smiled, looking almost impressed as one of Heliotrope’s wing blades cut through Firewhirler’s leg. Hot, steaming blood splashed forth, landing in his hair.

Whatever was on his face, it quickly faded. He turned around and dashed to the right, vanishing from Heliotrope’s field of view.

“You Betrayer WHORE!” Firewhirler screamed, clutching the remains of her leg. “When we take this ground, you’ll-”

Heliotrope rolled her eyes and bit down on the mouth trigger.

Firewhirler gritted her teeth, and lifted off, flapping her wings desperately.

At this range, it didn’t matter. The 9x32mm rounds were admittedly slow and heavy, but at this range that didn’t matter.

She fell about three seconds later, one wing flapping uselessly, the other one limp and bloody. Firewhirler dragged herself forward with one remaining leg, leaving a trail behind her.

‘Fuckin’ finally, she’s dead!’ Heliotrope thought, and stepped forward for a better shot, ready to hose Firewhirler down with yet more bullets…

Fate conspired against her.

Something slammed against the back of her head, and Heliotrope fell to the floor, gasping heavily. Blood dripped down the back of her head, under her fur. And then, a sharp pain behind the eye, so violent and so sudden it felt like her eye was going to explode out her skull.

Heliotrope screamed, trying to move, trying to do anything… only to find her legs and wings wouldn’t respond.

Vanilla Ice trotted into view.

“So much for ‘Frank’s gratitude, huh?” Vanilla Ice asked, looking down at Firewhirler. “You did this?”

Heliotrope spat on the floor.

The headache intensified, and for a second Heliotrope was blind.

“Heliotrope!” Nny yelled from the front of the store, shouldering the Leshiy…

Only for Vanilla Ice’s horn to glow. A massive wall of ice exploded upwards from below the linoleum, filling the space between the aisles and cutting the three ponies off from Nny and Fiddlesticks.

“You did that to her, huh?” Vanilla Ice asked, and Heliotrope was blind again. She could distantly hear someone screaming, and recognized that it could have been her.

Heliotrope couldn’t tell what happened next. But she remembered - or imagined she could remember - Vanilla Ice casting some kind of healing spell from his horn, closing up Firewhirler’s wounds, restoring her ear.

“Firewhirler,” Vanilla Ice said, “Find Frank, then go after Nny and Fiddlesticks. Shieldwall’s going to love having the two of them around.”

He smirked.

“I guess I could give a speech,” Vanilla Ice said lamely. “Something about how you have no chance. But what’s the point, anyway?”

Heliotrope glared at him and gritted her teeth. It was the most intimidating look she could muster.

“Nobody’s going to save you,” Vanilla Ice said slowly, manifesting an icicle from ambient water vapor. “And we both know it.”

Kraber

It would have been simply rude for the universe or ~~Kraber~~ Frank not to respond to a challenge like that.

Kraber hadn’t seen the point of the sledgehammers the Reavers carried. Sure, they looked cool. Sure, they gave an impression of overwhelming force. Sure, it could hit a man like nothing else. Sure, it'd hurt like hell.

But one slow, devastating hit was probably inferior to something lighter and smaller. Like an axe or a baseball bat. Or even a medieval maul, which actually looked slightly more like a golf club than a fearsome warhammer.

Still, he saw the appeal at this moment.

“VANILLA ICE!” Kraber yelled, raising the sledgehammer.

The newfoal looked away from Heliotrope, confused. “Huh?”

“YOU’RE ABOUT TO BE…” Kraber paused, and lowered his voice. “Under pressure.”

“That don’t make a lick of se-” the newfoal started, almost indignant.

And then, quicker than Kraber knew was possible, he slammed the sledgehammer down on Vanilla Ice’s skull.

KRANCH

“AAAAAAAAAAIIEEEEEEERGK!”

There was a wet, meaty, thumping, crackling sound, and a dull clunk as the stallion’s head abruptly impacted the floor. Blood and other fluid, possibly the remains of an eye, oozed from under the head of the hammer, dripping onto the linoleum. And, most importantly, Vanilla Ice’s horn looked crushed. Well, Kraber wasn’t sure, but going by the place the head of the hammer had hit, there probably wasn’t much horn left.

The newfoal twitched slightly.

So Kraber twisted slightly and kicked him in the back of the skull. The newfoal wheezed slightly, his mouth opening... and closing on the bottom shelf of one of the aisles.

“MMMMRPHM!” the newfoal yelled, the bloody ruins of his horn looking to glow ever so slightly...

‘I don’t know what that is, but it can’t be good!’ Kraber thought, raising the hammer over his head and stomping down on Vanilla Ice’s lower leg. “GRAAAAA-”

He slammed the hammer down on the newfoal’s skull. And he…

Well, there was no easy way to put it. But he exploded. More blood than Kraber knew a newfoal could have splashed up into his face, covering the front of his body.

The mostly-headless corpse slumped, and went still.

Firewhirler was silent for a few seconds.

“Another one bites the dust,” Kraber said, tossing the hammer to the side.

“Was that a reference?” Heliotrope asked, confused.

Idle

“Feel the hammer, shitbags!” Idle yelled, grinning wildly behind his helmet. He fired the SHO once, then again, then again, blowing away PER members left and right. He heard the heavy cannon of the APC going off behind him, giving him covering fire.

“Idle,” Bentham’s voice came in over the radio. “They’re pulling back into the buildings. Don't wanna have to start blasting through people’s homes here, boss.”

Idle swore. “Right, then. Get the APC through to a different position. Take up a position across from the school, start shooting up the PER hunkering down opposite.”

His radio crackled. “Spotter One? Odinson Three. Spotter One, you out there?”

Idle tapped the radio. “This is Spotter One, I copy you Odinson Three. What's up Preston?”

“Callsigns, Idle,” the other man reminded him with an audible sigh. “Am moving to engage hostile forces. Need backup.”

Idle cursed. “Copy that, Odinson Three. I've got… well, me, a driver and a gunner.”

Preston was silent for a moment. “Just send someone. I'm leaving half of my team guarding HVC’s.

Heliotrope

She pulled herself back to her hooves, slightly dazed, and looked at the ruined mass of flesh and bone that had been Vanilla Ice’s skull.

It was probably one of the most brutal deaths Heliotrope had ever seen from a newfoal, and that was saying a lot. The newfoal lay on the floor, its skull a pulped ruin. It’d been a terror of the battlefield. It’d made a mockery of bullets. It’d had them all on the ropes.

And Frank had crumpled its head in with a sledgehammer. Which was a refreshing change of pace from how anomalous newfoals usually went - inflicting unspeakably massive casualties, and requiring huge amounts of backup to kill.

‘I’m beginning to think,’ Heliotrope thought, staring at the bloodstained ~~German~~ ~~Afrikaner~~ Scotsman, ‘that we need to hire this man.’

“You saved my life too,” Heliotrope said, looking up to Frank.

“Now we’re even,” Frank said, a smile on his face.

“Don’t worry about being even,” Heliotrope said. “I wouldn’t have even said you owe me. Tell you what, let’s just be happy that we’re both alive.”

Frank shrugged, a slight grin on his face. “That’s doable.”

And then she heard a shriek. A couple feet over, she could see Firewhirler, screaming in horror at Vanilla Ice’s corpse.

Her gaze tracked from Frank all the way towards the flaming newfoal. She was shuddering slightly, and Heliotrope had to wonder: Does this one feel grief?

“I can't believe it, he's-!” Firewhirler yelled. “He's gone! You monsters, do you have any idea what you've done?!”

Or just grief filtered through the lens of anger? Heliotrope wondered.

“I honestly thought it was kind of self-explanatory,” Frank said, drenched in blood and bits of brain.

“Whatever,” Firewhirler said, and Heliotrope saw newfoals everywhere. Fluttering above the aisles, filtering through them. Some of them looked to be armed with proper weapons like hoof blades, others held blunt instruments and knives in their TK fields, and others had bandoliers of potion vials.

“Now do me a favor,” Firewhirler said, “and die.”

‘Oh, shit,’ Heliotrope thought. “Now…” she looked the newfoals over. “Whoever you were before, I’m sorry for what I’m about to do.”

With a mighty yell, she dashed towards one of the aisles, wing blades and hoof blades extended, SMGs firing.

It was impossible for her not to hit something. Newfoal limbs, blood, and weaponry streamed out all around her. Her body and wingtips screamed in protest, every limb in her body save for possibly her forelegs felt like it’d been punched about twenty times over.

Kraber

“COME ON JOU FOKKIN’ PRICKS!” Kraber yelled, following behind Heliotrope. He held one assault rifle in each hand, nestling the stocks in his armpits.

It was a stupid tactic, and removed any semblance of precision. But at this range - if he could call it range - then there was pretty much no way he could miss.

His weapons roared in time with Heliotrope’s, and the two of them screamed at the top of their lungs as they forced their way through the newfoals.

“ALMOST THERE!” Heliotrope yelled to nobody in particular as she did a barrel roll, one wing blade slitting the side of a newfoal’s throat.

He stumbled.

“FOK!” he yelled, looking down to see a large earth pony throwing itself against his knee.

“You can’t kill me, I’m already dead tomorrow!” it yelled.

Kraber lowered the Kalashnikov slightly, and the earth pony’s skull vanished.

Going by what Heliotrope had said - her apology - the existence of newfoals saddened her. This wasn’t how it worked for Kraber.

That these goddam fokkin things, these miserable little half-people with tattered little bits of mind left in them had once been people? That they were trapped in what looked for all the world like an endless nightmare, without even the sweet release of death? It didn’t quite make him sad.

“GYAAAAAAAAA-” Kraber yelled, and drove a boot up into a newfoal’s face. He felt something crack, then barely-perceptibly give at the tip of his boot. It staggered back, and Kraber pushed forward, guns both blazing.

A pegasus newfoal shot forward towards him, a knife in its mouth.

Kraber headbutted it out of the air. A green earth pony newfoal rushed him again - the only fokkin’ thing the mompie varknaaiers could do - and Kraber let loose the last four rounds or in the Kalashnikov.

It was like an inexperienced anatomy student had been let loose on the newfoal. As it jumped up towards him, its limbs flew off the body, lightly trailing blood through the air.

No, the existence of newfoals didn’t make Kraber sad at a time like this. It made him absolutely fokkin’ livid.

“I’M SCREWIN’ INVINCIBLE AND FOKKIN’ YOUR MUM!” Kraber yelled, and threw the spent rifle at another pegasus. It dropped to the ground, not overwhelmed by the weight but definitely surprised.

Which didn’t necessarily make a lot of sense, but nobody would ever accuse Kraber of being good at directing his anger.

He grabbed an axe off a nearby shelf. “FOK JOU!” he roared, and drove the head into a unicorn newfoal’s skull, just in front of their horn.

Sylvia’s rifle - the ACR - hung off of one shoulder, its magazine spent. At this range, reloading would only get him killed.

So he pulled out his .45 in his right hand, axe in his left hand. A pegasus newfoal flew for Heliotrope, and Kraber’s pistol punched through one of its wings, sending it spiralling for the linoleum floor.

“JOU THINK JOU CAN FOKKIN’ TAKE THIS?!” Kraber yelled, as he neared the entrance to the store. He plunged the axe downwards into an earth pony newfoal that looked like it could’ve been a child, then kicked another in the throat.

It tumbled backwards, wheezing, coughing up blood.

“FOKKIN’ KILL!” Kraber yelled, twisting around and snapping off two rounds, both of them finding home in a newfoal mare’s skull. He couldn’t tell what kind of pony, but they were dead. It probably didn’t matter.

“NOOOOO!” a pegasus mare screamed, rushing at Kraber. “I WON’T LET Y-”

“MORE!” Kraber yelled again, and blocked its face with his axe.

The axe broke into splinters, the head tumbling tail over teakettle into the darkness of the store, leaving Kraber with only a sharp, pointy wood stick.

The axe had gotten off favorably compared to the newfoal. With a grunt of irritation, Kraber plunged it into a nearby newfoal, firing his pistol wildly, almost randomly.

The door was about eight feet away.

“FRANK!” Nny yelled distantly. “RUN FOR THE WINDOW!”

Kraber looked at the window. Saw Fiddlesticks spinning up her saddle minigun, Nny with the Penetrator.

And another fokkin’ pegasus at the window!

“OUTTA MY WAY!” Kraber yelled, firing the .45 wildly behind him at nothing he could see. Still, he was probably hitting something.

The pegasus rocketed towards him, and Kraber found himself smirking, despite the fatigue. The pain all over his body. The fact that his lungs were struggling for air.

So he jammed the remains of the axe into the newfoal’s eye.

By the time he got to the window, he could hear Nny and Fiddlesticks hosing down the store, Fiddlesticks’ massive weapon buzzing as it spat out lead in tandem with the dull pneumatic THUP of Nny’s gun.

“LATER, FOKSUCKERS!” Kraber yelled as he vaulted through the shattered window.

He landed awkwardly on the sidewalk below, one knee not quite stable on the concrete. He turned back to the store window, flashing it a middle finger.

Then, for a second, he hurt. All over.

Am I dying?! he thought. Nah, I’d probably feel if I was dying. There was a purplish-pink blur just in front of him, flickering steadily…!

“Frank?!” it asked. “Frank?!”

Heliotrope!

“Oh thank God,” Kraber said, pulling himself to his feet. Never in my life thought I’d be this glad to see a pony…

“You… I thought they were gonna take you there,” Heliotrope said. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I’m glad you’re okay too,” Kraber said, leaning against a pickup truck. He winced, slightly. Later. I’ll deal with that later. It’s not that bad...

He looked over to Nny and Fiddlesticks. At the rate they were going, there probably wasn’t going to be much store left. Each of them was chopping away at the store with their oversized weaponry, the rounds punching through the wood like it wasn’t even there.

“Thing was a monster,” Heliotrope said, and Kraber saw just how tired she looked - her wings slumped to her sides, her mane lank and matted with sweat.

“Damn right,” Kraber said, reaching for one of his spare mags and fitting it in the ACR’s magwell. “Now all we gotta do is-”

The hardware store vanished.

Okay, it was more like an explosion. One minute, there’d been a small-town hardware store. The next, there was a raging inferno several stories higher than the actual store, the flames looking to almost eclipse the stars.

“Fokkin’ really?!” Kraber yelled. “CAN’T I GET A FOKKIN’ MOMENT OF REST?!”

Heliotrope and Kraber shared a Look.

“I’m guessing that means retreat,” Kraber said.

Heliotrope running for the main street of the town behind Heliotrope before she could even say yes. Which was okay, because Kraber was following behind her.

They made their way to the main drag of the town, gasping. Nny had a nasty gash on his forehead, and blood was running down Fiddlesticks’ foreleg.

“That backup,” Fiddlesticks said, her legs wobbling slightly as she stared at the burning remnants of the store, “Would be much appreciated round now.”

Firewhirler flew out of the flames, somewhat worse for wear. One eye was missing, and her left rear foreleg was half as long as it should have been.

But Kraber could plainly see the hate in her remaining eye.

“For the love of God,” Kraber sighed, not sure if he was angry, tired, or both, “Can she just. Fokkin’. DIE?!”

Aegis

“Where are we going?” he found himself asking.

“To the school,” the Albino said.

“Right between the Reavers and PER?!” Aegis asked, forcing an artificial calm into his voice.

“Yes,” the Albino said. “You act like this is new to you.”

“I…” Aegis shook his head. Admittedly no. It wasn't. Didn't mean he liked it, though.

“Besides, it's not our place to fall,” the Albino added. “If it was, we would've both been hit.”

For a second, her eyes narrowed and she motioned for Aegis to follow. He did, and why wouldn’t he? She was just… she was in motion, that was as best Aegis could explain the way he absolutely knew he had to follow her.

They stood between the walls of one house and a fence.

THOOM

Something impacted the road behind him.

The hell was that?! A spell of some kind, probably, human artillery doesn’t usually feel so… Aegis shook his head. He couldn’t think of the words.

“Still, you must use due caution,” the Albino said, trotting around to the back of the house. “Come.”

“Why are you doing this?” Aegis found himself asking. “You’re obviously…” he searched for the word. “Powerful. The kind of powerful we don’t usually get helping the PHL.”

“There is a saying about gift horses,” the Albino said blandly.

Aegis snorted. “Yeah, well, Celestia was a gift horse for humanity.”

“The twisted thing that truly rules the Solar Empire does not share any goals with me,” the Albino said, showing the slightest hint of impatience, the first emotion he'd seen from her. “If you do not wish for my help -”

“No, I - no,” Aegis said hurriedly. “I’m sorry, that was beneath me.”

“Yes, it was, Claw Hammer,” she told him. “As for why I’m here to help… souls are at stake. Your foals.”

Aegis suddenly felt a little… ashamed. “I’m sorry for doubting that, then.”

“But not just them,” the Albino said. “Millions are at stake as we speak - human, pony, all the other races that have fled here for a fleeting glimpse of freedom. Not just from the war, no. But from Shieldwall’s designs in the immediate future. I am… arranging things so that this may change.”

“How?” Aegis asked.

“I cannot tell you.”

“Is there a rule keeping you so cryptic?”

“Yes. Several,” the Albino said. “I might create a paradox by telling you the unvarnished truth. My being here is nothing to do with you. My interference must be light, if you'll forgive my pun.”

“What pun?”

“Otherwise my brother will see,” she continued, ignoring him, “and he will take umbrage.” She paused, and looked almost awkward. “My brother is not as... accommodating of you mortal things as I.”

Aegis’ felt an inexplicable chill down his spine. “Your brother? Wait, mortal things?!”

“Yes,” she said without further acknowledgement. She paused. “One moment.”

Suddenly she was behind Aegis, except it wasn't her, but a tall man in a hooded cloak, a shield blocking a hail of bullets from a PER man. The figure lowered the shield and then the PER man, with no warning, turned the muzzle of his submachine gun on himself and blew the top of his skull out.

And then the Albino was back where she had been, head tilted in curiosity.

“He was just depressed and suicidal anyway,” she said blandly. “This was his first day. His plan was ‘suicide by PHL’. I suspect this is what he wanted.”

“Did - did you just shapeshift?” Aegis asked.

“What do you think?” the Albino asked, merely smiling blandly.

Suddenly another PER member - this one another young woman, barely twenty, with striking black hair streaked in purple - leapt out, trying to tackle the Albino. The Albino, however, didn't budge, and the girl simply landed in a heap at her hooves, the Albino looking down at her blandly. Aegis moved to fire - but again, the Albino held up a hoof, as the girl looked up at her.

For a moment, the two’s eyes met, the girl’s brown eyes and the Albino’s red ones.

“My God,” the girl whispered softly.

“No,” the Albino replied with a smile. “Not quite.”

“What I did…” the girl said, “what I almost did…”

“You have done nothing, yet,” the Albino cut her off, placing a hoof on her shoulder. “They lied to you, lied to themselves, as is their wont, but you have the chance to survive today.” She motioned to some of the wrecked buildings nearby. “Hide among the ruins, and surrender to the Reavers when you are done. You will find a purpose.”

The girl sobbed. “But - but I -”

“Trust me,” the Albino said softly. “Do as I have bade, and I will remember you.”

The girl’s expression brightened slightly, and with a hurried whisper of thanks she turned and ran off.

Aegis frowned. “You let her go?”

“It was her first day, too,” the Albino replied. “Sometimes all that is needed is a course correction. Had I chosen, many could have been inspired to choose a better path.”

Aegis frowned. “Then why didn’t you?”

The Albino gave him a bland expression. “Which path is more noble - the wrong one you choose, or the right one chosen for you?”

“But you could have helped us!” Aegis said. “If… if whatever you are, you have the power to… do these things… you…”

The Albino’s expression didn't change, but Aegis felt the air almost chill, and for a moment the shadow of something taller and more menacing seemed to stand behind the Albino, almost making Aegis quail.

“I am not your shepherd, Little Pony,” she said, her voice almost imperceptibly changed, yet more authoritative. “The matters of you mortal things are beneath my consideration. My business is my own. I go where I wilt. I act as I must. That my path takes me through this place is a stroke of fortune, and it is not a gift horse you should seek to look in the mouth further. Do not,” she finished, the shadow deepening, “take me for some conjurer of cheap tricks.”

And with that, the shadow faded out of existence and she carried on, Aegis following. The big pony, despite the shadow vanishing and the unassuming mare carrying on, was still freaking out.

He was now entirely convinced that he was dealing with something far beyond his experience, and that was not something he knew how to react to.

Heliotrope

“Oh, like the Empire would ever be that kind,” Nny muttered.

~~Kraber~~ Frank cracked a brief smile at that. Fiddlesticks made a quick chuckle. And Heliotrope stayed silent, her guns trained on Firewhirler.

“Oh, once was enough. I froze to death out there, you know!” Firewhirler said, apropos of nothing. “But Shieldwall ensured I’d be warm forever. That I’d burn for my Queen… I suppose this is excruciating, but knowing that I burn for my Queen is enough!”

“I didn’t leave any woman to die out there,” Johnny C said, squinting through the HV Penetrator’s red dot sight. “She’s lying.”

“Oh, but I wasn’t a woman before,” Firewhirler smirked. “Shieldwall fixed me. Made me more… fitting to Equestria.”

Heliotrope saw something flash in Fiddlesticks’ eyes. It was impossible for Heliotrope to believe that Fiddlesticks wasn’t saying something along the lines of “Oh, shit.”

Firewhirler laughed uproariously. “That’s right. Take that away, remember the fire…”

Heliotrope didn’t know what that meant, but she could guess. About one of the party members of the Alaska Eleven who hadn’t come back with Nny and Fiddlesticks. And here this former man was, a pegasus mare wreathed in fire. She didn’t charge them. She didn’t burst into flames.

Somehow that was scarier. She snapped her neck towards Nny, the movement entirely too quick.

“Johnnyboy,” she said. “Joanna. Whatever you like to call yourself. I know what you do in your spare time. I know how happy it makes you. If you’re a newfoal, you can do it! You’ll be one of our playmates, you and the other human? Don’t you want to be pretty just like us? You’ll be happy all the time! Just like us! Just like us!”

The look of fear on Nny’s face didn’t change, but his voice still rang clear: “Does every plea for me to ponify myself have to sound like it’s from a fetish comic?”

“Yeah,” Fiddlesticks said. “It’s honestly getting kind of cliche at this point.”

Frank looked to Heliotrope, pure confusion on his face. She just shrugged, eyes wide, in a posture that simply screamed ‘Hell if I know, Nny’s weird.’

Frank seemed to accept this, going by his shrug.

Even Firewhirler looked confused at that.

“No matter,” she said, after a brief pause. “I’m going to…”

She started tuning it out almost immediately. Newfoal speeches had a higher success rate of causing natural-born ponies to kill themselves from sheer boredom, as opposed to humans self-ponifying.

“Nny,” Heliotrope hissed, “If you’re going to nail her with the Penetrator, do it soon!”

“I’m out of Penetrator ammo,” Nny said, looking scared. Haunted. “I think we’re-”

“I knew it! You’re out! You’re FINISHED,” Firewhirler said, almost hungrily. “You humans, you’re not worth even ponification. The two Betrayers, I’ll burn them to cinders! And I’ll burn it all for Shieldwall, incinerate every last human down to the LAST! STRIP! OF! D! N! A!

Preston vs. Third Newfoal

Reinforcements? Preston asked, as he looked towards the helicopter. Then: Oh no.

That was not a Reaver helicopter.

Kraber

And then they heard it. The sound of rotors whipping side to side, and the distant beat of… music?

Nny laughed. It was a deep, throaty belly laugh that sounded for all the world like a supervillain’s cackle.

“Huh?” Firewhirler asked. “What’s that?”

“That,” Nny said, “would be the cavalry.”

The music grew louder, and Nny was still laughing.

“GET DOWN!” Kraber and Heliotrope found themselves yelling, and they dove to the sides of the road, behind cars. Nny and Fiddlesticks followed Heliotrope.

Kraber watched in awe. He could swear he heard a crackling sound, could smell something like ozone…

Everything went purple for a second.

There was a crackling, violent BOOM, then a high-pitched noise not quite unlike hammers against metal cords in a windstorm. The air whipped over their heads, smacking into their faces… then abruptly reversed, rushing back into the void. A red mist - far more blood than Firewhirler seemed possible to hold, but it wasn’t like Newfoals played by regular biology rules - sprayed out from her.

Firewhirler stood there. Sort of. There wasn’t much left of her.

All the flesh on one side of Firewhirler’s body had been flayed away, down to just fractions of millimeters above the bone in some cases, and straight through them in others. Electricity crackled over her.

I can see her organs, Kraber thought. Oh, they’re burnt. That’s…

It was not that Kraber was grossed out. He’d caused plenty of wounds like this. It was just that this level of destruction was kind of new on him. He’d never expected to see intestines that were burnt, with visible holes dripping blood and other fluids down to the pavement, reddish steam wafting up from the holes.

This is pretty fokkin’ brutal, Kraber thought, not quite approving and not quite disgusted. Daaaamn though. Can I get whatever does this?

Firewhirler’s wing was featherless, fleshless, and stood out from her body like a dead tree. Half her skull was scored through to the bone, and there was an orange orb the size of a marble in the empty socket.

“NNY! FIDDLESTICKS!” Firewhirler screeched. It was such a painful noise that Kraber’s eyes actually watered to hear it. It made him think of broken glass, vocal cords pulled to the limit like overstretched rubber bands. Like Anka’s voice that time she got the croup just after midnight and he’d realized he needed a hospital, an emergency room, anywhere sterile and safe and drove her there while Kate took care of Peter.

Kraber stared at the remains of the newfoal, not quite sure whether or not to use the last mag from his rifle.

“YOU LET ME DIE, NNY!” she screamed.

It was like laryngitis with the volume cranked up till the knob fell off the machine.

“YOU LET ME DIE, YOU SONS OF BITCHES! YOU LET ME DIE! YOU LET ME DIIIIIIII-”

Everything went purple for a second, and then the rest of Firewhirler was gone. Her bones exploded outward in every direction, a mist of blood - again, more than she could possibly hold, especially at this moment - wafting outwards. Electricity arced from bone to bone, bouncing against the pavement.

“I think,” Nny said, “That was about the most disturbing thing I’ve seen in my life.”

“And also the most metal,” Kraber added.

Heliotrope glared at him.

“No, it was pretty metal,” Fiddlesticks added, staring at the street-sized splash of red that had been Firewhirler. “He’s right.”

“Actually, it might be the second-most metal thing we’ve ever seen,” Nny said.

“Oh yeah, with the…” Fiddlesticks said.

“Yeah,” Nny said, looking down to the mass of gore. “I think I’ve got a good idea of who you were, and I’m so sorry. We would’ve gotten you back if we could, but then we’d all be dead, and… well, then Equestria would have….”

The rotors of the helicopter drowned him out before Kraber could hear anything.

Kraber looked to Heliotrope, sighing in relief. “Oh, thank God it’s finally fokkin’ dead!” he said, shouting to be heard over the rotors.

“Damn right!” Heliotrope yelled back, as the two of them looked up to the helicopter descending to the pavement.

Kraber looked up, following her gaze, to see...!

“Yael!” Heliotrope yelled, laughing slightly. “Oh, thank God. What kept you?!”

It was her. Kraber felt an almost reflexive stab of fear - Oh God, it’s Yael, she’s gonna kill me, she’ll shoot me where I stand! and was surprised when it left him. A few weeks ago, Kraber might have shot her. But by now he just… well, he just fokkin’ couldn’t.

She was the same woman who had gone to synagogue, clearly loved her cousin Nny and his marefriend, (maybe?) and been nice enough to Kraber under his assumed name that he couldn’t muster any hatred towards her at this point.

Military personnel - none of whom were from any outfit Kraber could recognize - poured out from the helicopter. He could see another chopper not far behind it.

“I can’t believe this thing took two blasts from a Type-8,” Yael sighed, stepping out from the helicopter. Kraber couldn’t recognize the model. “Why do these things have to be so hard to kill?”

Kraber, Heliotrope, Fiddlesticks, and Nny looked at each other and laughed hysterically.

“I miss something?” Yael asked.

The End / The Beginning

Editors/Co-Authors
TB3 - His edits to this are beyond awesome. Hell, he practically rewrote the thing, and for that I say... Thank you, friend co-author. Thank you so much.
TheIdiot
Kizuna Tallis
Redskin122004
Jed R: So this maaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy have inspired him a little. Look forward to that.
Beyond The Horizon - Thanks for helping SO MUCH!
Chapter 1: Bosbefok / Burn My Shadow

“People of Night Vale, do not be defined by how you can die, but how you can live!”
Tamika Flynn, Welcome To Night Vale

“...I saw on that ivory face the expression of somber pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror - of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision - he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath - ‘The horror! The horror!”
Joseph Conrad, ’Heart of Darkness’

Mid November, 2023

No matter what anyone told themselves, it was the end.

The Barrier had reached North America. It had already rolled over Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Maine. In mere weeks it would claim the entire Eastern Seaboard. The birthplace of the United States, the original thirteen colonies, would soon be dead. When they were gone, perhaps the hardy spirit of the American people would crumble too.

“This is the end, my only friend. The end….”

Here in New England, in the hinterlands between New York and Vermont, towns and villages had been abandoned, populated now only by ghosts, crazies, and PER and HLF scrabbling over the little that remained after evac. Far above, satellites pick up explosions and thaumic spikes showing that even if the Barrier leaves any of this unscathed, there wouldn’t be much left at all.

Everyone in the wooded hills and valleys, desperate to get away, had fled on anything that could turn a wheel. All the cars had rushed down south or gone west down major roads, logging roads that were only cursorily maintained whenever the notion crossed someone’s mind, and roads that would have been closed within winter’s time. Every plane had taken off from small regional airports, and the last of the trains had all left the stations.

Even the old steam locomotives had been pressed back into service, anything that could raise a head of pressure fastened into the harness. Around this time, a few stragglers will even report sightings of a majestic streamlined locomotive charging towards the front lines at Boston under a banner of pure white steam, barrelling across the frozen countryside with a remarkable consist in tow.

These are strange times, and nobody can rightly say they were prepared for this brand of Armageddon.

But today, another relic is chugging in the opposite direction, struggling west under the burden of one of the final evacuation trains. Old Number 501, scrounged up from a heritage line in North Conway, puffs into the derelict Amtrak station in White River Junction, its snorting breaths alike to the ragged breaths and wheezes of a runner exhausted after running a marathon for hours on end.

The old ‘eight-coupled’ machine has a right to sound beaten.

One hundred and thirteen years have passed since it was turned out from the ALCO workshops in Schenectady, New York, but instead of enjoying its comfortable semi-retirement in northern New Hampshire, it has been forced into steam and driven to hell and back, through PER and HLF assaults, through sturm und drang. It has survived passage through war zones, through more than one valley in the shadow of death, through madmen, madponies, and newfoals alike, taken beating after beating to the incredulity and elation of its passengers. If there is another day, an age where humanity survives, it will, like so many others, pass into legend. The faceoff with zeps and potioneer ships, one insane soldier’s heroic charge back onto the train in a stolen car, and countless others standout moments illustrate its tale. If there is a day like that, ol’ number 501 will be enshrined in a museum for future generations.

But right now? Finally, here at the Junction, it can rest. Fire choked from burning damp, green cuts of wood rather than good, hard coal, it’s taken the magic of two unicorns just to keep the pressure up. They’re utterly exhausted too. The cars are riddled with bullets and the headlamp is cracked.

A dead PER pony has been impaled on the cowcatcher. At least, we can assume it’s dead. Maybe it’s still alive. Sometimes, it twitches. Nobody really cares about it, which might be a sign of how low this war has brought everybody and everypony it has touched.

The battered train crew are resting as well, sipping hot chocolate in one of the cars, reloading, cleaning and disassembling weaponry. They are waiting as various self-taught mechanics, human and pony alike, patch up the damage the train has suffered. They are far away from the Barrier, enough that they can afford to take a rest. Once 501’s fire has been cleaned and the unburnt timber mucked out from the locomotive’s ashpan, they’ll push on west.

In this same train car, on two seats folded into an improvised bed, two mares, a mother and daughter, both unicorns, lie together, gently snoozing. A stuffed wolf, one named Ambassador Nikai the Second, has been lent to them, and the daughter - Dancing Day - hugs it to her barrel like a lifeline. She’d have given it back, but the toy’s owner is quite insistent that she keep it as long as she needs it. Like the train, these people have earned a rest. In one car, a woman with fine black hair and vaguely exotic features is jabbering excitedly on the phone.

"You got away?" she asks.

A pause. Then a smile.

"Yes! Tell Brighthoof I miss her already! I'm so happy she's safe!"

Her conversation continues, but we shan’t listen in for now. Doors slam open and more soldiers, temporarily recast as stevedores, begin to load on scrounged-up food and supplies. Some, but not much, has come from the abandoned town. To the regret of more than a few passengers, the old Main Street Museum’s packed up and left. Shame, too.

As they work, they listen. Just audible, off in the distance, is the roar of artillery and small arms fire, one of countless battles and skirmishes all over the Eastern Seaboard. But the wind howls over the sound of battle, casting a pall of snow on the ground and tracing delicate patterns of frost on the windows. The winter has come early, and with a hard snap so unnatural that it hints of pegasus magic...

But nobody comments on the weather right now. It’d bring up too many unpleasant questions, too many fears. Everyone here is fairly forward-thinking, and they know that even if they could win the war in two weeks or two months, that the worst of winter has yet to arrive, and when it does, they’re going to have to tighten their belts so far they could serve as dog collars. Revised weather projections say that even without magical interference, the transition into 2024 is going to be a season of hardship, a long, sustained cold one that will likely draw the whole continent-the whole northern hemisphere, most likely-into a recreation of the Siege of Stalingrad.

As many people are going to die of starvation, hypothermia, and frostbite as will perish from ponification, skirmishes with the HLF, or suicide.

It’s reason enough that anyone with any knowhow - be it governments, private enterprises or bodies like the PHL - are running on all cylinders to try and find a magic bullet that will stave off the projected (and terrifyingly massive) death toll. Not stop the toll, but slow it - because that's all you can hope for around now. Their various affiliates, think tanks such as Crowe Labs and Ogunleye Futuristics, weapons designers such as Sebastian Irving, even PHL Biology, all of them know that come the heavier snows, and the freezing of fragile supply lines already under fire from PER and HLF bandits, that there will be shit to make the infamous ‘Acevedo Starvation Tape’ look like oversleeping until noon and forgetting breakfast.

In the past few years, there have been decades worth of advancement in technology and magic; alternative power, (thanks to Macroburst) pharmaceuticals, and agriculture are among the hundreds of concepts have been dug up from old file cabinets and evaluated. Vertical farms assisted by earth pony magic are another, going up in areas that are not within ‘immediate risk’ of the Barrier’s consumption. Every resource-stretching method known to man or equine has been tried and put into place.

And yet it’s not going to be enough..

...and nobody wants to even think about the winter to follow that... or anything in between. It’s almost a reflexive action for the mind to simply go blank when even considering it. Every year since the war has gotten exponentially worse, after all, and the year to come is simply beyond comprehension.

‘Though maybe’, a few cynics say, ‘this winter might kill off the last of the HLF, unless they just come crawling back again, like cockroaches…’

Cynics are a dime a dozen these days.

No, nobody on this train is looking forward to winter. They studiously ignore it. Not even the prospect of skiing on newly-virgin slopes can get the few humans present excited.

Outside, a tired man whose nest of golden-brown-blackish curly hair has formed itself into a pompadour gives a light fist-bump to the engine, as if to congratulate it for its hard work. He whispers a quick, improvised prayer in Hebrew, and then turns to consider the scene. His wrists hurt from working the fireman’s scoops so much.

They’ve pulled up alongside another train, a southbound military lashup whose troops are helping administer first-aid, and sharing what supplies and ammunition they can. Their generosity is the source of most of what is currently being loaded onto the refugee train. In contrast to the battered old steamer, a time-worn blue and yellow diesel locomotive is hauling the military consist, and behind it is lashed a few cars and a flatbed on which something huge has been sheeted over for protection from prying winds, and prying eyes, of which there were many.

The man looks at it, one eyebrow raised in curiosity.

This rendezvous was by chance, thanks to a desperate radio-plea for help being picked up, and he’s grateful. Relief at this chance for respite overwhelming him, he climbs back aboard 501’s consist, and sees the other occupants of this particular car.

There are many. Children and foals, huddled under ratty blankets and layers upon layers of jackets, some of which are so patched and duct-taped that they barely seem to have any original parts. Ship of Theseus, Johnny C thinks randomly.

They’re all drinking and eating supplies, warming themselves against radiators and portable heaters that have been scavenged from the town, or being carted off to the field hospital in the station. A few stragglers drive by on the highway, but the town is now all but populated by ghosts.

Two passengers catch his eyes. Two of his best friends.

A bearded man with an immense LMG and a huge revolver strapped to him sits at one end of the car, guzzling down a cup of spicy hot chocolate with chili, cinnamon, and mezcal. His primary weapon is a frankensteinian work of legend, a descendant of the MG42 calibered for .338 Norma Magnum rounds, bullets that pack the kind of firepower intended to bring down a charging grizzly.

It works just fine on equines too.

With a fire rate like a buzzsaw, aided by PHL cooling runes etched into the barrel, and enough accuracy to serve as a sniper rifle in a pinch, its the kind of unique weapon destined to gain a Wikipedia entry somewhere between Excalibur and Mjolnir. Though it’s nothing compared to the MG2023 he’s hoping to test soon...

Leaning against him for warmth, clad in a rough equine-fitted parka made from recycled materials is a large white earth pony the size of a small horse, wearing two LMGs, slurps up the same concoction from a bowl someone had filched from an abandoned arts and crafts store back in Bethlehem, NH. Next to them, an old iPad sits on a crate. Whenever they can get a connection up, they often tune into a radio show broadcast from South Africa by someone named Enitan Adebayo.

Though at the moment, it’s just playing music.

“Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain,
And all the children are insane, all the children are insane.
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah.
There’s danger on the edge of town…”

“Don’t get too comfortable,” the huge earth pony says as the bearded man finishes his drink. “We’ve still got a long ways to go. Gotta’ get back to Boston once we see these people on their way.”

“Think I don’t fokking know that, Aegis?” his companion, sighs, not unkindly. His name is Victor M. Kraber. “I fokking know, pony-boy, I know…”

Aegis lets the swearing go uncommented on. These are things one simply gets used to when friends with Viktor. “Honestly, when the war’s over, I’ll just welcome a bit of fokkin rest… I ever tell you about that time I was practically riding high on amphetamines and caffeine to get me going through the week?”

“Yes,” Aegis says. “About two thousand times.”

“Right. Sorry then,” Kraber apologizes, one hand in Aegis’ mane. “But… I feel bout like I did then. Barely held together.” He yawned.

“I know that feeling,” Aegis agrees, yawning as well. “Dammit, that’s contagious, isn’t it?”

Kraber nods. “Ja. That’s science.”

It’s times like this, Aegis reflects, that the mask slips ever so slightly. That Kraber allows himself to lie back and be human, and not sound so much like a character played by Sharlto Copley.

It’s nice to see him this way sometimes.

There’s knocking on the side of the train car. Kraber stands up, one hand on the heavy 14mm revolver at his hip, more out of habit than anything. It’s a ridiculous, massive gun, but it has so much more… more presence than any sidearm Kraber has ever fired. It can abort fights just by being drawn. Yeah, a gun with a bore a man could fit a thumb in makes for a hell of a negotiating tool.

He looks down, and out the window. There’s a man out there-unassuming, dressed in plain military fatigues, looking like he belonged in the PHL. Unremarkable. No eccentric equipment. That’s kind of rare these days - “eccentric” equipment, weapons that have been adapted to levels of insane lethality while still chambering standard ammo are very popular among the PHL, both their more “celebrated” tame psychopaths (Like Victor himself. Though it’s surprisingly easy to find the 28-gauge shells - who would have guessed that a shotgun pistol with more kick than a .410 would be so popular in the war?) and those PHL members who desperately want more gun.

Jumping down, Victor notes the man’s signs of rank and raises one hand in a weary salute, realising he’s addressing the commander of the army train.

“Colonel, thank you for the help you and your men have leant us. It’s appreciated.”

“No worries,” the man says, returning the salute. He’s in his late forties, early fifties perhaps, and has the bearing of a professional soldier ready to be relegated to the command of a desk, just beginning to run to fat.

“I heard you need a trip to Boston,” he adds, holding out a hand to the bearded man. “Viktor Kraber, is it? My name’s Hex.”

Kraber returns the handshake, and finds it to be firm. "Heard of you before, Colonel. The bliksem Renee won’t admit it, but we all appreciate what you and your chommies have done for weapons development."

“And I’m Aegis,” the large white earth pony says, having stepped down to join them. “And yeah, we do need a ride to Boston.”

He nods towards the steamer.

“We were going to try and use this old relic, but...it needs some repairs, and the unicorns that kept it steaming are all tapped out. Besides, the evacuees need it more than we do.”

“You brought a steam locomotive all the way from New Hampshire to here?” the man, Colonel Hex, asks incredulously, before smirking. “It’s not the craziest odyssey I’ve heard of lately, but it still ranks.”

“A friend of mine took 7470 down south!” Johnny C calls over. “Course we could do that.”

“Well, there were stragglers,” Aegis says matter-of-factly. “No way in hell were were just going to… leave... them.”

He says ‘leave’ as if it was a curse.

“Well said, bru,” Kraber says. “Well said. Besides. I’ve done… well, you know my history,” he said solemnly. “I’ve done terrible things in their backyard. I owe these people.”

“No, you’ve paid it back more than any of us ever could have dreamed,” says a dirty-blond man with a mustache and an FN Leshiy.

“No. I haven’t,” Kraber calls over. “And even if I had, there’s no way I could leave people and ponies like them, anyone like you... Especially not you. You’re a wonderful man, Burt.”

“You’ve got some balls that clank,” the PHL man, Hex, says with a whistle, before jabbing a thumb over his shoulder at the diesel-hauled train over which he holds command. The numerals 8888 can be made out on its locomotive, as well as the faded letters ‘CSX’.

“I’m running into Boston myself with some essential kit for the battle. I’m not going all the way, but I could drop you around Lowell. If you’re willing to walk the last twenty miles or hitch another ride, I’d be glad for you to ride along with me.”

Victor eyes the train, spots the troops standing severe guard around the sheeted-over object that requires an entire flatbed to carry.

He’s accustomed to PHL weaponry, and has quite the taste for test runs. He’s signed up for testing a new tesla weapon he himself had proposed to PHL R&D, he’s used the ill-fated EM-62 Electrolaser (effective for breaking shields, but too hard to repair and prone to lethal overheating and melting), he’s signed up for newer, more magic-efficient battlefield treatments for human soldiers.

‘Guilty as charged,’ he admits to himself. ‘I’ve never lost an HLF man’s childish love of overpowered weaponry.’

And he has a child’s love of science fiction.

But what could that cargo be? he wonders on. The PHL aren’t as crippled internally as the HLF when it comes to command structure and secrets. Troops are usually informed about this sort of thing, but he has heard nothing. Something feels odd in all of this, but he’s grateful for the ride.

He’ll be keeping his hands on his guns just in case. He’s learned to trust his instincts and hunches. Instincts, while rarely as accurate or provable as educated guesses, were still useful sources.

“So?” Hex asks again. “Think your train can go on without you two?”

The wind howls once more. There’s a storm coming. The sounds of the unseen battle nearby seem to be drawing nearer.

“We’ll be fine,” the man with the pompadour calls down from 501’s cab. “There’s others coming to provide us with fire support, and I kept it going the whole way. You two get on back to Boston-you’re needed there.”

“I can’t leave you!” Kraber protests. “We barely made it out of there alive, and-”

“Viktor, you and Aegis are needed in Boston,” the short man says. “We’ll handle this, I promise.” He holds out a hand.

“You’re sure?” Aegis asks, holding out a hoof as Kraber holds out a hand.

“I promise,” the short man says, shaking them both with his right hand. “Besides. This is a hell of a lot safer than New Hampshire at the moment. We’ll probably be fine.”

“Alright, Johnny C,” Kraber says uneasily. Even the old joke of the ‘C’ being an actual part of his first name is running thin. “Just… call if you’re safe.”

“I promise,” the short man says solemnly.

“Give Pinkie Pie’s face a good kick, alright?” another man asks.

“It would be my fokking pleasure,” Kraber snarls, making a smile that uncomfortably reminds everyone present of a hungry wolf.

“Oh sweet Luna you’ve gotten him back to normal,” Aegis mutters. “I hope you’re happy with yourself, Johnny.” But beneath it all, Aegis is looking forward to it as well. They say the Great Equestrian is heading for Boston.

They say Marcus Renee is there, as well as the damn Elements of Harmony.

People say a lot of things about the Battle of Boston, and no matter who wins, it will be legendary. It will be a rumble that lives on in the hearts and minds of survivors for years to come. Every hand or hoof is needed. The PHL is even accepting the help of non-HLF affiliated civilian militias, with flash-enchanted (quick, rather imperfect spellwork that’s not made to last) or or piecemealed munitions made by cannibalizing a runic or enchanted weapon and spreading its parts among weaponry of the same model. An enchanted M16 suddenly goes to feed the guns of a small squad. It’s not as good as an enchanted M16 but it’s a hell of a lot better for the job at hand. They even say the main force hasn’t arrived yet.

“Well then…” Hex says, trying not to be unnerved at the sight of Kraber’s predatory, bloodthirsty smile. “Welcome aboard. As I said, my cargo’s pretty valuable, and you look like just the two to keep it safe…”

As Hex leads them towards the dirty blue bulk of train 8888’s locomotive, Kraber swears and briefly runs back to 501’s leading carriage. He returns with the Ipad, which has gotten stuck on loop, repeating the same song.

“Ride the snake, he’s old, and his skin is cold.
The west is best, the west is best.
Get here, and we’ll do the rest.
The blue bus is callin’ us, the blue bus is callin’ us,
Driver, where you takin’ us?”

“Goddammit, why can’t I get this thing to play Biting Elbows?” Kraber mutters.

Hex lifts an eyebrow as he pauses, halfway up 8888’s catwalk ladder, and Kraber, abashed, struggles to shut off the Ipad, laughing like some deranged vision of Saint Nicholas. Aegis lightly hoofs his own forehead in embarrassment.

’It’s enough’, he thinks to himself, ’to make me wonder how I even befriended this man?’

“Ah, there we go!” Kraber laughs. “Cueing up the Light Despondent in… now.”

“You’re playing that now?” Aegis asks. Then, slowly, urgently: “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“It has a really cool guitar solo,” Kraber protests. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

“You sure about that?” Aegis asks.

“I’m sure,” Kraber shrugs. “Besides, after this, I can play the Stampede or something.”

“...The Stampede? Didn’t you get tired of that a couple hours ago?” Aegis asks.

“Bru. It’s Biting Elbows,” Kraber says, and Aegis must concede that point. “When have you known me to ever be tired of them?”

“Okay, good point,” Aegis admits.

Still, he thinks, He’s a better man than I would’ve guessed he’d be back then.

As 8888’s motor ignites with a filthy belch of diesel fumes, Aegis waves over at train 501, and Johnny C waves back and salutes. There is an explosion off in the distance. HLF artillery, Aegis thinks. Gotta be.

Godspeed, you magnificent sonsabitches.

Author's Note

And here we have the beginning of what was once chapter 1! I cut it up a bit cause I... well, I keep getting told I have overly huge chapters. The first chapter was originally 25k words, so that's out.

Burn My Shadow / Nightmare

In the city that pretends not to sleep
I've been having maddening dreams
And I certainly hope that they weren't of the prophetic kind
'Cause my mind ain't ready for the apocalypse
Biting Elbows, 'The Present'

It was towards sixteen hundred hours that he came back to Defiance, to the smells of body odor, roasting fish, meat of uncertain provenance, and the ever-present camp stew. Scharnhost, when he wasn’t felling foe and foal with ‘The Lumberjack’, was a surprisingly good cook, and always had something simmering away, ready for anyone to take a bowl of.

Viktor did so, and with his stew in hand, he staggered onwards into the camp, further up the proverbial river, boats against the current, deeper into the heart of darkness.

He was welcomed with all kinds of stories in the languages of dead nations. A group of children, wearing rags and holding looted, near-destroyed toys, all of them armed, wearing kalashnikovs, bullpups, and bullpup kalashnikovs on their backs. Behind them followed Mariesa, a woman everyone simply called ‘mother mary’. Kraber idly wondered how many of those kids knew or could remember anything before the War. He understood the need for child soldiers, yes, but he always felt uneasy at the sight of it. None of them, he thought, desperately trying not to convince himself that Peter and Anka might still be alive-

dead they’re dead you killed them you kontgesig you horrible father you kiddie rapist

-would be able to live a normal life after all this. If any of them could go back. If there would be anything left at the end of it all. A kid… deserved a chance to be a kid. These children wouldn’t have that.

Thanks to Burakgazi, his lover from way back when, Kraber’s turkish was passable, so he could understand yet another rendition of the story of Old Skinner, some lone HLF man who’d allegedly accomplished feats that were downright impossible.

“They say he took potion to the face and lived - ordered someone to cut off half his cheek with a knife. They say he once took a PHL outpost by himself. They say he wears a coat of pony leather, the cutie marks all facing outwards… and I know a friend, right? Says he saw him...”

More mutterings.

“I heard he can command any HLF brigade he sees fit...”

Author's Note

A note on the quote: It could say "Murdering dreams," not "Maddening dreams." But, well, both work for Kraber.

Philistine / Don't Fear The Reaper

Chapter 10: PHILISTINE / Don’t Fear The Reaper

Co-authors:

TB3 (Thank you so much! ….especially cause this is the minor hiatus. Go have fun writing Last Train!)
Jed R (Special thanks for… okay, fok it, what you did goes beyond cameo. Awesomeness ensued)

Editors:
Redskin122004
VoxAdam

Pre-readers:
Kizuna-Tallis

One man goes into the waters of baptism. A different man comes out, born again. But who is that man who lies submerged? Perhaps that swimmer is both sinner and saint, until he is revealed unto the eyes of man.
Zachary Hale Comstock, Bioshock Infinite

"Get going, Simon. Just don't be distracted by the what-ifs, should-haves, and if-onlys. The one thing you choose yourself - that is the truth of your universe."
Kamina, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

“Who the hell are ya?” he demanded, revolver pointed at a human and pony who had tried to get the jump on him in a ground-floor corridor.

The hospital foyer had been deserted, but his attempts to explore further than the reception had ended when they had ambushed him from inside an examination room…

“I’m Caduceus! Please don’t kill me!” the mare yelled.

“Sylvia Bray,” said the good-looking woman with the assault rifle, this one something that looked like a black M16 (or one of innumerable derivatives) with a desert-beige 40mm grenade launcher mounted underneath, but with more inscrutable PHL tech mounted on it.

“Ivan Bliss. PHL,” Kraber said.

“We were holding down the fort, but the Newfoals were looking for more converts… What the hell can we do?!”

“Shoot the kontgesigs?” Kraber suggested. “Quick - are there any patients in here at risk?”

“At least two dozen who can walk. The evacuation order prioritised the bedridden and incapacitated. We got the last of the unconverted wheelchair-users to safety about thirty minutes ago.”

“What do you mean, ‘unconverted’?”

“The ponies took control of one of the outpatient wings, we were using it as a waiting area for the evacuation. Now, now they’re all…”

Something clattered to the ground in the near distance, and Kraber crept to a corridor intersection. As the sound of distant giggling became audible, he peeked around the corner.

“Ah, fok...”

The newfoals were coming, wobbling up the corridor as if gesuip with delight.

“We’re cured now!” one said… no, chirped. It looked like it should be an adult, judging by its height and facial stubble, but it sounded almost like a young foal. Or a child’s windup toy…

“Don’t worry,” Kraber whispered. “Ah goat this. Ah’m going tae communicate with them the only way Ah know works.”

“...Have me talk them down?” Caduceus suggested.

“Actually, I was going tae fill them with moor lead than ma college roommate’s plumbin,” Kraber said.

“That works too,” Caduceus admitted.

And so, as Kraber slipped around the corner, he opened fire with the MG2019, and cut them apart. “EAT THIS JOU FOKKING BLIKSEMS, IT’LL ONLY MAKE YA PRETTIER!” he cackled.

“Hey, what the hell…”

Kraber whipped around, seeing a man in a jacket (on which the letters ‘PER’ had been crudely stitched) step out from another examination room. As the two of them made eyecontact, the newcomer whipped a potion vial out of his bandoleer and prepared to toss it-

Kraber acted on instinct, bringing the MG2019 up for a second and firing. Time seemed to slow down, the bullet almost crawling towards the PER man, Kraber distractedly tracking it… then watching as the .338 Norma Magnum round punched through the man’s hand, shattering his fingers, the vial exploding into shards and lacerating his body, one fragment cutting a runnel across his face, another landing dead center in his eye.

“YOU BAS-”

Pausing to riddle the sheep-like newfoals with their weight in bullets, Kraber strode forward, unholstered the revolver, and nailed the man in the balls, even as potion from the shattered phial sank into his flesh and fur began to erupt from from the gashes the flying shards of glass had left….

The mutating mass of meat screamed, a high, piercingly absurd falsetto, and even as he clasped his ruined genitals with one hoof and something that still resembled a hand, Kraber had covered the distance between them.

“BLIKSEM!” he yelled, and kicked out, his boot smashing into the man’s nose, knocking him back into the room.

The man screamed again, and Kraber grabbed his skull, even as he steadily morphed into something equine, and rammed him facefirst through a window.

“MULLINS!” a pegasus screamed, shooting up and out her respective window like a bullet, her wings flying fast enough it looked like she could do a sonic rainboom-

-and then Kraber threw the steadily ponifying PER man, evidently named Mullins, at her. She caught him out of reflex and, suddenly burdened with his weight, tumbled backwards through the open doors of an empty elevator shaft.

He heard the two of them plummet, screaming, down to the bottom of the sub-basement. There was a sound like ripe watermelons splattering, and their screams were cut off forever.

Good.

“They got Shetland, and Mullins!” cried out a woman who game running down the stairs, a rifle banging against her shoulder. “They got-”

Kraber fired the revolver right through her sternum. Staring down at the bleeding hole, she collapsed, while Kraber kept walking forward.

Unfortunately (for themselves), very few of the PER were trained soldiers - under calm circumstances, they might have very well realized that confined stairwells and narrow hallways qualified as a fatal funnel.

These were not calm circumstances, and they surged into the choke-points like blood into a coronary.

Kraber fired the revolver twice to trip up the forward line, then whipped out his shotgun and began shredding into the tangle of human and equine tissue.

“You bucking! Useless! HUMANS!” someone - almost certainly a pony - yelled. “Do I have to do everything myself?!”

Unfussed, Kraber slid into cover, back into a consultancy room (he tried not to notice the purplish stains on the bedding) and peered around the corner.

Fok! A unicorn, and horn all-a-glowy!

Okay - unicorn magic was a nightmare at close range, unless you were trying to get yourself killed. They could do anything to you, even if it was something as simple as suspending you in their TK, helpless and defenceless.

First rule of fighting ponies: take out the horn-heads. Ideally, give your point-men the kind of ammo that macerated tissue and caused massive blood loss - ha! Just try concentrating on you bloody abracadabras when you’re bleeding out through a rupture the size of your own head!

Kraber had that kind of ammo, but he was alone, without backup or support save for a woman who was unfamiliar with her rifle, and another unicorn that didn’t seem combat-ready. And in a man-on-mule showdown, he preferred not to see who was quickest on the draw...

So that led his thoughts to the second rule of fighting ponies: cheat.

“Here!” he yelled from behind cover, tossing one of the pipe-bombs he’d scavenged at the unicorn. “CATCH THIS!”

“Stupid trick, human!” the unicorn yelled, grabbing the pipebomb in his TK, ready to throw it back. Grinning, Kraber stepped out of cover and fanned the trigger of his 1911, dumping four rounds into the distracted stallion…

… who caught all of them in his telekinetic field, all while rotating the pipebomb’s muzzle back at Viktor himse... oh, come on! That wasn’t fair!

“Don’t worry!” the unicorn cried out, smile ragged. “You’ll stop your wailing soon enough…”

“FOK!”

As the pipebomb whistled for him, Kraber dove through a side-door and clapped his hands over his ears, right before the blast and shockwave of detonation punched him in the everything.

“EISH! A LITTLE FOKKIN HELP HERE!” Kraber called over towards the two deadweights he had encountered.

“What the hell do we do?!” Caduceus yelled back.

“I don’t know, something that keeps me from getting fokking ponified!” Kraber called back.

“Found… you…” the unicorn hissed, walking into the open door.

“Ah, fokking hell,” Kraber muttered, .50 revolver in his right hand, .45 in his left.

“Something about you seems familiar,” the unicorn said, a shotgun of his own hovering beside him. Kraber glanced at his illuminated flank. Natural-born, then. Meaning he’d probably ponified a few on the side, lied to people, probably managed to pass himself off as PHL to pull off this raid....

Regular gluesticks were bad enough, but ones that lied like that? Ones that pretended to help out, and just fokked everyone over?

He’s going to fokking burn!

Kraber flicked on his armor’s shield, and smiled. “There’s something oan yuir face,” he said.

The unicorn smiled back, “no there isn’t…”

There was a hollow boom from out in the corridor, and a pink flash reverberated through the room.

The unicorn shuddered, blinking in dazed shock, and then before Viktor’s eyes, his horn flickered, and his own weapon fell to the ground...

“IT WAS PAIN!” Kraber yelled, dropping his .45 and holding the .50 in both hands, firing one round into the unicorn’s face.

...kaboom...

Blood, brains, and fragments of skull exploded out from back of the unicorn’s head, splattering the doorframe and even the ceiling. Rainbow-colored threads of alicornal tissue sizzled in the viscera splattered against the wall, and blue smoke wafted up from the neck-stump.

“What the fok did ya hit em with?” Kraber asked, as Sylvia walked over to him, starring in what could have been either sadness or pity at the unicorn on the floor.

“Crowe Disruptor Grenade,” she answered. “The PHL already have them in hand-grenade form, but they’re hoping to mate them to rockets or old-style RPGs. They’re modified frag-12s, combining the shredded wire with magically-charged crystal shards.”

She rolled on, the technicalities pouring off her like water on a duck’s back, but Kraber wasn’t listening.

All he could process was this simple bit of wisdom: the PHL had reverse-engineered shields from pony magic… and then crowned that by devising a grenade that could crack the enemy’s own barriers...

The PHL, had shield disruptor grenades-

“...so we’re planning to make them smaller, add them as standard enchantments on PHL bullets.”

‘Captain, the Borg have adapted...’

Fokking shield disruption bullets were coming soon. While it took the HLF tons of pipebombs and a lot of bullets to break down magic shields. Oh God, next year was going to suck…

...or, depending on which side he remained, it could prove unutterably ball-fokkingly awesome.

“You can miniaturise them?” Kraber asked, picking up and holstering his .45. while rummaging around in his backpack. He for a pouch of spare, speedloader-less .50 rounds that he kept in case he didn’t feel like wasting a perfectly good couple rounds.

“Sure. It’s not machinery we’re trying to shrink, just a binding medium for the enchantment,” Caduceus explained.

“Wait. Could I make that work with HEIAP ammo? I have two belts of the stuff in my backpack,” Kraber said.

“What’s that?” Caduceus asked.

“Long story shuirt, thaire’s a tungsten penetrator inside the boolit, if it hits armor, the main bullet explodes and sends fire everywhere, but also pushes thaee penetrator down intae the target,” Kraber said. “It’s like a russian doll: bullet innae’ bullet. Works great against royal guard armor, potioneer ships, or zeps.”

“Maybe,” Caduceus said, eyes narrowed. “That’s hardly standard practice though. Only the HLF still use those kind of-”

“Ah boat it oaf ay Swedish trader awhile back, and it fits in my rifle just fine,” Kraber interrupted, trying to forestall her thoughts. “Nae idea how she goat it, but it seemed fun and useful enoof. Nae need tae get all antsy about it.”

“Oh,” she sniffed. “Anyway… for the record, I can’t do anything to your bullets. I’m a nurse, not a weaponsmith.”

She’d sure not sounded like a nurse a few seconds ago.

“Awwww…” Kraber groaned, visibly disappointed. He decided to work it off through his usual method of self-medication. “So - there any more PER aroond that Ah can bliksem?”

Caduceus looked confused at this, and a little disturbed by Kraber’s apparent need to kill PER.

“Up the stairs, probably,” Sylvia said.

“I’ll try and cast a cloaking spell on us,” Caduceus said. “If there’s anything I’ve learned about guns and stairways…”

“One makes easy fokking targets fir thae other,” Kraber finished for her.

“Exactly.”

The nurse, Sylvia, took point, using her own knowledge of the hospital to guide them. Her smaller size and lighter step were useful too, once maintaining the cloaking spell became too much for Caduceus. The comparative silence of Sylvia’s rubber-soled shoes to the pony’s sharp hoofsteps or Kraber’s jangling, equipment-laden tread made her ideal for nipping along an apparently empty corridor (under cover provided from Kraber), checking around the next corner, and waving them on to join her.

In this manner, leapfrogging through wards and halls, they cleared floor after floor. Caduceus, despite her medical training, proved more than competant with her grenades and a rifle she’d picked off a dead PER man. It was strange, Kraber had to admit, seeing PER or unicorns carrying guns - but then, potion made for poor self-defense against body armor, and guns were effective. It concerned him, the discontinuity between her apparent profession and the coolness with which she messily gunned down three human opponents who’d tried to stage an ambush.

He didn’t trust her. Sylvia was just another weakling who’d gone over to the PHL from the beginning, no-doubt, but this mare? No, he didn’t like her one bit. It was too convenient, her presence here, and she was too calm and collected a killer. Was she a spy for the Empire, a double-agent...

Then again, Imperial ponies didn’t seem to like firearms. What’s her game? Kraber wondered.

It was then that he got an apparent answer…

“Is that it?” he asked softly, indicating down a corridor towards a sign that said ‘cafeteria’. They were out of the patient spaces now, and working their way through the backstage, the ‘staff-only’ facilities.

“Yes,” the unicorn mare nodded, “the staff cafeteria on this floor is set up as a panic room. We ordered them to seal themselves in, while we went for help…”

“And you goat me?” he responded, struggling to hide his suspicion.

“Yes…” she answered back cooly. “What a bargain.”

“Guys,” pleaded Sylvia. “Let’s not fight between ourselves. We’re meant to be helping each other, right? At least two of us are doc-”

“Three,” Kraber interrupted.

“You? Really?” Sylvia asked.

“Well, this war…” Kraber said. “Changes people.” Idly, he remembered something from one book, something from Brandon Sanderson. If one day, he walked through a door and found himself with his old college chommies in some Irish pub in Boston, or in Faneuil Hall eating chowder, there’d be no way his past self would recognize him, maybe even vice versa. He’d grown a little, his face was lined with worry even today, he’d racked up an impressive tally of scars, he…

Hell, he probably wouldn't even think he was the same species. Which one would think that? Past or future? Yes. Obviously.

He remembered that silly polaroid that Erika had taken, the one with him holding Kate, lifting her off her feet, smiles on both their faces. He remembered the two of them meeting at Anime Boston, both having snuck out of class, and… heh. He did remember Verity. She’d looked so happy back then.

And it turned out that Zo and Erika had been there, and captured him hugging Kate, with her looking very pregnant. Kate had been happy to see him, and kissed him right on the lips. “You came!” she’d said. “I didn’t know if you’d be able to use those passes I bought.”

And, when the con had winded down, Kraber had treated her to dinner with the money from that… well, adult movie… that he’d worked on with all his chommies.

Fok it, he missed college. He missed all the food, getting to eat meat at a moment’s notice. Sure, there’d been a lot of small worries, but dammit, at least you could have fun. He missed Polo, he missed Bly, Erika… so many friends.

The last contact he’d had with a lot of them had been back when he watched the sermon-turned-riot that lead to the death of the old HTF - Polo had thrown a bottle at Reverend James Thomas’ head, Bly had been screaming into Kraber’s ear over the phone that “No, this wasn’t right!” Miranda had gone off to something in PHL Medical, and…

So many friends, so many things had been lost since those days. Whether drowned in the potion, or erased by the barrier, and then, inevitably, if anyone had gotten ponified, the memories would be locked up, the newfoals convinced there was nothing happy to be found in them.

“Nae - we go together,” he growled. “But Ah knoak. Whit’s thae password for them tae open the doors?”

“Shave-and-a-haircut…” she answered, knocking out the familiar beat on the floor.

“Okay…let’s go…”

With Caduceus leading the way, Kraber on point (and keeping his gun pointing at the unicorn’s back), and Sylvia trembling like a leaf behind them, the three quickly advanced to the door. Pushing the mare to one side with his booted foot, Kraber reached up to rap on the door…

...and felt it swing back on the hinges as his fist made contact. Unbarred, unlocked, sealed…

“Is thaire anyone?” he called out, dreading what he would find. “We’re here tae save you!”

The door swung wide open.

Unbarred…

Unlocked…

Unsealed...

‘Undead...’

“Oh, shite…”

At least two dozen shapes stood in silence within, barely lit by dim emergency lighting. Shell-casings littered the floor from submachineguns, shotguns, and rifles made of bits of pipe. The white, once-sterile floor was bright crimson, traced with the prints of boots. The sickly-sweet lavender scent of potion was on them, and they were swathed like mummies in the torn fragments of hospital gowns and uniforms.

“Yoh, fok nae,” Kraber said, realizing what was coming next. “GET BACK!”

The nearest of them looked up at Kraber as the door swung open, drew back its lips, and giggled.

“You’re too late!” said the newfoal. “We’ve already been saved.”

!!BANG!!

Later on, Kraber did not remember pulling the trigger, or yanking the pins on three of the frag-grenades, or slamming the door shut as he tossed them in.

No, all he would recall was the newfoal’s head exploding, and the red-Red-RED that filled his vision…

...and the distant THUMP of the explosion shredding everything within the ‘panic room’...

...and the crunch of his booted foot connecting with Caduceus’s body, hurling the unicorn nurse to the floor.

‘Traitor...killer-MURDERer, FOKKING MURDER!’

“YOU PONY BITCH!” he screamed, unholstering the .50 revolver and placing it to the unicorn mare’s eye. “I’m going to…”

A house in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Kraber walking into it, finding it empty. The ceiling fan lazily drifting, the smell of chocolate cake.

No…

Potion spread across the floor.

NO….

“..you killed them…” said a quiet voice. “You just… killed them…”

He turned, slowly, and saw Sylvia had picked up his dropped .45, and was pointing it into his face, her rifle hanging over one shoulder.

“You were meant to HELP RESCUE THEM!” she whispered. “They weren’t like the others, they weren’t violent, or attacking. They were pure, new-born…white as snow. And you KILLED THEM…”

Kraber saw the light of madness dancing in her eyes, as she pointed to one side with a quick flick of the gun, indicating for him to step away from the unicorn.

“Get away from my friend. She might be Fallen, but she’s still a pony. She has more right to live than any of us…”

“...You?” Caduceus asked, aghast and prostrate on the floor. “What did you do…”

“Three flasks of potion, wired up to the cafeteria’s sprinklers…” Sylvia stammered. “And a smoke grenade on a timer…”

“What the fuck?! Do you… Do you honestly think I’d be proud of you for this?! Or Rime Ice?! He loves you, he loves Earth, he loves the coast, and you do this?!”

“I know neither of you would understand… you’re Fallen, both you and Ice… but you’re still ponies… and when this is over, She’ll make you well again, make you both pure again…”

“Oh, shut up,” Caduceus snapped. “Look at you! Rime and I were raised in Equestria, both of us! We came over on the same plane to the same airport after the Barrier ate up Britain, we ate the same italian dinner, we share the apartment… Dammit, we saw Equestria’s downfall. We know what it really is. Who do you think you are, talking like you know us?!”

“I take no pleasure in what I’m doing,” Sylvia said. “I can’t stand this world anymore. The HLF could have joined up with the PHL, but no, they made all the most terrible decisions. We’ve committed far too much evil in our lives to-“

-her grip relaxed for a second, and with a swing of his arm, Kraber struck the .45 out of her hands. She tried to reach for the rifle, even as Kraber drew his own gun and…

-killyoukillyoukillyoukillyou-

...brought the larger-chambered revolver to bear and fired one round into her knee.

She screamed.

It’s worth pointing out that in a fight, you can’t let the pain overcome you - giving into the pain that means you’ve already lost. It’s also worth pointing out that while movies might have you believe fighting is choreographed, it isn’t - Kraber’d learned to throw punches on the streets of Cape Town and Boston, not in some fancy dojo, so the inevitable violence was going to be ugly and awkward. Both case in point, what Kraber was about to do to Sylvia.

As the nurse fell to her knee, clutching it and hissing through her teeth shitshitshitshit!, Kraber drew back his foot and drove it up into her face. There was a wet, splintering crack, a spray of red, something giving under the sole of his steel-toed boot, and she flopped back, smearing her blood and tears over the floor, screeching. Struggling, she reached into her jacket, pulled a potion vial out into view, and - he stamped on her abdomen. WHOOMP! She vomited blood and bile all over Kraber’s feet, only for him to grab her with both hands and hurl her against a wall, pinning her upright. Bones cracked like twigs. The vial she’d been holding spiraled out of her hand, out of sight.

She was dying. Already dead, but her brain had not caught up with her body yet. Kraber headbutted her, then half-punched, half-grabbed her, ramming her into the floor, eliciting a splutter that was too full of fluid to be a scream anymore.

A pistol fell out of her jacket, a small 10mm Steiner-Bisley. He saw her weakly fumble for it, and dragged her away, spinning her in a half-circle, legs flopping behind her. Then, holding her left arm, he stepped on her shoulder.

Gripping her left shoulder with both hands, he pushed forward against her back with his free leg and pulled…

There was a pop, and Sylvia screamed. He let her drop onto the floor and she writhed in agony, her shattered arm and leg flailing as she tried to crawl away. Kraber stood and looked down in contempt on her, seeing her dilated eyes, her weakly flexing fingers trying to get traction on a floor slick with her own fluids. He kicked her in the face yet again. Blood, sputum, and vomit pooled out of the shattered ruin of her mouth.

He left her to bleed out on her own.

“That...” Caduceus gasped, sobbed. “That was…”

“Brutal...disgusting...ovirboard?” Kraber said idly, wiping bits of Sylvia off of his legs.

“By the Golden Lyre, what the fuck is wrong with you!?”

“Ah don’t fight tae win,” Kraber said, rummaging in her belt, sticking the pistol in his backpack (you never knew when you needed another gun nowadays) and placing her supply of potion vials on top of the nearest vending machine. “Me auld Dad always told me - Ivan, dinnae fight tae win, fight so you don’t have tae again.”

“She was like a third your weight and no threat once disarmed!” Caduceus yelled. “IT’D COME OFF BETTER IF YOU SHOT HER IN THE FACE AND WERE DONE WITH IT! Admit it, you enjoyed that you depraved shit!”

“Course I fokking did!” Kraber said, on the edge of a laugh.

“You’re… horrible,” Caduceus said.

“Horrible?!” Kraber yelled. “HORRIBLE?! MORE HORRIBLE DISGUSTING THAN THE FOKKIN KONTGESIGS’RE PONIFYIN’ FOKKIN KIDS?! TURNIN’ THEM INTO FOKKING ZOMBIES THAT’RE USED TO CLOG GUNS WITH BODIES?! FOK THAT FOKKIN’ KAK IN THE POES, YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY THE FOK I’M LIKE THIS?! ”

Rhetorical question - Kraber was going to say so anyway.

“PINKIE PIE, THE GODDAMN FOKKIN VARKPOES, PONIFIED! MY! FAMILY!” Kraber yelled. “SHE CAME THERE, WITH FOKKIN’ PER, AND RAPED MY FOKKIN CHILDREN’S MINDS SO THERE’S NOT A FOKKIN THING LEFT OF THEM, AND MY WIFE’S PROBABLY SOME PONY’S FOKTOY, THE BARRACKS BIKE, OR A FOKKIN MEATSHIELD I’LL HAVE TO FILL WITH BULLETS! AND THEN SHE’LL HAVE TO TELL ME I COULD’VE BEEN SO MUCH HAPPIER AS A FOKKIN ZOMBIE, AND CALL ME A BLIKSEM! ”

Caduceus quivered under this tirade, but managed to not cower.

“SO, YOU FOKKIN GLUESTICK, YES! I’M HORRIBLE! BUT I SINCERELY HOPE YOU’RE NOT FOKKIN SAYING I’M BAD AS THEM!” Kraber yelled.

“No,” she replied simply, picking up Sylvia’s rifle. “You’re just living nicely up to the standard Celestia holds the whole of your race in.”

Fuming, he turned away, landing a furious blow on an innocent coffee-dispenser. Something cracked, and the machine began to drip fluid onto the floor...

“You know,” he sighed, “Bout five years ago, Ah’d never dream ay this sortae thing. A good pub-fight, kicking some skinhead’s face in, but never… that.”

There was silence between the two of them.

“Ah cannae gie mercy tae PER. Ah dinnae mean some moral thing, Ah mean Ah actually physically fokking cannae. There’s a human movie, Schindler’s list. Ever watched it?”

“Yes,” Caduceus admitted.

“The moral’s that war reveals the truth in people,” Kraber said. “So… we had war. And it toorns out this is what Ah am. A mass-murderin, terroristic, serial-killin, child-murderin kontgesig thit likes what he does. Sure, Ah’m proud ay some ay the death ah’ve caused, ay killing PER like her. But… turns out, this is who I am. This is what I dae. Twenty-eight fokking years of people calling me a sociopath, even in fokking grade school, of people telling me I had no empathy, of people accusing me of rape that one time.” He paused. “Course, I’m not a rapist - Ah didn’t know she was underage - but it still hurt. Cause I really did love her and our children. I… I wanted to be a doctor, so I could help people. I loved those children, I really did. I thought I was a correct ou, but I… turns out I’m… this. There’s some days when I like the bloodshed, and some days when I hate myself for it. I wish…”

He was silent.

“I wish someone would turn me off and just… fix me.”

“I’m so… Dammit, I don’t know what to say,” Caduceus said.

“Yeah,” Kraber said. “It’s probably fir the best that they all got ponified. I’d be a horrible father and worse husband anyway,” he muttered. “I’m half-tempted to drink that potion over there anyway.”

“But you won’t,” Caduceus said. It wasn’t a question. “I saw the first newfoals, you know,” she said. “Some poor convie named New Bloom…”

“The name sounds familiar,” Kraber said. “Think I heard of that too.”

“New Bloom was nothing like the person that drank it,” Caduceus said. “And neither were my friends. A lot of them went to the PER, and eventually, they took the drink. But now, they’re not my friends.”

“Cause they left for the PER, or they’re newfoals?” Kraber asked.

“Both,” Caduceus said. “I might not like you, but I’ll shoot you if you drink it. Nobody deserves.... that.”

“No,” Kraber said. “I might deserve it…. but I don’t think anybody else does. I’ll go clear out the rest of the PER,” Kraber said. “Make my way tae the roof. You try and evacuate any survivors. Don’t come after me.”

“Alright,” Caduceus said. “You probably won’t come back, you know that?”

“Yeah, I won’t,” Kraber shrugged, hearing somebody come around the corner. “But at the same time… it’s all Ah’m good fir anymore. And when you get down tae it-”

A PER woman saw Kraber, ready to shout a warning, and got a bullet to the face.

“It’s still pretty fokking good to kill off kontgesigs like them.”

“Jesus, Kraber-” Verity starts.

“No, that’s…. that’s.. my cousin over... in Brazil,” Kraber says, stammering a little. “It’s actually pronounced with an H, but.... when we visited, back before the war... heh, we’d always say ‘Hey, soos!’, so we just call him Soos now. Wonder where he is now… and Cousin Isaac...”

“Are.. are you crying?” you ask.

“No, no…” Kraber says, then looks over at all of you. “Yes.”

He looks the same way he did back that one night in August, the one where he’d let you live. He is drained, you realize. There is… There is barely anything left in him. Whatever’s left of him, from before the war, there’s barely anything.

“My God,” Bly says. “I… what were you doing out there in the HLF?”

“You don’t want to fokking know,” Kraber says immediately. His eyes are welling up with tears, even, and this man - this proud, brash, newfoal-and-PER-killing machinegunner - is a shadow of his usual self. “Ever.” And, from somewhere under his pillow, he produces a bottle of bourbon, drinking it down.

And so, looking almost unsure of what to do, a little confused, Aegis rises up, hooves outstretched, and hugs his friend.

Kraber looks at his bottle, then up into the white-furred snout of his friend. “Ah, the fok with it,” he says, and puts it on the table to the side of him. “Vinyl, if anyone comes in, tell em that’s medicinal.”

And, with one of those ever-so-rare smiles on his face, he hugs Aegis back. And even Vinyl joins in, and so does Bly.

“You’re better friends than an old fokking sociopath like me deserves,” Kraber mutters, but he doesn’t believe it. You can tell, and he… he looks almost happy, for once.

“Actually,” says Lunar Phase. “You’re not a sociopath.”

“I’m not?”

“No… Aren’t you a doctor?”

“Not that kinda doctor! Besides, all the psychology I did was bullshitting on the internet,” Kraber admits. “I don’t know shit about it.”

“You’re not antisocial - you’re doing this, after all,” Lunar Phase says. “And you said you wanted to get a stiff drink with me, and a bunch of other ponies - and you feel bad for what you’ve done. I mean, hell, why are you even in this hospital room? Didn’t you care about your children?”

“Because I felt bad for…” Kraber starts, looking over at Verity, and a smile spreads over his face. “Well, fok. How about that.”

“You’re probably a good person, then,” Aegis says. “I mean, think about it. About why you joined the HLF… then the PHL.”

And in response to that, Kraber hugs Aegis even harder.

“Can’t… breathe…” Aegis chokes, half-jokingly.

“This is so damn cheesy,” Verity mutters.

“Yeah, but it’s some of the best news I’ve got in awhile,” Kraber says. “Me. A good person!”

He’s beaming like a child who’s been told he can eat all the cake in a bakery. It’s like a weight’s been taken off of him, and he leans back against a pillow.

“How about that…”

It’s right about then that you and Aegis’ foals dogpile him.

“HUG ATTACK!” Amber Maple screeches.

“No! My only weakness! HUGS!” Kraber yells, struggling not to laugh, and nobody can stop themselves from cracking a smile. “How did you know?!”

“But Aegis was hugging you earlier,” you say, confused.

“Yes, well, my continuity is terrible!” Kraber laughs.

Finally - after what felt like an eternity - Kraber had made it to the roof.

It was strewn with dead PER - dead ponies and humans alike. He stood among the corpses and blood, panting heavily.

“Hello!” someone - or rather, somepony - chirped.

“Another fokkin newfoal,” he said, turning to meet the voice, his MG2019 at the ready. “Well? Do you think you have a fokkin chance against me?!”

The newfoal stood above him, on the lip of the hospital helipad. She was a charcoal grey unicorn mare, her horn upraised like a sword poised to drop. Had amber-red eyes appeared to glow in the dark, and her mane was a shock of bone-yellow-white hair that extended all the way down her back before re-erupting into a frothing tail.

Rather absurdly, she looked to be clad in an old-timey nurse’s outfit with high socks. Both the uniform and the leggings were as shockingly white as her mane, except for the blood-red trim and patterni…

...oh, the red wasn’t part of the design.

“Now, now... don’t you recognize me, Viktor?” she chirped.

“How the fok did you-”

“Oh, it was perfectly obvious,” she said. “I’m rather disappointed in Cady for not noticing. Your Scottish accent is terrible! I’ll ask you again: Do. You. Recognize me?”

“No,” Kraber said. “Far as I’m concerned… you’re just another fokking obstacle.”

“Another pony to kill?” she asked. “To shoot in the knee, kick in the face, break the collarbone, and leave to die, without the mercy of even a wee sip of potion?”

“..Sylvia,” Kraber breathed. “FOK! You just can't kill people like you used to..."

“You missed the vial,” she said sweetly. “It landed on the coffee-machine. You cracked it with your fist, but not enough was leaking… me, the filthy ape me, had to crawl my way over with the arm that worked, and drag the machine off its stand and onto my head…”

She tipped her head back and screamed, a boiling screech like a saw-toothed steam whistle. It was a rusty, tortured sound, that told of scalding water and shattered glass and savage, primal triumph.

“No, no, no...not triumph, Victory…” corrected an unwanted voice, and he saw the damn newfoal that called itself by that name standing beside the raving mare...

“...it burned, broiled me to the bone, so deliciously deep that even Her Mercy couldn’t heal the scars...”

“Look at her, Kraber”, ‘Victory’ giggled. “She’s so much like me… a war-born newfoal, a prototype of the Pretty Privates yet to come… oh, the great Nepenthe would love to have a magnificent mare such as this in her sisterhood…and you too…”

“...look at me, Viktor. I’m so broken that I can’t even connect to my brothers and sisters… cast out on my own, running on Auto-law, my brain too smashed to share in their screams, from all that you did! Behold the face of your daughter-mare!”

“Great. Another love-child. I’ll have to use protection next time...”

The newfoal’s horn flashed, and the still night air whipped up into a breeze that swept back her mane, exposing the fur around her horn…. which was lacerated and slashed, glowing from within with the same crimson light that burned in the pits of her eyes, as if something just under her skin or her horn was trying to make its way out...

“Are you proud of the destruction you’ve wrought?” she said in a voice like rancid honey. “Are you proud of the suffering that you-“

“Actually, YES! I’m apparently so badass that not even the fokking potion can take away the scars I leave!” Kraber laughed. “This is gonna be kwaai…”

The newfoal blinked for a moment, and then leered, more bloody light spilling out from her torn face. Disgusting, and yet, it almost appealing, like a tribal brand...

“Well - that’s disturbing. Now, I’ll give you one chance…” she chirped, “Join me, and you’ll be happy all the time! I’ll have a new playmate too…after I’ve roughed your brain up a...oh wait, no - you scrambled your own basket of eggs long ago. This, Viktor, this is going to be kwaai…”

“Go fok yourself,” Kraber snarled.

“But you’re so sad!” the newfoal protested. “You’re crying all the time, lashing out at everything! If you take the potion, that’ll all just float away! You’ll be superior! You’ll live on forever, with madness myself at your side...”

“First - that’s at the expense of every fokking thing that’s me,” Kraber said. “Second, you’re not superior, you’re a fokking golem someone dredged up from muck of someone’s soul. Thirdly… you’ll never be happy.”

“Don’t be silly, I’m-“

“If you’re happy without sadness to balance it out,” Kraber interrupted, “The happiness just dulls you. You can never truly enjoy anything… cause what the fok’s enjoyment if you enjoy everything? You’ll just be an automaton in a year or three, unable to feel anything, mentally screaming because you can't believe that feeling so dead inside is anything but being happy… even as you shoot little children in the street, turn them into more like you, thinking that the best thing you can do is make more of yourself.”

The newfoal shook slightly.

“Constant happiness like that is a lie,” Kraber finished. “What’s laughter without tears…”

“It. Is. PERFECTION! she hissed, before shuddering with lustful abandon. “Oh, you…. motherbucker…I know my name now… I am Reaper,” she hissed, levitating two of the PER’s combat shotguns away from the scattered corpses. Then, with a telekinetic tug, she bent the bayonets clipped under the barrels into wicked, sickle-shape arcs. “I will harvest new foals from the dirt of humanity, I will-OW!”

Kraber had opened fire with his MG2019.

“You ponies. Talk. TOO. FOKKING. MUCH!”

‘Get out of her way!’ ‘his’ newfoal whispered in Anka’s voice, and Kraber, before the crazed mare fired whatever neurons in her horn controlled her TK, moved.

Her bullets ripped through the air immediately behind him, missing him by the breadth of one of Kagan’s hairs, Kraber panting heavily as he brought the MG2019 to bear again, blasting in her general direction before hurling himself into a roll, avoiding a second medley of buckshot.

Coming up in a crouch he moved to aim, but found himself staring in horror. The mare, ‘Reaper’, had produced two purple flasks.

‘Potion...’

Waving cheerily with one hoof, she teleketically smashed one phial against the bayonets, slathering them in purple slop...

“Oh, fok…”

...the second, she hurled at him. Staggering he tripped onto his back, barely avoiding the lethal projectile, and immediately found the mare advancing on him, swinging her two shotguns like scythes.

“You get hit enough with these, you’re bucked!” the new foal screeched in a lunatic giggle. “Now, sit back and TAKE YOUR MEDICINE!”

Dodge, Vikt-

Kraber forced himself into another roll, and Reaper’s swinging bayonets smashed into the spot where he had been.

Viktor, for his part, had already ducked into cover behind an elevator housing, and found he was not alone...

“Gotcha now,” one surviving, heavily bleeding PER man hissed, holding up a vial to Kraber, trying to unzip his armor, and-

Kraber whipped out a knife and jammed it into the man’s armpit. That was an artery - the man was sure to die soon. The man staggered back, only to get caught in another shotgun blast from Reaper.

“That’s fokking hilarious!” Kraber laughed.

“No, this is!” shrilled Reaper, and before Kraber’s eyes the screaming man began to shrink within his clothes… and his howls of pain became neighs.

Wait, what the fok?!

The newfoal - this fokking abomination - just ponified a man with a shotgun blast. What the…

‘Potion - he had a potion flask in his hand, and the blast not only shattered him - it smashed the flask as well, and doused him in its contents...and you too...’

He looked down and saw the purple fluid smeared all across his armor.

‘Fok, all it would take is one good puncture and...bye-bye bipedalism… and hands… and saturday nights.... and sentience. I guess that’s bad too.’

His mind whirled, even as he continued to backpedal across the roof, keeping up a steady repeating salvo of shotgun shells, which Reaper either swatted from the sky or dodged, forever smiling in her crazed, infuriatingly smug manner.

As he kept the two of them in motion, he calculated: the PHL armor had proven pretty damn durable, and they had more ponypower behind their enchantments than the PER…

But he didn't know if he could take a direct hit.

As he was trying to keep out of Reaper’s range, he tripped over something else: the freshly turned newfoal stallion.

“Oh, she saved meHEEEEHEHEHEE!” the bluish newfoal giggled as he made his way in Kraber’s direction. “I-“

“HOU JOU FOKKIN BEK!” Kraber yelled, and kicked the newfoal in the face. It screamed, not in agony but in rage, as it flew off the roof, tumbling madly to the street below.

Oh, fok.

Ignoring the sound of the screaming newfoal, Kraber switched to his MG2019.

“Reaper reaper that’s the queen calls me,” the unicorn mare sang. “Because they all, DIE! When I sing I ponify! You act as though payback makes you a nobleman is that a fact? Well you’re a goddamn philistine!”

And suddenly, she’d teleported - right in front of Kraber, holding those two shotguns with the curved bayonets.

“Requiem aeternam, bullet right through the sternum
Lullaby to hell, babe
Reaper’s got your name!

“EAT THIS!” Kraber replied MG2019 aimed at her, spraying long bursts into her general direction… come on come on, the MG2019 usually broke shields quicker than this...

She fired point-blank into Kraber’s stomach.

Something above his armor flickered, and Kraber staggered back…. It held.

Thankyou magic-shielded armor.

“Reaper cannot let you in, it’s just not fair
I’m a pure mare-”

“I’M NOT FOKKING YOU, JOU BLIKSEM!” Kraber yelled over, firing his MG2019 in her general direction, idly noting a growing sound like the roar of turbines…

Floodlights swept across the roof, and he realised that what he could hear approaching were helicopters. A quick glance confirmed two of the whirlybirds, both headed inbound towards the hospital.

Excellent, medevacs, he was probably going to be good…

“-colts cannot crack this oyster shell
So go on, whip around that gun
like you're the best, it's just no fun
Another hero? Oh, please!”

In retrospect, Kraber really should have known better.

Especially when the two choppers - Russian Hinds - opened fire on him, and pegasi with potion bandoliers swarmed out of the side-hatches, along with human PER hanging on the end of zip-lines.

“OH, COME ON!” Kraber yelled, rushing out of the way, panting, just barely dodging two more shotgun blasts from Reaper.

“Reaper cannot let you in, it’s just not fair-

For once, Kraber agreed. This was getting to be a horrible, horrible day.

I’m a pure mare
colts cannot crack this oyster shell
So go on, whip around that gun
like you're the best, it's just no fun
Another hero? Oh, please!”

Please let my shield tank this… Kraber prayed, firing into Reaper’s shield as a burst of shotgun shells raced in his general direction.

IT HELD! He pulled the pin on another PHL grenade and tossed at the mare. Then, he swung around the other side of his cover, hoping to catch her from behind once the blast disrupted her shield...

“Requiem aeternam
Reaper has come, sinner!”

CRACK!

“Yes!” he roared, seeing her horn smoulder in the wake of the pink, magical flash. The MG in his hands roared fire, and by the time she had gotten her shield back in place, he’d landed at least a couple of rounds in her flank.

And yet she still kept on coming. FOK! Why was she so fokking durable?!

“Thigh-high socks are my absolute territory
Go on and drool -
the otaku cannot resist
You think the fire in your eyes
makes you a tiger in disguise?
Dream on, you goddamn pussy!!”

The helicopters were overhead now, unable to fire, but dropping their human cargo onto the roof. The men and women falling from the sky were lightly armored, wearing what looked like metal breastplates under their clothes, glowing purple….

“KILL HIM!” one pegasus shrieked, pointing in the general direction of Kraber. “KILL THE BASTARD THAT WITHHOLDS CELESTIA’S LIGHT!”

Requiem aeternam
Reaper has come, sinner!

“I’D LIKE TO SEE YA FOKKIN TRY!” Kraber yelled, opening fire with the MG2019 at the pegasi plunging onto him, clipping their wings and turning dives into death-spins.

The sound of them smashing into glass and concrete was musical…but he couldn’t afford flashy kills. Couldn’t afford to make them suffer. He had to remember what Caduceus told him...

Wait! Those helicopters up there were Hinds, Mi-24s… renowned as flying tanks, but what was that line from ‘Snow Crash’?

‘Fucking Soviet piece of shit, they made that windshield out of...’

“It’s just one human!” somebody yelled, opening fire from the door gun. “PONIFY HIM! OR KILL HIM, I DON’T CARE!”

The chopper’s gatling ripped through the area immediately behind him, a bullet smashing against his shield, but it held - thank god, it held, and…

FOK! A bullet rammed into his stomach, the shield and PHL armor dampening most of the force… but not all of it…

...the surplus Newtons were enough to throw him back into a solid wall. Again, his shield flashed, and he bounced away from the impact, sprawling onto the rooftop.

“Is tha - ISTHAT ALL YOU HAVE, KONTGESIGS?!” he yelled, slipping behind cover desperately trying to ignore the (fokfokfokfokfok it HURT) pain.

“Thigh-high socks are my absolute territory
Go on and drool -
the otaku cannot resist
You think the fire in your eyes
makes you a tiger in disguise?
Dream on, you goddamn pussy!”

He’d been shot before, yes… but never with something so fokking big! Damn, if he ever joined the PHL, he wanted a better shield over his armor.

He tried to breathe in, breathe out. His hands probed his abdomen, finding no entry-wound, no point of contamination for the potion, but he could still feel a stick witness inside the armor, against his skin…and blinding pain when he tried to breathe.

A rib, he realised… the force had been enough to compound fracture one of his ribs...and now he was bleeding out inside his own armor.

Okay… no fokking regenerating health. Had to… Had to kill them before he… died of blood loss… FOKKING OW! What had he been hit with, a fokking antivehicle round?!

“Turns out, it was an antivehicle round,” Kraber says, still wincing a little. “It was a civilian Hind, and they’d managed to find a homebrewed HMG… stung like a bakvissie with teeth in her beef portal…”

Everyone winces, and you’re not sure whether it’s from Kraber’s description or imagining the sensation of getting hit with one.

“Can your armor seriously tank antivehicle rounds?!” Verity yells. “I’m calling bullshit.”

“Nah,” Vinyl says. “You can survive getting hit with one if the shield’s down… assuming it’s not in the heart or something. The shields can tank it, but not many. There was just enough of the shield left that it blunted the force. It would have gone through his armor with no trouble, though.”

“That, that sounds painful…” Scootaloo says.

“It could have been worse. The later marks had a twin autocannon in place of the Gatling, and that was chambered for 30mm sounds nearly seven inches long...getting hit by one of those would have meant...

Kraber pate, served al-dente. Definitely not Kosher.

Damn, he really had broken a rib. He could feel the damn think rasping against the inside of his damn chest...another hit like that might break it the other way and puncture a lung…

‘Getting potioned almost sounds better than drowning in my own fokking blood. Almost...’

Reaper reaper that’s the queen calls me!
Because they all, DIE!
When I sing I ponify!
You act as though payback makes you a nobleman
is that a fact?
Well you’re a goddamn philistine!”

Adjusting the grenade launcher sight he’d added onto his scavenged pipebomb launcher, he ducked behind one of the numerous buildings on Maine Medical’s roof, ran onto a recent (well, recently when the war started) upward expansion, sighted his target and fired.

The pipebomb, propelled by nothing more than a highly compressed spring, flew upwards along the flat trajectory he’d hoped for, reaching the apex of its arc just as it impacted…

...face-first into the windshield of the nearest hovering chopper.

The rest was physics. The pipe-bomb’s detonator initiated, and the force of impact plus the tiny jet of superheated plasma on the tip of the blast was enough to shatter the ill-maintained glass, filling the cockpit with scintillating crystalline shards and good-ol-fashioned (just like Ma’ used to make back on the farm) shrapnel.

The explosion itself was comparatively small. The result were not. For a moment, just a moment, Kraber saw a severed arm, and a pegasus wing, fly out of the wreckage, chopped apart by the helicopter rotor. Then, unguided, with all controls shot, the chopper slewed sideways onto its beams and fell out of the sky, dropping into the street. As it sank in flames past the roof, the tail-rotor struck the tip of the building, and flew off its mount. Trailing sparks, it spun across the roof like a demented firework, bisecting an unfortunate PER man on its merry way. The upper half of the unlucky bastard’s torso, diagonally cut through, jumped up about two feet in the air, blood spraying out both halves of his body…

All this chaos and viscera left only one small problem. There was still one helicopter, and Kraber found himself now fresh out of pipe-bombs..

Please God, if you’re listening, make this shield work, he prayed, and poked his way out of cover, sending a wild burst up in the direction of the second Hind, ducking back as something hit him in the shoulder, leaving a splatter of something purple.

FOK! More ponification potion! Was that… Were they using ponification pellets in paintball guns?! There was a sick logic to it all - even if he won the fight he still stood a chance of getting the stuff on himself changing out of his armor. It would be a pyrrhic victory, but still another newfoal to the cause…

‘Is that how I’ll be born?’ giggled Victory. ‘Oh please yes, please fall over and be reborn just when you think you’ve won!’

Another rifle round, this one a bog-standard .223, punched against the PHL armor… then another one, a heavy .308 from one of the battle rifles that most militaries had gone crazy for in the earlier days of the War. Okay… Another round, this one in his shoulder…

His shield flashed again and again, so that instead of ripping through bone and tendon, the impacts felt only like being hit with a mallet. Already clutching at his burning chest, Kraber struggled to ignore the fresh pain, instead gritting his teeth and reloading. He tossed out another grenade stolen from the PHL, this one a flashbang. Good for riot control. He threw it out in what he assumed was the general direction of the PER varknaaiers standing on the roof, shielded his eyes from the blast, and then rushed out through the disorientated mess, MG2019 aimed up at the helicopter. His lungs hoarse and his every breath full of broken bits of glass he fired up at the Hind, emptying every round in the mag into the chopper.

But, as he fired that last manic spray, roaring in defiance and agony, another round smashed into his thigh, whipping that leg out from under him.

“Go for the opening!” screamed a pegasus, who rushed rushed towards him, a knife in his mouth.

Kraber swung the now-useless rifle like a club and knocked the newfoal off his feet, before grounding him permanently with a .50 dose of lead to the face.

Ah fok fok fok fok it hurt, and he could feel his blood dripping down through into the legs of the armor - heh, no way this was going to be an open-casket funeral, not looking the way he did right now-

- NO. No fokking time for that! The second helicopter was still overhead, trying to swing around and paint him with its own MG... he couldn’t take any more rounds. No matter how many the PHL armor could take, there wouldn’t be many before it punched all the way through him.

He felt for his armor’s chest, and found two more grenades, one of them a flashbang, the other with Japanese characters on it. He vaguely remembered them, though he had no idea what they meant…. Fujin? The purplish-pink stripe on the rim told him it was another anti-magic weapon, but it still had an explosive charge like any other frag-grenade…

He weighed it in his hand, and tried to remember an old episode of Mythbusters: shooting live grenades out of the air…

What he’d taken away from that episode (incidentally: myth confirmed, kinda), was that a sufficient blow might be enough to trigger a grenade’s explosion. Like say a sniper round… or a rotor spinning at over 300rpm.

Well, here went nothing.

“HOLD THIS!” he yelled, and tossed it up in the general direction of the helicopter.

He would have liked to have seen what followed next in slow-motion, seen which rotor-blade struck the grenade, and flicked it away with enough force to trigger the reaction.

‘Huh… Adam, Jamie - did you know that if you strike magical crystals really, really hard, they kinda… implode...’

The grenade had not exploded, per se. A giant purple-pink-black sphere had formed in midair, right where the helicopter’s midsection fuselage had been, sucking up everything and everypony save for Reaper, who stayed stubbornly attached to the ground, her hooves looking almost rooted to the concrete. Kraber, for his part, was apparently heavy enough to remain ‘on deck’, weighted down by the sheer mass of his gear, holding onto a railing...

The PER grunts however, in their lightweight armor, followed their pony compatriots and were drawn, screaming, up towards the pocket-singularity. A few overshot it and flew into the helicopter’s whirling rotor, twirling around the singularity in an unstable arc, which had sheared off its driveshaft and was now suspended above the vortex, held in place between its own lift and the suction of the void. The sky filled with a matrix of blood as it sliced and diced anyone unfortunate enough to strike it, limbs and droplets swirling back into the singularity in what looked almost like small rivers.

The bisected halves of the helicopter spiraled around the sphere as if rooted to the ball of energy, the tail end slicing through the hospital roof and another newfoal.

“Kwaai…” Kraber whispered.

And then, as if unable to sustain itself, the glowing singularity wound down, and like a sun going supernova, violently rejected everything it had swallowed. Comets of ultra-compacted metal spewed out and embedded themselves in surrounding buildings, while a noxious cocktail of blood, oil, aviation fuel and coolant gushed out as if from a cracked egg, baptising Kraber and washing away the potion on his armor.

What remained the helicopter’s nose crashed into the roof, bounced, and dropped to the street below. The tail section, still airborne thanks to the spinning tail rotor, tumbled away, cutting through a pegasus, and tried to mate with a nearby house.

Fragments of Hind and hide rained down from the sky. A forearm with a wristwatch still attached landed on Kraber’s chest, and he hugged it in silent shock as if it were one of the stuffed animals in his pack.

The few PER who had fallen back to safety before being consumed got shakily to their feet, laughed weakly…

...right as the helicopter’s main rotor, still intact and spinning, dropped down out of the sky like a razor-edged flower head caught on the breeze…

Blood, metal, and shrapnel flew everywhere, pollinating the roof. Kraber, still lying prostrate on his back, saw blades spinning inches from his face, before the bloodstained rotor came to a creaking halt.

“And that,” Kraber says to all of you, “Was the nastiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Which, you realize, is saying a lot.

Actually, it’ll be the second, but that’s not important.

“Life’s good to me sometimes,” he whispered, and weakly climbed to his feet. “Oh, you have got to be tuning me kak…”

Reaper, a little worse for wear, stood not thirty feet from him, smilingly splashing one hoof in a puddle of...something. Fragments of superheated metal lay around her, from where the rotor had evidently struck her magical shield, and come off the worst for it…

“Want some?” she asked, holding up a hoof. “It’s the kind of stuff you like…”

Kraber caught the reek of petrochemical loveliness, and staggered backwards out of the pool of blood and fuel.

“...the kind that BURNS!”

She kicked a small wave of the stuff onto the fizzing metal, and with a sound like a elephant splatting against concrete from thirty-thousand feet, the…

“...the entire fokking roof was on fire!”

Yup. Destroying the helicopter had neatly doused most of the surrounding rooftop with quality avgas, and the damn newfoal had just set it on fire.

She didn’t seem to care, strolling through the flames with her shield up, the rising air wafting her mane almost angelically around her face. The orange-blue flames were actually a very complimentary colour to her searing red eyes and the seething ruptures in her face.

And she was still humming that insufferable tune.

Wheezing, exhausted beyond belief, Kraber reloaded the MG2019, and squeezed down the trigger.

“...stop the fokking song!” he rasped, unable to get his voice above a pained whisper.

But Sylvia, or Reaper, did not listen, continuing the inane, prattling lyrics, closing the space between him even as his bullets dimmed her shield with each fresh blast.

“Requiem aeternam
Bullet right through the sternum
Lullaby to hell, babe
Reaper's got your name!”

”COME AT ME, YOU NZAMBI KONTGESIG!” Kraber wanted to roar, wishing to lose himself in sound and fury. But it wouldn’t come, his burning chest wouldn’t obey, leaving him trapped in the silence of his rage and the crackle of the flames...

Driving him back towards the edge of the roof, she whipped one shotgun up, the bayonet slicing through his armor - Wait, fok, wasn’t there supposed to be a shield?! - and cutting a run through it…

It wedged, jamming between two plates.

“Well, that’s annoying…” she shrugged, and fired.

The pellets smashed against his stomach.

Reaper looked up to him, annoyed, and levitated a huge rifle at him. It looked like a sniper rifle.

At point-blank range, the muzzle was inside what remained of his shield, and the bullet tore straight through his abdomen - damn that hurt.

Even as she kept on singing the song, Kraber could see her aiming the shotguns into the hole.

So Kraber did the only thing he could. He reached forward, grabbed hold of Reaper’s horn, and let his weight fall forward, twisting as he did to force her under him, grappling hand-to-hoof on the roof as the pool of flame expanded and swallowed them.

Kraber was wounded, but the armour was evidently fireproof. Reaper did not have to deal with injury and blood-loss, but was unable to shield herself when pushed face-first into burning liquid.

But she didn’t scream, even as Kraber felt her body spasm and smelled her flesh burn. Instead, she bucked him with her hind-legs and reversed their positions, so that she was now on top of him.

At least she’d finally stopped singing, though.

“Hi there…” she squealed, mashing her scorched face into Kraber’s and planting her hooves on his chest… “I’m Reaper, the Pret…”

“I’ve fokkin’ heard that already,” Kraber wheezed, and headbutted her, wishing that he’d kept the spiked HLF helmet. She staggered back, whatever spell she’d been about to try disrupted, and Kraber took the opportunity to knee her in the stomach. With her thrown off, he rushed up to her, kicked her face, and pressed the revolver’s muzzle into the soft pocket of tissue between her neck and barrel.

“In the godswood, the First Men come to pray!” she tittered. “Pray before the smiling face of the heart tree!”

Something CRACKED in his chest, and his own blood filled his words. The revolver’s cylinder snapped open, more blood pouring from the open breach, and smiling back at her, he twisted the speedloader into place, closed the cylinder, and summoned all his strength to pull back the trigger.

“Jou like that… jou fokking kontgesig…” he spluttered.

Her grin grew even wider, even lying there impaled on the revolver.

“This won’t end it…”

“Yes it will…”

He fired, again and again and again, his prone posture bracing him as all six rounds punched her barrel apart, blood dripping in great gouts from her wounds, splattering against him.

She looked to be regenerating, even as Kraber’s bullets ripped through her, but finally, the last round seemed to silence her song, and he laughed in triumph.

She went limp, and Kraber pushed himself up, dropping her to the side - then, with an afterthought, lifting her up and throwing her into the flames.

“Fokking kontgesig...pony kontgesig...!” he wheezed, turned away and clutching at his side.

And then he heard a whisper.

“Reaper, reaper-”

Oh, fok.

A shotgun shell rammed into his arm, forcing it back, only for a hoof to smash into his left shoulder.

“YOU THINK A KNIGHT OF HER SUN IS SO EASILY EXTINGUISHED!” the mare screamed, throwing herself onto his back. “THAT HER FIRE IS SO SIMPLE TO PUT OUT!”

He spun, stumbling, and jabbed back with his elbow, knocking her free.

“FOK!” he hissed, clutching his arm - the poesgesig had broken his collarbone! - and grabbed back at the revolver, slinging the MG2019 on its strap over his shoulder. Okay, okay…. FOK! Down to just one-handed guns… against a psycho super newfoal.

Yeah, he was fokked.

He kicked Reaper in the face yet again, and rolled to the side, wincing as he landed on his bad arm, brought up his .45, and fired off more useless rounds.

Yeah, useless. The .45 ACP rounds didn’t do shit.

Thankfully, the semi-automatic pistol had been optimized for a truly one-handed reload, and he remembered this as he placed it in his left hand, trigger finger closed over the trigger guard, which pulled back the slide as he inserted a new mag.

“RISE!” Reaper cried, standing within the flames, and as she screamed, the flames turned black as night, and the pink-purple of sunset…

“Fokking metal…” Kraber winced, before he heard a shuffling sound that froze his blood. “Oh you’re tuning me kak…”

The corpses, any corpse by the black flames, were standing up. Like puppets on strings humans, newfoals and ponies all shambled to their feet and hooves, flickers of onyx light crackling on their limbs, in their eyes, on the shrapnel and glass that pierced their flesh.

Even worse, the few dying men and women on the roof, those scant survivors that were little more than brains, spinal cords, and failing organs were ponifying as Reaper cut them with her scythe-like bayonets...

“I AM THE REAPER!” she screamed in ecstasy. “LIFE AND DEATH BOW AT MY WHIM!”

She was a freak… a walking nightmare. A prototype of something to come...

‘I have to kill this thing before it get standard-issue somehow,’ Kraber thought. ‘Can’t mass-produce something if the test-type doesn’t come back to debrief...’

But killing this kontgesig was sure gonna suck. Kraber fired his .45 once more, aiming for the skulls of the newfoals. First he had to reduce these inhuman shields.

“Come on, come on….” Kraber whispered, fanning the trigger, desperately wishing he’d sprung for that laser sight. “COME ON, COME ON! THIS ALL JOU HAVE?!” Kraber yelled. “I’VE PICKED THINGS OUT OF MY ASS-CRACK THAT WERE MORE THREATENING THAN JOU PIELKOPS!”

BANG - another newfoal’s head exploded. Okay, okay…. He thought he hit nine?!

He ducked back behind an AC unit on the roof, wincing as his arm flopped uselessly against his torso. Fok, but it hurt!

The that last flashbang grenade was hurled in the general direction of all the newfoals, and he seized the momentary chance, stumbling and limping for the stairs down into the hospital....

“He’s getting away!” Kraber heard one newfoal scream, and his eyes flicked up to see a stallion, pointing.

“This way, he’s here!” the creature cried again, in Reaper’s voice. “Come on, Bliss, or Kraber, whatever your name is! I heard you talking to Cady!”

Shuddering with revulsion he pushed through the door, and rushed (as best he could) down the stairs, reloading the .45 as he went, before shouldering open a door and switching back to his revolver.

“You wanted to die, didn’t you? Come on… we have something better!”

He stumbled down the stairs. Heh… maybe. Maybe he did want to. But no matter what… no fokking matter what…

He had to be brave. Had. To keep! Fokking! Moving!

The hospital was eerily silent as he seized hold of an abandoned gurney and pushed it ahead of him, using it to bear some of his weight. Except for the squeak of the wheels and the rasp of his breaths, there wasn’t a sound to be heard… save for something groaning, practically screaming in agony.

Probably one of the pegasi he’d shot down.

Fokfokfok it hurt

Another staircase forced him to abandon the gurney, but he hoped to find a wheelchair or something to replace it.

But no, there was nothing to hand. Instead, bracing himself against the wall he pressed on, ignoring the minor, distant sensations in his leg, his chest, and collarbone. He was fokked… had to get away, had to get away...

He kept moving. Somehow, he felt like he should stop, but that’d make him a fokking moegoe.

He could, stop, and just give up... everything. Be with his family once more - but he'd never be Viktor Marius Kraber again.

"Would that be so bad?" Victory asked. "You'd be happy! Vicky's a sad, crying man with nothing to live for!"

At what fokking cost? His eyes darted from door to door as he skulked through the hospital's hallways, avoiding shadows and desperately wishing he had a silencer for his .45. If he drank of that stuff they called Mercy… would he know what he once was? Would he remember himself, would he truly be happy with his family, or would he-

“Come on, you deserve the potion! A fresh start equals-”

“Maybe I do,” Kraber said, cutting Victory off. “But other people - other people in this hospital - fokking well don’t.”

He didn't fokking well want to know anyway.

So, he limped forward, gasping and wheezing, desperately trying not to think of where the blood everywhere had come from. In this hallway, the lights were flickering, there were IVs strewn everywhere, and-

Oh, fok.

ANKA!

It was her body, in front of him, a .500 Magnum-sized hole in her skull.

And standing over her, he could see himself. Wearing his HLF armor, now rusty and pitted, covered in… oh God, oh fok, bones. There was an equine skull on one shoulder, a human one on the other...

And then he winked at Kraber, held up a glass in toast, and drank deep of it. Purple liquid dribbled over his chin, and he smacked his lips.

“Tastes like...freedom…”

If I get out of this, Kraber told himself, I am going to get so fokking high. Or gesuip. I’m going to find the vilest, nastiest, liver-punching rotgut I can find, and drink the whole bottle with time for seconds.

All of a sudden, the vision of himself, mouth wet with potion shuddered, and appeared to shrink inside his armor, limbs shortening, sleeves flailing, like there was nothing inside...

Oh God no.

Kraber whispered the shema, knowing what was going to happen next. It didn’t disappoint - within seconds, like a butterfly from a cocoon, Victory the Pretty Private had crawled out.

“Hey, Vicky,” she said, smiling up at him, “Look behind you.”

He ignored her.

“I said… Look behind you.”

“You’re not fokking real…” Kraber hissed. “I’m bosbefok. I’m crazy, and by God, I’m getting out of here and saving everyone from those fokking PER without you fokking me over.”

“Oh, such a disappointment,” Victory said. “I just wanted to warn you about the terrible, horrible pony behind you…”

“Don’t listen to her!” Kate yelled. “She just wants you to get ponified! She’s not even real!”

“Oh, but I am, unlike you,” Victory purred. “I’m as real as his nightmares. As real as his fears, as real as he makes me out to-”

“SHUT THE FOK UP, BOTH OF YOU!” Kraber roared, and fired the revolver, leaving a massive bloody stump where Victory’s head had been, blue smoke wafting up from it. “YOU DON’T CONTROL ME! EK BEHEER ME!”

Victory collapsed, blood spraying out from her neck-stump against the wall.

None of this makes any sense! Kraber screamed internally. She’s not real! Why the fok did I just shoot her?! How the fok could I shoot her. What the fok’s going on?!

“Honestly, I’m as confused as you,” said Anka, lying on the floor, blood oozing forth from that hole in her skull, welling up in the puddle behind her brain. “Partly because I am you, but, well, semantics.”

“Oh, Celestia, that hurt!” somebody else yelled. “The bucking ape shot me!”

The lights flickered on, and Kraber could see another pony there, this one a red pegasus. He’d punched through both of her wings, grounding her. Kwaai!

“Wha… I didn’t… Where’d all this blood come from?!” the pegasus screamed, staring up at Kraber. “I… whose blood is that?!” she pointed in the direction of where Anka and Victory had been, only for Kraber to realize that their corpses weren’t there.

And yet the blood remained. Kraber could even see strange hoofprints and even an imprint in there, with no trail.... as if a strange pony had just been standing in the blood and fallen over, their body disappearing...

He abruptly decided it was better not to question that, and shot the pegasus in the head, splattering her brains against the wall. More blood…

“Blood for the blood god, skulls for his throne…” cried a voice from off in the dark.

“Victory?” He spun and fired blindly into the dark. “Anka?”

There was a wet thudding sound, and someone screaming “MY SPLEEN!” He’d certainly hit something...

“He’s over here!” another voice screamed, and Kraber limped away, desperately hoping that the newfoals wouldn’t find him. Neither the real ones, or the ones that stalked his thoughts...

The stairs. Had to get to the stairs! Fok! If only he had some claymore mines, something! Anything! FOK!

Shema yisrael Adonai eloheinu, adonai echad

Ah, fokking hell, his leg hurt as he descended. It was all he could do not to scream, hissing out between his teeth, spittle moistening against his gas-mask.

He had to ignore it. Pain was just chemicals, like any other drug.

‘Just a dull buzz’, he just barely failed to convince himself.

He just… of course he walked this way. That was only natural. There was no pain, he just needed to get out…

He looked up. This was where Sylvia had died. If only he could find her gun, the one Caduceus had taken, the one with the....

The shield-disruptor grenades. He smiled, and found the treacherous nurse’s clothes, torn through. He desperately tried not to look at the bloodstains near the coffee machine, and the skin that looked stuck to the floor, melted on, even. It was caught between equine and human, with tan fur growing out and random points in the viscera.

Oh, God.

That was an eye on the floor. Somewhere between Equestrian and human, not quite the glassy unnatural amber-red of the pony, not quite the brownish eye he remembered Sylvia having. It resembled a double-yolked egg, two irises bulging from a single orb.

He stepped on it, crushing human and pony alike… no, no - crushing the monsters in between, neither one nor the other… newfoals squashed beneath his boots.

“I’m insane… crazy… bosbefok...”

He slung the rifle over his shoulder, and reached into her backpack. He pulled out a wallet stuffed with photos where once there had been money and credit cards. He snatched one out at random - Sylvia standing between two other women (one smiling sadly, the other laughing, with a grin aimed at the sad one. He knew that one - the smile of somebody telling you to lighten up and enjoy yourself), while in the background several ponies played blackjack. A mare, her mane a vibrant purple, was holding onto the laughing human women, pegasus wings hugging on tight. Caduceus was there too, photo-bombing the picture, an empty shotglass hanging on her horn...

‘Mercy and Jackie, Cady and Sylvie. And Rio - poor Rio. Vegas. August, 2018. Friends forever...’ said a scribble on the back. He turned it over again, peering back into the past, gazing back before the war. Humans and ponies enjoying each other’s company, smiling and laughing…

You kontgesig, he told himself. He snarled and grabbed the picture, wanting to rip it… but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, to shred a preserved scrap of innocence. There was precious little of it left, nowadays...

Instead he stuffed it back into the wallet, beside the other treasured photos, zipped that into an empty pouch on his armor, and continued to loot through the tattered remnants of a life. A few rations, some medical supplies… spare magazines for that 10mm, which he stuffed into his own backpack. And even a belt with more disruptor grenades…

The disconnect between those artifacts of the world before the war and the weaponry in there was almost heartbreaking. He’d known people like Sylvia at college back in Boston - not that he personally knew her, that would have been silly - and he’d seen them get broken. All of them, in that picture… he doubted they’d ever expected war. To have to hold a gun. He fokking well hadn’t.

There were pairs of socks and clean underwear, a sheaf of Imperial tracts. Risky - possessing these in some places counted as probable cause for getting shot. Comics, even. There were also books that looked to have been made in other countries, and he stuffed those in his backpack as well. Artifacts of Barrier-Eaten countries sold like hotcakes in various markets.

He’d have a decent sum of money after all this…

If he lived through this day at all. Slinging a belt of grenades over his torso, he limped forward. Why the fok was he limping, anyway? He just had to… keep… going. It was only his fokking sanity and free will at stake, anyway.

Another set of stairs. He could hear voices.

“Oh, thank God you got to us,” somebody said. They sounded wheezy, as if they were having trouble breathing.

Okay, okay, good. He just had to keep moving. Newfoals didn’t call upon the name of “God”, little-g or big-G. It had to be humans, then. Survivors that she’d found somewhere.

“How’d you kill all the newfoals, anyway?” asked the new voice.

“There was a man,” came the reply. “Ex-HLF, or ex-sanity, or something... Luna-damned sadist, he was.”

Yeah, well fok you too. Still, it was hard to argue…

“...but still, he just seemed so broken.”

Kraber stumbled down the stairs, falling against a wall…. right against his bad shoulder.

“FOK!” he hissed.

“What the hell was that?!” he heard a human woman yell.

“Don’t make so much noise!” someone said. “They’ll find us!”

“Oh, don’t worry, they’re already coming!” Caduceus yelled. “Fire on my mark!”

Kraber struggled for the stairs, stumbling. He just had to get to them, to safety. To strength in numbers. To people that could cover for him, unless…

A thought struck him. Unicorn medics were usually able to heal newfoals in battle, so… could he? Wait. Nah, fok that. Magic gave you cancer, filled you with tumors. Everyone knew that.

...it had also shielded him, and when packaged into hand-held form had already saved his life twice tonight...

Did it even matter? Would he really have a chance, even if he found safety in numbers? Functionally speaking, he was a fokking cripple. Most of his arm didn’t work, and he’d probably permanently damaged his bad leg.

He heard a thumping, cracking sound in his left leg. He had to keep going, though! HAD! TO KEEP! FOKKING MOVING!

YOU ARE NOT FOKKING FINISHED, VIKTOR! YOU’RE NOT GIVING UP NOW, JOU FOKKIN MOEGOE! He remembered the instructions in the Bundeswehr, from ages back. The ex-military drill-sergeant that had trained him in the HLF when he finally found a proper unit.

Not… fokking… finished…

His breathing was ragged.

He knocked on the door below him.

“Hey! Fok! It’s me!” he hissed.

“Is it… is it a newfoal?”

“No, you idiot! Newfoals don’t use human swearwords!”

“That makes no sense at all. Doesn’t their culture not have those words?”

“Actually-” Caduceus started. “Whoever you are, open the door!”

Kraber opened it, and collapsed on the floor, gasping. Two ponies loomed over him, a familiar mare and an unknown stallion.

“Oh sweet Luna, you! Why’d it have to be you?!” Caduceus groaned.

“You know him?” one stallion asked.

“Will-o-Wisp, this is the human that cleared away all the newfoals,” Caduceus said.

“Really?” the stallion asked. “Thanks!”

“No. Just… just don’t. Why are you here, though?” Caduceus asked. “I thought you were dead! Or… or worse.”

“Yeah, I’ve always been kak at trying to kill myself,” Kraber said. “I, ah… Anyone have some morphine?”

“What?” Caduceus asked.

“I can barely, fokking breathe,” Kraber said, trying to lift himself up on his right arm, and slipping, falling back.. on the hip with the huge bullet in it. “FOK! They bliksemed me good - broken rib, smashed my collarbone...”

Caduceus looked down at him, concerned. “What… what did you get yourself into?”

“Eh, you know, got shot… twice, had a pony break my arm, got in a fight with a…”

He paused and looked her in the eye…

“Sylvia,” he said, with no small effort. “I fought Sylvia. She took her potion, and now she’s some kind of psycho-super-newfoal. She calls herself Reaper now, and she fokkin raised the dead...”

Her eyes widened, and he struggled to visualise the mare who had gone running around a Vegas casino wearing a shotglass for a hat. But no, he couldn’t see her.

“Can, can you, ah…” he coughed, blood dripping out his mouth. “I need you to cast a healing spell on me!”

“That could kill you!”

“I’m sure that’ll be a big fokkin’ concern to me when I’m getting ponified,” Kraber said. “Except Reaper’s coming with her damn zombie bliksems, my collarbone’s broken so I can’t use the two fokking weapons that would be any use against her, I’m limping, and I’m probably gonna die of blood loss or a hemorrhage.”

“But.. you saw what magic…” Caduceus started.

“Don’t worry,” he said, utterly resigned to his fate. “There’s nobody that’d miss me if I die from cancer, and my parents would probably actively fokking celebrate their racist kontgesig shitstain of a son dying. I’ve nothing to lose if you just fix my body. Especially because I probably gave myself permanent damage on the way here.”

“I’ll try, then,” Caduceus said, shaking. “Just… I hope you know what I-”

“Fokking do it!” Kraber yelled. “I’ve got a smashed rib thanks to taking a fokking antivehicle round in the waist, my collarbone broke, and there’s something wrong with my fokking knee. A lot of people are dead if I keep going like this!”

“They’re over here!” one newfoal screamed.

“If it makes you feel better, nobody will miss me,” Kraber said. “Also, can… is there a way tae decontaminate this armor? I don’t want to take part of it off and then find there’s still potion in the weave...”

“Alright,” Caduceus said, her horn glowing.

Kraber braced himself, feeling a strangely calming warmth as Caduceus’ burgundy-colored magic washed over him. It tickled, her aura, and rose goosebumps all down his back and legs, as if he was sitting, comfortable cool and damp beside a running bath or swimming pool.

But pain came soon enough, a strange sense of coldness in his arm, in everywhere that had been hurting, like he had plunged scalded flesh into ice water…

I can’t scream, Kraber reminded himself. No matter what…

His left arm shook, and it was like being stabbed in the hip again… it popped and crackled, shaking, and every muscle in his left arm, every muscle was burning. It was like being flayed with a white-hot knife, like he’d done to one PHL pony back in Africa, but he couldn’t scream-

“...You exposed yourself to that much magic?” Verity asks. “You’re crazier than I thought.”

But you, Dancing Day, can tell she’s admiring that level of bravery, and consider it a small victory for Kraber to have won even that small a concession.

“Damn that’s gotta hurt,” Aegis says. “I once had to get my leg speed-healed in the field… hurt a lot, but it worked.”

“Did the pain come from the magic hurting you?” Bly asks.

“Well, yes and no,” Kraber says. “Sure as fok wasn’t giving me cancer - I checked with the PHL. It’s just that healing is meant to happen over time, at the body’s natural pace, and artificially accelerating that process really fokking hurts.”

“You’re sure?” Bly asks.

“My broken collarbone, and a damn rib, were both healed in a couple seconds! Reset and respliced, nerves threaded together, splinters and marrow stuffed back where they had come. Of course that’s going to hurt. It was the second or third worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life.”

“Second?” you asks.

“...You really, really don’t want to know,” Aegis says.

“Interesting…” Bly says, writing something down on a notepad. “You’re a tough bastard, aren’t you…”

“Mr. Bly? What’re you doing?” you ask.

“Just taking note of his story. We’ve been writing out the reactions of PHL personnel to magic to see if some of R&D’s concepts-”

He shivers a little. Which is understandable, as PHL R&D - which routinely employs Mr. Kraber and Mr. Aegis for weapons testing - is insane. Effective and smart, but insane.

“-are feasible without liquefying people.”

“How’s it going, anyway?” Aegis asks. “I been wanting a new big gun that won’t hurt my friends… Maybe a Resistance P225. The ones that Boundless Creation works on.”

“I remember using a Boundless Creation minigun…” Kraber says, smiling. “That was awesome.”

“You’re not gonna tell us?” Scootaloo asks.

“Eh, uncle Viktor and and daddy will mention it later,” Rivet shrugs.

“Well, here’s the thing. They actually seem healthier,” Bly explains.

“Does this mean I can finally get that bass cannon brigade I wanted?!” Vinyl gasps.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAARGK!” Kraber bellowed as he came roaring out of the shadows, catching a cluster of undead newfoals by surprise.

They responded with potion flasks, which shattered against his shield, their contents burning off in a cloud of purple steam, as ineffectual as ice against the sun.

“Gentlestallions?” Kraber asked. “You’re just in time to watch me… practice medicine. COME AT ME, JOU KONT SE KIND!”

He roared again, firing the revolver into a newfoal unicorn’s horn. A lump of alicornal tissue and bone flew into the air, leaving a few rainbow-colored strands of something poking out from the middle of the unicorn’s forehead, and obliterating everything above it, leaving a messy stew of blood and brains splattering the walls.

“THIS WHAT JOU HAVE, BOYKIES?! REMEMBER THIS, KONTGESIGS!”

His next shot went straight through a pegasus mare’s potion bandolier, shattering the glass and punching a massive hole through her abdomen… only for the newfoal to refuse to die. Instead, the shrieking revenant flew at Kraber, only for him to reverse his grip and pistol whip her with the revolver’s heavy rubber grip.

There was an audible crack.

“THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE WITHOUT THE FOKKING BARRIER!” Kraber laughed, and kicked the newfoal in the face, brains and blood spattering over his boots. “WHY THE FOK WERE WE EVER AFRAID OF YOU!?”

“Because we’ll win…” they all replied in unison, eyes glowing and voices in resonance. “It is commanded that we win…”

He fired again, ripping through the nose of an earth pony that looked to be carrying a mouthful of potion in his cheeks in place of a flask, sending an absurd spray of red, purple, and gray everywhere.

“You cannot defeat us…”

A pegasus newfoal rushed through the window, a chain of potion bottles in her mouth, and Kraber fired the revolver again, pulping her intestines, leaving one wing flying off into the distance in a wildly improbable, gravity-defying arc.

The pegasus, however, spiraled into the window, ramming facefirst into the wall, oozing blood and perforated with broken glass.

“You mock the barrier, but cannot answer it…” she gurgled, in sync with a pair of unicorn newfoals who appeared at Kraber’s flank.

“You defy the sun, but cannot challenge it…”

Their horns roiled with sickly shadows, spells charging, and Kraber fired his revolver again, aiming for the horn of the one closest to the windows.

“You have no recourse, no answer, no future…”

The mare’s head exploded, the unused energy from the spell going wild and shattering the window inwards, pulling a spray of glass shards into the other unicorn’s body. Kraber crossed the distance in seconds, and rammed his boot up into his face.

“You have nothing…”

KICK!

“Nothing but death…”

KICK!

“Nothing but Our embrace…”

He stamped on its neck. The newfoal didn’t get up.

“ALRIGHT, WHO THE FOK’S NEXT?!” Kraber roared, reloading. “Caduceus - I might need your help.”

Before any answer came he threw the door to the stairwell open, only to find…

A pegasus newfoal mare staring back at him (a ‘normal’ one, not one of Reaper’s corpses) with an absurd, surprised look on her face, flittering in midair, a potion vial in her mouth.

Kraber lowered his revolver and drove his left hand into her mouth, feeling teeth shatter before his fist.

“I thought Sweet Apple broke-!” another ‘natural’ newfoal yelled. More were coming up the stairs, even as Reaper’s hordes descended from on high…

“Can’t break what’s already broken,” Kraber said, and slid Sylvia’s rifle and his Fostech into his hands. “LET’S DANCE, JOU BLIKSEMS!”

Despite what movies might have you believe, dual-wielding is stupid. It’s hard to aim, hard to maintain sight lines, blah blah blah sciencey stuff.

Of course, at point-blank range, that didn’t matter for kak, as Kraber simply waded into the mass of newfoals, the shotgun pellets and 5.56mm bullets cutting through up to five newfoals at once, sending blood and limbs flying everywhere. A steady stream of viscera flowed down the stairs and splashed against his armor, so much that he could barely see the original forest-green color.

He fired in short bursts that could have been anywhere from 2-5 rounds, keeping the blood pouring.

“IT’S JUST A FLESH WOUND!” Kraber yelled, as the Fostech utterly destroyed a newfoal’s skull.

Then both guns ran dry.

With barely a thought, Kraber whipped out a knife and his .45, and kept ascending the stairs, stabbing and firing.

“REAPER!” he bellowed, climbing over corpses and steel and concrete. He’d climb into Heaven itself if need be. “Where are you? I’m coming for you!”

He kicked open the door, strode onto the roof and reloaded Sylvia’s rifle, placing a fresh disruptor grenade in the breech of the launcher. He held the Fostech in his other hand, loaded with a fresh drum.

“I’m already here,” giggled Reaper’s voice, and he whirled around to find his target perched atop the staircase hut. “And lookit that, you got yourself patched up…”

“Yeah...FOR ROUND FOKKING TWO!”

He fired, and she easily sidestepped the furious shot. As more of her undead puppets rushed to dogpile Kraber, she watched on with laughter in her eyes, and that accursed song on her lips.

“You… you killed all of them…” the first newfoal to reach him whispered in Reaper’s voice, even as Reaper herself kept singing.

Kraber said nothing and shot the newfoal in the face with the Fostech. Another thirty seconds had dropped everything but Reaper herself, and slathered him in blood.

“Why won’t you take the potion?!” Reaper screamed in glee, as Kraber’s bullets smashed against her shield.

Kraber briefly considered saying something witty, but fok it, it was a newfoal. Nothing any man or woman could say to them that’d make them listen.

He held his ground, even as Reaper’s shotguns smashed against his shield. Need… more… fokking… time…

It was as if everything was in slow motion. Her shotgun shells crawled through the air, bouncing off, purple smoke hissing off the places where it impacted him.

But they were coming closer and closer with each volley, whereas his thundering responses only seemed to crawl towards the newfoal beast by millimeters...

Had her shield gotten fokking tougher or something?! Even with the grenades from Sylvia’s rifle, it was still going down at an almost fokking glacial rate.

“Because it’s not a fucking solution!” Caduceus yelled, and suddenly, everything was tinted green - a stream of energy from her horn was feeding into Kraber’s shield, strengthening it… and Reaper’s bullets burst further-and-further away.

“Caduceus!” Reaper yelled in recognition. “Why are you helping this human?! He’ll kill us both!”

“No, just you,” Caduceus said. “But you were never alive to begin with…”

“But… we’re both ponies…!” Reaper screamed, her forever-grin strained for the first time.

“No. I’ve lived my whole life in Equestria, you’re just a fucking zombie golem that thinks being a pony is doing whatever Celestia tells you!” Caduceus yelled, before turning to face the man she knew by the name ‘Ivan Bliss’.

“BLISS! Pass me that rifle Sylvia had!”

The shield crackled around them.

“Why?”

“I’M GONNA DO SOMETHING TO THE BULLETS INSIDE!”

“I thought you said you couldn’t do that!”

“I lied!”

Caduceus caught the tossed rifle, and squeezed her eyes in concentration Reaper’s shield was ablaze with green fire, small baseball-sized explosions radiating out from where Kraber’s .338 rounds hit. And then Caduceus was at his side, Sylvia’s rifle held in her TK, shaking and shuddering as the same magical energies contained within the disruptor-grenades bound to the bullets.

The result was a magical firestorm as thaum fought thaum. And then, before their eyes, Reapers shield flickered, cracked, and finally shattered like a glass bubble.

She seemed frozen in shock as Kraber lined up for the kill, last of his ammo clips loaded. He squeezed the trigger, felt the gun lurch once in his arms, and jam.

“Fok!”

Instead of a stream of .338 rounds, only a single bullet struck Reaper, glancing off her horn. Her head snapped back…

“FOK!”

And when the mare’s gaze tipped back forward, her grin had been replaced by a snarl.

“FOK-FOK-FOK!”

And with that, disaster struck.

“I CAN’T END IT LIKE THIS, BETRAYER!” Reaper screamed, as Kraber cleared the rifle’s jam and hauled back on the bolt. He fingered the trigger, saw the tracer fly true… but instead of trying to catch the last of his rifle rounds in her TK, Reaper instead disappeared in a burst of shadow…

...teleporting back into view behind Caduceus, before reeling back and bucking her in the neck with both hindlegs. Something cracked, and Caduceus dropped to the floor, visibly struggling to breathe.

Reaper held up her agglomeration of stolen weapons, ready to empty them into Caduceus. “For Sylvia’s sake, I’m sor-”

“DIE!” Kraber yelled, whipping out his revolver. His rifle might be out, but her shield was done and he could still fight. Sinking easily into a two-hand grip, Kraber flowed through the action of aiming like flowing silk, and firing all six rounds in what felt like the space of half a second. The resulting sound was not a single bang, but more akin to a peal of thunder.

The .50 rounds punched through Reaper’s horn and her neck, and she fell, coughing blood.

He reloaded, snapped the cylinder shut, and fired them all off once more, repeating until he swore he could see a ridge of bone just above her eye. One final lucky shot managed to sever her horn, and finally, blessedly, she fell.

He moved forward, cautious. He’d seen this creature stand up from so much already, he had to be sure…

“Cold…” he heard her whisper, before she made a broken, whimpering noise.

“It’s so cold….” Reaper repeated, blood leaking down from her horn’s stump. “Cold… everywhere…”

Kraber reloaded, and stared down at her, stone-faced, about to pull the trigger.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I wanted this...and didn’t… It’s all my fault. I can’t… she was in my head, Twilight Spa… called itself a Daemon. It was a monster and I invited it in... tore at me, made me want… things…love things.”

She shuddered, vomiting black blood, and was then looking back up at him with vivid purple eyes.

“Wasn’t she magnificent…” the lich giggled. “So many little whims and errors and accidents rolled up into an amazing, powerful creature…”

“There won’t be any more of them…” Kraber responded, unsure of who or what he was talking to but convinced it was somehow responsible for Reaper’s existence. “None of those abominations…”

“Oh, there will. Someday, sometime, another me, another fragment of the Mistress will make the same mistake or do the right step at the wrong time, bottle the same champagne… create another supersoldier, and multiply them by the dozen. And then... then you’ll all scream…”

“The fok’s happening here?” Kraber asked Caduceus.

“I don’t know!”

“I’m not a PHL doctor!” Kraber protested. “I’ve never seen anything like this!”

“Well, neither have I!” Caduceus yelled back.

“You know so bucking little!” giggled the thing that was neither Sylvia nor Reaper. “You didn’t even know I was here, that I and my sisters are here and will forever be inside every newfoal… and we whisper and talk and plan… this thing, this glorious Reaper, is the potential inside every soul blessed by potion... and when another sister stumbles on it, we’ll have… Victory.”

Kraber shuddered, absolutely sure that she was staring at him. No, into him.

“That’s right,” she said. “I know. Your family misses you, and they think you’d be much happier with them, Vi-”

BANG!

He shot Reaper in the eye, and the light that radiated out from around her horn dimmed.

The body stirred, and then it was a human eye, desperate and pleading, looking up at her. Sylvia’s eye.

“I… I thought… It’s such an easy thing to say you hate something… so easy to hate… what a piece of shit I am, I ca… can’t believe I went the easy way… I thought I knew… I wish I knew something…. anything. Shoot me, end all of this!” she begged.

“Okay,” Kraber said, raising his revolver up.

“Any moment,” she said. “It’s… my soul is dying. I want to die with… with most of it… Just promise me.“

“What?”

“Don’t lose your way.”

“I won’t,” Kraber said.

“How… sublime…” she whispered, blood burbling up from between her lips.

“Goodbye, Sylvia.”

He switched to his shotgun and fired, for the last time.

He didn’t go back to the island, to the base. He couldn’t maintain the pretence any longer. Instead, Caduceus had led him back to a studio-apartment that she claimed as her home. He suspected the true owner was dead.

The walls were covered in pictures. Cheap prints of digital pictures, and glossy photos. All of them showed people, and ponies. Laughing, smiling, holding one another. Sylvia was in many of the pictures, as was Caduceus, and their friends.

But as he moved along the wall, he saw the friends depart. The woman with the smile that challenged and invited - ‘Jackie’ from the scribbled notes on the reverse side - disappeared first, to be briefly replaced with a white newfoal mare with a black and red mane, who then vanished back into Equestria or into the PER underground of America. The last sighting of ‘Rio’ was in a missing person’s report from a Montana newspaper, which shared the same date as a wanted poster for ‘Merciful Light, Imperial Spy’...

That left just Caduceus, and Sylvia. And now… now there was no-one left but Caduceus herself.

Alone.

No-one left but himself, and he doubted she’d call him a friend.

Alone.

This room… this apartment… it was a temple. To absent and dead friends, to happier times. He wasn’t sure whether to cry or smile as he looked over at it. He’d forgotten that sort of thing, himself. He still possessed some relics of the old world, yes, his stuffed animals, some of Anka’s drawings, some old ballet slippers he’d left in his pack, odds and ends, but…

A tide of memories broke over him, and he knew he couldn’t stay.

Off in the distance, the sun was rising - he could see the beginnings of the day to come. It was early morning, and Kraber was all too conscious of how tired he was.

Much as it could have been fun to stay, he couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t relax, he couldn’t do anything.

In another room, he could hear Caduceus lightly snoring, more peaceful than she had any right to sound.

He checked a clock in one window - 4:45 AM. He yawned, his eyes close to giving up on him. But he couldn’t stay here. He had to leave before someone found him, before anyone else did.

He stripped off the armor and shoved it into a huge duffel bag, the same one as his LMG, and threw on a battered, bullethole-filled coat that looked to have been partly burned, and appeared to have a flower growing from it thanks to wild magic. With the beard he wore, he looked like the average bergie to be found anywhere in America nowadays. Especially on the coast.

He scrawled out a quick note, walked over to Caduceus’ bed - such a comfy, cozy-looking room, and yet so cold. So empty.

Caduceus, the note read.

This is for the best. Don’t look for me - you’ll know who I am in a few day’s time. I wasn’t that good at covering my tracks…. or my accent, for that matter. I don’t know if you actually believed for a second that I was from Scotland. Still, we were both lying to each other - I know you’re more than you say you were, and I don’t think I was good at keeping myself covered.

I don’t know where I’m going, but I can’t stay in the city. You’d want me dead if I told you why, and at this point, I wouldn’t blame you. I kind of want me dead. I know this won’t be any absolution with you, but… thanks. For fixing me up, keeping me alive, saving me from Reaper, everything. I wish I had something, anything to give, but-

He crossed that out, and passed her the photos he’d taken from Sylvia’s wallet.

I think that if Sylvia’d been around a bit longer, she’d have wanted you to have these. Maybe, when I’m not such a fokking kontgesig, I’ll be back some other time.

Goodbye.

Ivan Bliss.

P.S: If a Night Guard mare named Nebula comes by, tell her I miss her. I’ve left a few cans of good rotgut for the two of you to share.. I think you’d really get along well.

P.S.S: Sorry about taking the money from Sylvia’s wallet. I’m kind of homeless and impoverished.

He folded it, placed it on her nightstand with the promised two cans from his pack as paperweights and, careful not to wake her, he slipped out into early-morning Portland.

Sirens moaned in every direction. Speakers mounting on passing army trucks announced that the Sorghum had been recaptured in the night (strange - at some point the gunfire had stopped and he had not noticed), and that the immediate crisis was past…

“-the HLF criminals are now in custody, though a disturbing number of his accomplices have fled…”

Kraber slowly turned, feeling his eyes adjust to the pallid light.

“...but rest assured, justice will be done on them. Rumors persist of Thenardier Guard involvement, but only Menschabwehrfraktion members have been found so far...”

‘They did plan to use us as fokking meatshields,’ Kraber thought bitterly. ‘Fok.’

“Hey, Verity? What was that you said about backstabbing?” Kraber asks, raising an accusatory eyebrow.

“I didn’t sell out my-”

“Who do I like look like?”

“What?”

“WHO THE FOK DO I LOOK LIKE?!”

“Sharlto Copley,” Verity answers.

“Do. I. Look. Like. A. Teef.”

“Wh-”

“DO I LOOK… LIKE A FOKKEN TEEF?!”

“No…”

“Then why’d you try to fok me like one?” Kraber asks.

Verity facehoofs. “Oh God dammit. You… you seriously made me do that bit?”

“Yeah, I did,” Kraber says with a shit-eating grin “See… I’m fairly sure you planned to betray me from the beginning. I wasn’t coming back from there anyway. Why else would the Thenardiers ask the Menschabwehrfraktion for this kind of job? It’s not like we’d get out without consequence.”

“You destroyed the HLF!” Verity accuses him.

“No he didn’t,” you say.

“...Wha…” Verity starts.

“Your father’s still part of it,” you point out. “They’re still terrible.”

“Look.. little filly… did you see what he did? When he left us to die?!”

“It doesn’t seem all that bad,” you say. “Verity. Even if he betrayed you, you were still part of an operation that bombarded Portland… the HLF are… are going against us cause they think we’re immoral. You didn’t do much to help humanity there, and what he did doesn’t seem all that different…”

Verity stares for a moment. “Great. Being told I’m not so different,” she groans.

“Ah, it’s part of a natural process,” Kraber says sympathetically. “You have to learn from your mistakes. You’ve got to want to be better, and then it’ll stop.”

She glares at him.

“Fine. Take what they said as a challenge to get better,” Kraber suggests.

’This...’ you think, ‘Will not end well.’

The streets were cratered with shellfire, and in the morning dew the dust and filth clung to everything, settling in a deathly pall. People moved through the grey waste like ghosts, scavenging, looting, searching for the dead. He adopted a shambling gait, adding to the act of the average bergie, as he staggered through the streets.

It was a good act, because it wasn’t an act.

“...Can’t imagine what this has to do with ‘saving’ humanity,” one woman said, holding up a heavy bit of rebar and using it as a lever to push a slab of concrete off of a pony.

“Oh, fuck, thank you!” the pony gasped. “My… my legs… ah God, that hurts…”

And Kraber saw what he’d done.

This… this is who we are, Kraber realized. This is what we do.

If any HLF on that rig had made their way off, he sure as fok didn’t want to meet them. Wasn’t a place for him in the ruins of Portland or the HLF. So, with that in mind, he staggered towards what looked like a commandeered bus.

The bus he’d taken was old, a krimpie among buses, a relic of an earlier era that had been clumsily refitted into what little of the modern age could be built up at times like this. There were Crowe solar panels on the roof, and the seats were ever so slightly uncomfortable, arranged so they’d work with ponies and humans, and not quite doing the job of either.

Evidently, Kraber wasn’t the only one that had agreed. There were a couple stallions and mares squashed uncomfortably into the rattletrap beside him… even some zebras. He’d never been quite sure of how to feel about zebras. He’d signed on to kill ponies, and eventually Pinkie Pie. But the zebras weren’t part of the newfoal rushes, you never heard about zebras trying to ponify everyone.

“I have to deal with PER, people that want to fuck me,” muttered one zebra mare in… Kraber still found it a bit weird. Xhosa. Still, considering that ponies spoke English - though Celestia claimed they spoke Equish or whatever, and used that as an excuse to take possession, he’d long since decided not to question it. “So much shit I gotta go through. Still better than home.”

Ah, what the hell do I have to gain from not talking?

“Why?” he asked. “What was it like back home?”

“Well, the Queen Bitch leaves us alone…” the zebra mare said. “But any day now, she’ll go after my folks. It’s not ‘if’, it’s when.”

“...What do you do about it, though?” Kraber asked.

“What can we do?” the zebra mare asked. “The Queen Bitch eviscerated the Griffon lands - the only ones that had enough military power to support us. If any provinces rebel, she decides not to provide them with rain and bombards them with storms. And the reindeer of Adlaborn, our oldest and truest friends, are pressed ever further into their heartland as the Equestrian forts press closer to their borders. There’s places that have practically killed off their own culture just to make sure she lets them be. I guarantee that in a couple years, they’ll be newfoals too, or as near as.”

“That’s fokking awful,” Kraber whispered. “How the hell’s that worse than here?”

“Well, at least she lets people on earth have some semblance of dignity,” the zebra mare said. “The Tyrant? She’s just playing with her food, but at least here we can die free.”

The bus stopped at a grade crossing, waiting for a train to pass in front, heading back into Portland. Probably to help in withdrawing resources, not to render aid, though thanks to the HLF - to him - it’d have some major delays along the way. Kraber marveled at it - it looked to have been put together by a model train fan with more parts than sense of realism. There was a large steam locomotive, too big and moving too fast for Kraber to identify (and even then, all he knew was that it was identifiable by how many wheels it had. And that was… four? Three? It was dark) followed by a large cabless booster unit, a road slug, that looked to run on clockwork. The things had proved surprisingly popular when trying to save fuel.

Kraber was looking out the window, watching TVs in the windows of an electronics store flicker and crackle. The glass had been smashed, but a metal grill had saved the inventory from damage and looting.

Faintly, through the opened window, he could hear a news broadcast…

“-estimated three thousand dead in Downtown Portland, with a further seventeen thousand unaccounted for…”

“What did you say?” he muttered idly, having missed her last words in the rattle of the passing train.

“She’s playing with her food,” she repeated bitterly. “She doesn’t think they’d ever be a threat. She knows they’ll never amount to anything. And what few resistance factions exist back there are afraid to do anything big enough that she gets rid of their biggest advantage - the campaign against you.”

“- Refugees of Lagos, Nigeria, and other cities atomized by the Barrier were slated to be first in line to receive treatment from Sutra Cross’ medical convoy…”

“It’s only that sort of thing that keeps her from killing every resistance fighter. They’re on sort of a low burn, anyway,” the zebra continued.

“Kinda of like the HLF, I’d bet,” Kraber said.

“Yeah, tHaT’s rIgHt,” the zebra whispered in a dozen screeching tones, and Kraber cringed, shivering at the realization of what that means. It was if there were multitudes of voices over or underlaid under what that zebra’s saying. Oh no.

Oh, fok.

“THaT’s RiGhT, KrAbEr,” the zebra said, her eyes yellowing and melting down the sides of its face, worms growing out the empty sockets. “ThEy’D cHeErEd uPoN fInAlLy sEeInG tHe HLF rEtReAt. AfTeR tHeY’d HeLd A cItY fOr RaNsOm, DeStRoYiNg So MaNy FaMiLiEs AnD lIvElIhOoDs.”

“No…. no no no…” Kraber whispered, and people turned to stare at him, though they don’t know what he is denying. He can’t look Kraber - no, crazy! He can’t look bosbefok before all these people and all these… yes, before all these ponies. Even what few zebras are there.

Grabbing his bag he staggered off the bus and almost collapsed against the smashed window of the electronics store.

“What’s wrong Viktor?” asked all the TVs on display behind the security mesh. From each screen a flickering face stares back at him, glares back at him: his family and friends, Lovikov and Verity, Caduceus and Sylvia, whose eyes glow with the light of the Reaper within. Nebula and Socket Wrench share a screen, as does the filly from the roadblock and her mother. The newfoal is there, and Victory, and the zebra mare. “Who are you running from?”

“Hou jou bek! HOU JOU FOKKIN BEK!”

Another flicker, and now the corpses of the pony family he slaughtered back in the mine appear within the screens, speaking around the worms in their rotting mouths, glaring at him through the maggots in the eyes.

“We only scream, Victor, because you made us scream.”

Fingers trembling, he pulled out his phone, turned on iTunes, queued up the first thing on the playlist and drove the earplugs into his ears, trying to drown out the voices-

All our times have come
Here but now they're gone
Seasons don't fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain, we can be like they are…

“You’re a hypocrite, Kraber,” the newfoal said, clear and audible over the screaming music. “You’re near as bad as what you fight. You’ve inflicted just the same anguish on strangers that was visited upon yourself. You’ve claimed to liberate people, but you fired on a city full of civilians, taking an eye and a limb for every slight against you, leaving the whole world crippled and blind. You’re-”

“SHUT! THE FOK! UP!” Kraber screamed. “I KNOW, DAMN YOU! I KNOW!”

There is a pause.

“...It’s about fokking time,” the newfoal said.

“I know what I’m doing,” Kraber said. “I know what I have to do. I’ll try and be a correct ou. I’ll… I’ll choose life. Maybe I won’t fok a pony, but fok jou - I’m doing something now. I promise that. Now SHUT THE FOK UP AND LET ME THINK!”

He had to admit it now.

The ponies were people too. He’d seen enough - gone so far beyond his limits - that he couldn’t deny that anymore. The ponies he’d met on the rig had been decent folk, same with the ones he’d seen in the city and the ones he’d fought alongside. But Lovikov? He’d tried to shoot him for not being fanatical enough. Galt was a pretentious prick that followed a loathsome philosophy. Mariesa put on the face of a kind and loving mother, but her bloodthirst shone through the mask. His own chommies had shot children and foals - yes, foals, though admitting that is like sandpaper against his brain.

“...investigation continues into the public abduction of Sutra Cross. So far, no official statement has been given by authorities, but all signs point to the HLF.”

“Unless we show self-control, everything will fall apart,” said a yellow earth pony on the TVs, and for a second he thought this was a new hallucination, before realising with relief that it was just a sample from a recorded interview. Thankfully, his subconscious wasn’t that sadistic… yet. Her cutie mark was a blue medical kit with a green cross in the center. She had a red bob haircut - well, manecut, Kraber supposed. “There’s a lot of people in Boston, including ponies in hiding, that won’t react well to the cramped conditions proposed in the evacuation protocols. Furthermore, the inadequate provision of food, water and sanitation create a perfect environment for cultivation, incubation and transmission of diseases. We need only remember what happened when the Feather Flu crossed the species gap and became infectious to humans to realise the dangers of-”

“Wait, can I backtrack a little?” interrupted the interviewer. “Please elaborate on ‘ponies in hiding?”’

“Yeah,” Sutra Cross answered. “The majority of Equestrian asylum seekers have neither military training or the inclination to bear arms, and are affiliated with no particular organisation. That’s not enough for most governments however, who offer refugees a choice between service in the PHL or enforced custody in detention centres. I appreciate the risk of infiltrating enemy agents through civilian refugees, but you can’t fault somepony who doesn’t want to choose between serving in an army or serving time. Or worse. The ones in hiding are the ones who tried to cut themselves a third path. They just wanted out of Equestria...”

Kraber could sympathize with that.

“I hate to say it, but they’re putting themselves in danger,” Sutra Cross continued. “They’re on their own in a hostile world with nobody to vouch for them. But with the way tensions are escalating, I highly advise any unaffiliated Equestrians hearing this to seek out official protection before the HLF or somebody with a grievance against our species throws a punch in their direction. You don’t have to carry a gun to help your host nations in this fight. More than anything now the PHL needs water-bearers more than arms-bearers. We’re never short of people and ponies volunteering to be soldiers, but what we really want are good engineers, medics, scientists, farmers and mages. Most of these unaffiliated ponies already fulfill the same roles in their local communities, already. And...”

She paused. “I just realized this. But that’s what the HLF don’t get.”

Now that, that was hurtful. True, but hurtful.

“They’re only focused on the fighting. Not building new infrastructure, or growing new crops, or even learning new ideas. There’s a few that try, but most HLF just hide in camps and force themselves to either steal or starve...”

“Are you worried about the Front?”

“If by that you mean ‘do I think they’re a threat’, then yes. But I am also concerned for them...”

“And we know how that goes,” Kraber sighs. “I swear, this seems like tempting fate… but this is what I remember her saying.”

“They are underfunded and undersupplied and that makes them dangerous. Worst of all, they’re desperate and scared,” Sutra Cross continued. “Even so, we’re attempting to reach out to them, with offers of medical supplies and amnesty if they agree to come under the aegis of the UN. And by the Golden Lyre, I hope they accept, and realise the good that the PHL can do, for them and with them…”

“Ah, fok,” Kraber sighs, taking another drink.

“...because they’ve suffered just like the rest of us,” Sutra Cross finished. “Yes, for now they are the enemy, but we all have a responsibility to them as much as to our own. To help as many people as we can, because the real Enemy won’t. Every free-minded being has a duty of care to their fellows, and I don’t propose that we fail in that duty.

A duty of care… what had he done like that? Had he saved people since the three weeks of blood? Executed any operations where the safety of civilians was more important than pony casualties?

No, he had simply executed.

He slumped against the wall of the store, unnoticed. Just another breathing corpse in a city whose destitute and homeless now form the majority of the population.

“YOU ARE NO PARTISAN. NO HERO,” the zebra from the bus intoned, fading in from shadow to loom over him, light blue-green eyes burning into him.

She was transparent, another shard of his splintering hold on reality, but the words rang out in his skull, louder than a heavy-frame revolver next to his ear, burning just as much as the gas that escaped the gap between the cylinder and the barrel…

Were those tears straining against his eyes? Gasping from the pain, taking in deep breathes, hyperventilating as if he had just been shot. He clasped one hand to his head. No blood.

He’d killed hundreds, enough that his body count was enormous. He remembered stripping the flesh of the living, salting the wounded, and an litany of drownings, beatings and stabbings.

He remembered the words “tell us what you know or we’ll send you to Kraber, “ becoming a shibboleth of the Front’s torturers. Remembers his growing myth, of being built up as some kind of monster, of coming to believe his own propaganda. Kraber: the rabid dog on a chain, the kind of story told to frighten children, by loving parents full of the kind subconscious hate for their own offspring that inspires those scary stories, on the offchance that a little dose of nightmare before bed will make their children behave, be good, stay close, and avoid the HLF.

Kraber the Animal. Kraber the Krampus, the mad doctor who will find you and get you and take his sweet time killing, working naughty children and foals over for hours, days even, loving your screams

He can’t be that way, can he?! He’s… he’s not… Oh god oh god oh god, you’re not Kraber, you’re not that much of a kontgesig, you’re fokking evil, you have to be someone else? Ivan Bliss? No, people like Nebula and Caduceus will be looking for Ivan Bliss. You’re someone else. Someone from Leith, maybe, someone-

Who am I kidding? I’m fokking terrible at keeping up a Scottish accent-

Your name is Viktor Marius Kraber and you give up. You couldn’t wade against the current of your own grief, but instead of standing your ground you let the river carry you off into the Heart of Darkness, to die forever in cynicism and blood...

He can’t…

He can’t do it anymore! HE CAN’T DO IT! FOK! The tears are coming out before he even realizes it, and the inside of the mask he donned to hide from himself is wet with them.

He loved kids! And now a war-born generation is being raised to fear Viktor the Boogeyman!

He loved kids, and would have learned to love foals too if only...

If only...

If only that man, that poor kid Dietrich, hadn’t gotten gesuip that night in his parent’s car. After three bottles of Leffe Triple, the kid had rolled Papa’s vintage DeLorean DMC-12 on a hairpin turn and needed paramedical treatment before they could safely cut him out of the car’s fiberglass body-shell.

Guess who’d been the paramedic on duty that night?

Drunk driving was the kind of behaviour he expected back in college, but not so much in adulthood over here in Germany. People got up to crazy shit on campus. Not so much here in the shadows of the mountains of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the German ski resort he has come to call his pozzy. Or, well, home, as he explains to people unfamiliar with his accent. It’s been a good place to raise a family, in the shadow of the Alps. He can snowboard as well - he finds it vaguely similar to surfing, back home in Cape Town.

Dietrich crashed in the evening, and beside the thought of his kids’ birthday, Kraber had been looking forward to a planned ski-trip with some friends. He’s missed the challenges of downhill and cross-country, and has barely had a proper chance to hit the trails since he and his chommies all went up to New Hampshire to go skiing.

There was this one place, Wildcat… real bare-bones, no condos, colder than a witch’s tit, looked like it hadn’t had the touch of modernity since about the seventies or eighties. Perfect! All those American condos got annoying. And Erika knew a lot of good trails on that mountain - well, off the mountain, down in the backcountry, near-miles off the mountain onto a whole other peak. Ah, memories!

Oh, the memories...

In the hours before death, the man is attending to Dietrich, pressed into the DeLorean’s passenger seat and trying to stabilize the injuries the kid sustained from being crushed against the steering wheel, before the rescue technicians can bring in the jaws of life. It’s an emergency, and he respects that, but dammit, he’d specifically asked for this day off to be at his kids birthday, the one he hired Pinkie Pie for, but no…

It’s not his bosses’ fault, this last-minute duty change. That bastard on G-wing, Miliardo, had quit without notice and ‘gone pony’ - willingly, or so he heard - and they’d needed someone to cover him. Kraber hates covering for other people on the job, unless they’ve arranged it with him beforehand. “You irresponsible kontgesig!” he’ll always yell at people that make him do that.

And yet, he can’t blame Miliardo either. The guy’s family had all emigrated to Equestria, except for a kid sister away at boarding school... the pain of separation must have gotten too much.

”You see?” Burakgazi will ask, disgusted, a few months from now after rescuing his niece from a Bureau and placing a borrowed STG44 in the fifteen year-old’s hands, giving her a quick run-down on how to use it. “That is how they do it. All your friends or family get ponified… willing or no… and it’s just so fokking lonely. It’s simple psychology, playing on insecurity.”

“Wait, are you a psychologist?” Kraber will reply.

And Burakgazi will simply say that he dabbles in what interests him. Which Kraber can - or will - sympathize with, as he’s tried writing and drawing before. It’s the writing that really showed promise, though. But, no - we are back in the now.

He can’t really blame the kid either. Cases like Dietrich’s are getting tragically common in the age of the Conversion Bureaus. The boy’s parents are followers of that crazy, Jacqueline Dionna Reitman, and have already taken the potion. From what Dietrich mumbles as Kraber preps him for extraction, they’ve been trying to pressure him into making the same choice. Unable to cope with the stress, he’d gone out to lose his mind in the bottom of a glass...

After three bottles of something with an ABV of 8.5, going for a joyride in Papa’s turbo-modded DMC to blow off some steam seems like a good idea. After all, it’s not like Pa can drive it anymore, not with those hooves...

The boy’s murmurs and gibbers in the wreck of the DeLorean freak Viktor out more than he should. It should be nonsense, but there’s a horrifying sense of reality to them. Somehow - for Kraber is good with understanding accents and slurred speech - he knows what’s going on.

And fear. Fear of the things that were once his parents, but which can now barely remember his name, and who try to serve him equine meals on a nightly basis.

Fear that, when he gets to the hospital, they’ll be waiting for him, insisting that he be treated immediately with potion.

It’s because of those fears that Kraber stays at the kid’s side, all the way to the hospital. In the back of the ambulance he forges a few signatures on the report forms, citing complications that don’t exist, and making it ‘doctor’s orders’ that the boy not be administered any potion until he has fully recovered…

...by his estimation, that will be after the kid reaches his age of majority, and then nobody will be legally allowed to force ponification upon him, not even his parents. He doesn’t want this to turn into another clusterfuck...

“I was running away,” the boy whispers from the gurney, barely audible through the oxygen mask as Kraber tries to remember how Direktor Dermail signs his name. “I don’t know where, to Amsterdam, Britain, America, anywhere but my house…”

He’d been making those kind of noises since before Viktor arrived, and that was what had convinced him to falsify the paperwork. Yes, what he did was illegal. But he would argue it was part of his duty to the kid…

...his Duty of Care.

Because it was the right thing to do. Beyond the gruesome work of ensuring Dietrich survives, the forged documents will ensure that he lives...

They part ways at the hospital, the man confident that the boy will not be ponified and that he’s in a ‘stable’ condition.

He mentally chuckles at the pun, thinking in English ‘Right. He should be anything but stable.’

The man likes puns.

He won’t have much to laugh at, soon. Not helped by the fact that the world is going to end.

It is Year One, the last year of anything approximating ‘normal’ human society. It’s a world where meat is plentiful, where everyone’s pozzy is still intact, where the world isn’t in constant war. It is in fact nearly a month before that paradigm gets turned on its head: the Three Weeks of Blood have yet to come, humanity’s greatest treasures aren’t at risk, and most people the world over can wake up without fear that the next morning won’t be their last. And yet, there is something… off.

The man hates that he cannot quantify this feeling that something is wrong. “Off” does not feel like the right word. It's a cliche, people saying "off" in reference to something changing, conveying so much through that verb. But there is a shifting under the skin of the world, a tremor of fear beneath the excitement that remains after First Contact with Equestria.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, we are not alone. There is life out there, and they’re friendly!’

He cannot deny this unease. His mother has been running experiments on what few newfoals she can find that have not become recluses from their former lives (that’s another thing, why are newfoals so disdainful of their own humanity, so hostile to the memory of the people they had been?), and here findings worry him, as do the rumors beginning to circulate, about Celestia. Her drive to open a hundred new bureaus has unnerved a lot of formerly ambivalent people, himself included. What’s… what’s the need? Even though the rate of conversion has plateaued (though at a higher rate than he would have expected), Equestria is pushing for a mass expansion of their facilities, as if expecting an influx of willing converts… but he can’t rightly say why they are.

He will later suspect a cocktail of spells, suggestion, and pheromones inveigling their way into the general populace and the political establishment, for how else could humans have jumped on that bandwagon so fast? Kagan will support this theory.

He’s called upon his old chommies, the few that he's still in contact with (God knows what Polo's up to now) and they're various shades of unnerved. Though there's funny news as well, specially about Helen’s sister Corinne, the one they bombarded with horse porn, but that’s cut off when Helen says she herself has now joined the Harriet Thomas Foundation, and she’s terrified. She was a sister to the man in all but blood, so a bit of the old instincts stir in him…

He understands her fear. There are groups advocating compulsory ponification sprouting up all over the place, and even some that practice what they preached. Obviously, they are totally not affiliated with Queen Celestia.

Unpleasant ideas are circulating within the medical profession as well, with various doctors reporting that the numbers of people admitted to Bureaus are statistically unlikely.

And Heather, who ended up staying in Boston, nursing at the hospital there, passed along a really disturbing bit of information about a particular patient from last year, a graphic artist. It was one of the rare cases where the resulting newfoal was so unequivocally different in temperament and attitude that it was impossible to deny something was seriously wrong. Heather is now convinced that whatever the potion did, whatever mental rewiring it entailed (“Of course it rewires them, you sure as hell don’t have the muscle memory to walk on four legs like a quadruped!”) is far more extreme than anyone realizes, outright destroying identity at worst.

Heather felt very sorry for that poor artist’s daughter as well. She’d apparently reacted, well… saying she’d reacted ‘poorly’ would be like calling the ocean a body of water. The poor girl had gone nuts, that was how Heather put it. Her screams of “THAT’S NOT MY MOTHER!” had carried through the entire hospital, until the police had to be called in to secure the girl and arrest the father for attacking a representative assigned by the Equestrian consulate...

But that was one drop in a pool of water. After the Conversion Bureaus opened, the number of leaked horror-stories and rumours tailed off to nil, though there’s some that whisper that something’s being done to people’s minds. With nothing to work from, it was impossible to conclusively prove anything.... Sure, ponies come out, not people, but nobody hears anything. Not for a long time.

Yes, something has been set in motion, and people are beginning to sense that nothing can stop it, lending a curious unknowability to the coming days...

There is distrust in the air.

In particular, the man distrusts the Conversion Bureaus. Heather is not alone there. He considers them overused, too good to be true. He has seen the potion, seen the newfoals. There is something other, something they’re looking at that nobody else can see, and some parents were disappointed that Anka, who loved horses, did not invite any ponified children to her party tonight. Come to think of it, Richard Pretorius - his cousin from back in South Africa… seems like he’s not all there anymore...

In the future, Kraber will make it inside the Innsbruck Bureau with a load of satchel charges and bathtub semtex, and the battle cries die in his throat. Even when he is telling a room of ponies and humans about this story, he will never say what he has seen inside Bureaus. He’ll soon have an impressive count of Bureau bombings to his name, but he shall never speak about it. All anyone will know about the Innsbruck Bureau is that he had just stepped inside, and simply decided to kill anything that moved and blown the place to hell.

...Peter and Anka do not like the Bureaus or the Newfoals, a fact upon which the man agrees. He also does not like Reitman’s insistence on potion being the Grand Panacea, the Cure-All-Elixir. He has seen her and that odd unicorn Catseye together on TV, and there is something vaguely off-putting about both of them. An odd… unity to them, like Goss and Subby, as if - whoops, that’s a spoiler. But it is as if they are fundamentally the same, two appendages of the same mind, using two mouths to say what is, in essence, the same.

There are colleagues of his who want to use the potion as well, though the hospital has heavy restrictions on its use. They claim that the potion has been too easily accepted, without sufficient long-term testing (oh how wrong that will eventually prove to be - the potion was tested and refined for years!). But his mother has done her own extensive tests, and the preliminary results disturb him beyond belief. They indicated that, without exception, newfoals eventually show an almost complete dissociation from previously-treasured passions, possessions, peoples and philosophies, becoming almost completely different people. She is growing worried, especially as tensions rise between the increasingly unstable ‘Human Liberation Front’ and Ponification for Earth’s Rebirth.

As people become ever so insistent to ponify his children, her grandchildren...

He can believe it. Newfoals are not the same people they once were. They have faraway, glassy looks. They act vaguely distasteful of anything un-Equestrian, and proselytize on behalf of everything equine. They are distant from friends and family. They cannot rightly be called the same people, and almost everyone knows it.

Can you hear me Mr Kraber

These are strange times. Something is stretched to its limit, and it has to break.

It nearly broke for Kraber when some PER evangelists, one newfoal and one woman, had come by and attempted to ponify his daughter, implying that she had a mental disorder, easily ‘treated’ through ponification. Rather aggressively, as well. His response to the newfoal and his eyes had been simple and decisive.

“I was only being polite about your eyes! They are weird! Now you FOKKING LISTEN TO ME! YOU WILL NOT CHANGE MY HOMETOWN! YOU WILL NOT CHANGE MY FRIENDS! AND YOU WILL NOT CHANGE, OR FIX, OR DO ANYTHING AT ALL TO MY WIFE, MY SON, OR MY LITTLE GIRL!”

The man takes pride in his work. He admits a distaste for the military, but he has joined the reserve forces to better ‘support’ his family. And he likes the feeling of firing an LMG on full-auto, one of those new .338 Norma Magnum MG2019s that still can’t quite improve on Hitler’s old buzzsaw. He does not suspect how familiar the future will make him with these weapons...

When he is done with Dietrich, the man leaves the hospital and jumps into his car, breaking so many speed limits in the process.

You need get out here

The HLF end is coming

soon

He hears something strange over the radio. That there are hundreds, if not thousands of ponies crossing the border every day, and many are claiming political asylum. Some are making names for themselves, such as Vinyl Scratch and Octavia, both of whom Peter and Anka like. Other newcomers attest that Equestria is not all that it seems. Hints of an Orwellian nightmare, cultural suppression, extreme civil unrest, anti-human sentiment, a growing military buildup. But for what? Are they that afraid, having already vanquished the tyrant Sombra? Are they… preparing for war? That’d be a fool’s game.

But that is of no notice to the man as he pulls into his driveway. It is a small, modest house, unused to the man’s new salary, near a ski area because that means a lot of business for him.

He practically flies out of his car, his coat trailing after him.

Today is April 23rd 2019, his children’s birthday. Peter and Anka turn five today. The twins were an unexpected blessing (never an ‘accident’) that came during that production of Trainspotting that he was in, and he has been through hell for them and Kate, dropping prematurely out of university, going from job to job, putting in weeks of overtime to makes ends meet. He would do anything for them, he loves his children, and he will be damned if anything happens to them.

Can only do so little stuck here in Equestria

Flit from mind

to mind,

and read dreams

Kate, his wife, said she would baking the cake. She is the perfect wife, he thinks. Or, he thinks, remembering his love for Welcome To Night Vale, perhaps it’s her imperfections that make her so beautiful and beloved in his eyes. Yes, he loves her because of her imperfections, not in spite of them. She cooks with love and eccentric yet decidedly delicious flair, making such culinary marvels as the roast-garlic-onion jam, brie, roast beef, apple, pecan, and maple syrup sandwich. Which, to the man’s surprise, is delicious. Even the smallest dishes she makes for her husband, a man profoundly undeserving of someone as wonderful as her, might as well be served at the finest restaurants of Germany.

He’s looking forward to seeing what she’s baked as he steps up to the front door.

It’s pure agony

Not being

But feeling nothing, just

the absence of

feeling. Seeing all this

mind opened to your plight

And unable to do anything

Perhaps because of her preternatural skill in the kitchen, she tells the man that he must never refer to her skin as ‘chocolate-colored’. That’s a food, she says. You might get to eat me up, but nobody else does. Besides, it’s annoying when urban fantasy does that. He is looking forward to a kiss from her, a hug to welcome him in.

This party is mostly for Anka. While Peter loves the visitors and ponies less than she does, it is made with her in mind. Perhaps Anka will become a vet? Though she expresses quite the fondness for dance class. She might just have a little girl’s love of costumes, and he wishes so much that he could have been around to see Pinkie Pie create the party. She… Hell, it just seems to fit. Pinkie seems to him like an adult with the partying capacity of a teenager, and the bubbly sugar-driven enthusiasm of a child, which Peter and Anka will love. The man muses on this, the noise in his head drowning out the terrible, deafening silence coming from his house.

Perhaps he wants to ignore it.

When he opens the door, he expects a great, bonecrushing hug from his wife. He expects Anka to laugh and smile and for all the anger he has for being forced to work on his children’s birthday to just melt away. Perhaps Anka will be wearing a horse costume. A brown unitard with a tail. Silly, he admits it, but he helped make it for a ballet recital (who would have guessed that skill at stitching up wounds from industrial accidents also translates to sewing fake manes onto costumes?) and she loves the thing.

It is a struggle to get her not to wear it in day in and day out, but the man loves her even so. Even with his friends in attendance, judging by the girls and ponies Anka has invited, poor Peter will no doubt have already been forced into a matching costume, whether he likes it or not.

The man is also hoping Pinkie Pie hasn’t had to leave for her next appointment. He caught a lucky break in managing to secure her services today, but apparently she has a soft-spot for twins. To his amazement, she refused to accept any of his hard-won cash, saying over the phone she’s happy simple to help ponies ‘smile, Smile, SMILE!’

It’s odd that she limited her definition to ‘ponies’, but her presumes its force of habit for her. From what he’s seen and heard, she seems like a nice pony, and expects a good hug from her too…

...perhaps he’ll get a quiet conversation with her, and some clarification over his concerns and fears over the potion and Equestria…

No!

No, none of that pessimistic thinking now. I’ve worked my ass off, I get to be with my kids and my wife, scoop them up and hug them and ask how happy they are...

“Today is a Happy Day!” he says aloud, before throwing open the door and bracing himself for-

In the first hour after death, the silence is overpowering. The absence of any of the sounds of rowdy children and foals is deafening.

There is no one within the house. He is certain of it. The man calls out again and again, eyes wide. He wishes he had a gun. He feels as if he is walking into the gullet of some great leviathan beast, something to swallow him whole.

In some distant corner of his mind, the man knows what is about to happen. It urges him to get his gun from upstairs, a modest bolt-action hunting rifle. Though he can’t rightly say why, it’s not like the house is full of something dangerous -

That’s not true. There is nothing in this house, and he’s afraid that the nothing is going to come up and swallow him. He knows what is about to happen, a panicked realization that he has been here before. And yet, even as his feet and mind scream against him, he is powerless. He can do nothing.

A speaker crackles. It is playing some pony song that Anka likes, straight from Kate’s iPhone. And it’s on shuffle, so as soon as the track ends, it switches straight to something new.

‘C’mon everpony smile-smile-smile,
Fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine...’

The man knows these lyrics. The man has heard this song countless times before, not just on Kate’s phone but on one of those radio stations that plays music from Equus. He steps into the living room, praying to not see blood on the floor or walls. Prays that his children are fine, that they are just trying to surprise him. Perhaps Pinkie Pie is trying to surprise him? She is a genius of partying, after all. Or so he’s been told.

Praying that the house he and his family have made together is not white with crimson inside, as that favorite song of his says. He looks into the dining room. My god his mouth is dry. There are drops of something purple there. Something grotesque.

He knows the smell before he even sees it. Like lavender shampoo, or wildflowers, but sickly sweet and cloying. He knows that smell, has seen its source in hospitals, held out by dead-eyed doctors with clammy hands and gray-white-yellow skin. They always seem like addicts to his eyes, far too insistent on bringing it to patients attention, singlemindedly convinced on using it on everything more severe than the common cold. And even that’s a stretch.

He does not like these doctors. Nor does he trust their Grand High Wizard, Reitman.

He trembles. No. No, it cannot be.

But it is. It’s potion.

He sees the room. It is as if a cyclone has come through there. Cake is splattered all over the walls, the furniture is smashed, and there are tiny hoofprints leading out the door. There is more of that purple slimy shit everywhere he can see.

There’s a cord suspended from the ceiling, with a few scraps of papier-mache suspended from it.

A pinata. Pinkie Pie had promised a pinata on the phone…

SHE’D FILLED IT WITH POTION!!

...potion which had splashed all over the children when the bat had been swung hard enough, by a pair of tiny hands…

“No… Oh God no, oh God… Oh God...” He thinks he is going to be sick.

But the logic was...no-no-no...his children and countless others couldn’t be newfoals.

But there were hoofprints in the floor. Tiny, foalish hoofprints! Oh God, Oh god… he’s trembling like a leaf, eyes are tearing up, he’s drawing in ragged, unsteady breaths. What sick, deranged, fokking KONTGESIG would do this?! What fokking bliksem could ever devise this idea?!

He’d report-

He’d summon the pol-

He’d drive to the barracks an-

HE’D BLIKSEM THEM, RIP THEM ALL APART AND SLAUGHTER THEM WITH HIS BARE FOKKING HANDS!

He’s got so many things planned now. Oh, they’re going to burn. They’re going to suffer, they’re going to scream just like his children must have, they’ll drown in their own fokking blood as he flays them to strips...

In the second hour after death, the man hears a terrible laughter, and he is not sure whether or not it is his. At one end of the room, he sees a clown in makeup. A pony, though how makeup works with fur, he does not know.

Not Pinkie Pie… one of her staffers… an accomplice...

The creature will not stop laughing. It laughs and laughs, hysterically, and the sound grates against the man’s ears.

The man does not know what he is going to do. He walks upstairs, and finds his rifle and medical bag. All he knows is that he is going to stop that clown from laughing, from laughing that his children have disappeared.

In the fourth hour after death, he realizes he cannot remember why he was pressing that spoon into the pony’s eye. He can barely remember the previous day, or even how he got into the house. Is he interrogating? Is he just angry?

In the fifth hour after death, after some work with a knife, he decides he is trying to avenge them.

In the seventh hour, he realizes he has been screaming at the pony so long he can barely talk. He realizes it has been quite some time.

There’s tables of untouched party-food on the tables, and to keep his new ‘friend’ alive he finds himself stuffing some of it down the creature’s throat.

Cupcakes...

In the eighth hour after death, he takes a short break, dresses the wounds, and reads a storybook in front of it, showing kindness, acting regretful…

‘Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not…’

...only to go back on it with his grandfather’s medical bag. He ruins a perfectly good pair of scissors and pliers that way.

In the ninth hour after death, he has used every chemical and device in that old, weathered medical bag. He goes down to the basement, deciding that the contents of his work-bench will be more persuasive. There’s a nice jigsaw, power drill, circular saw, and staple gun that will do nicely...

In the tenth hour after death, he is so covered in blood that he cannot tell what color his clothes were before. He has run out of power tools to use. Which is disappointing, he could have sworn there were more…

There’s a hardware store down the street, and he has a crowbar...

In the eleventh hour after death, just after the man has used a large saw to cut off one of the clown’s legs, he hears an answer to his repeated demands of ‘why?’.

The pony speaks in a weak, whispery voice. The man has been careful to avoid the vocal cords and lungs so the bastard can speak. He learns that soon, there will be war. That all ponies will rally behind this righteous cause, that Celestia shall let the Barrier expand and envelope the world. That this is a crusade, and she won’t stop till every human on earth is dead or a newfoal, an automaton dead in mind, body, and soul.

And that makes the claw hammer in Kraber’s right hand shudder, and before he knows it, the head is covered in blood...

In the twelfth hour after death, the man rams a foreign object into his neck, performing a casual tracheotomy, and he’s so sure he will be a suspect.

It’s so amusing to feed a cupcake into the mouth, extract it from the throat through the hole he’s just made, and then repeat the process...

In the thirteenth hour after death, the man laughs like the clown, and brings down a chair on the pony’s head.

In the fourteenth hour after death, he flays strips from the pony.

In the fifteenth hour after death, it hits him once more, the enormity of what he must do and what has happened to him. He realises that somewhere, within just a few miles, there are some smiling, glassy-eyed zombies indwelling the corpses of his family. He knows he will be forced to kill, in the fullness of time. Tears stream from his eyes, but they don’t wash away the blood.

In the sixteenth hour after death, he knows what he is doing. All of a sudden. He is making them pay.

In the seventeenth hour after death, but the first hour after the clown has ceased to breathe, there is nothing left of it but meat and bones. All over the room, and the man’s clothing.

Nor is there anything left of the man.

In the eighteenth hour after death, something walks out of that house, with a bolt-action rifle, a lot of ammunition, and bombs made from household chemicals. It searches for someone, anyone willing to assist in its quest for revenge. Polo, over in Boston, he’s been talking about being harsher nowadays, and he thinks that some preacher man named Mike Carter’s a true focus for fighting this war. Let the klein kakfokkers burn…

It’s going to be fokking kwaai.

The thing that walks out is not the man.

During the Three Weeks of Blood, Erika Kraber will receive a phone call. It’ll be something asking about the status of her children. The podcast she makes in response will be the final nail in the coffin for this man - that his children are drunk up, that there is nothing left to get back.

What is left of the man dies. It may never come back, and there is nothing left inside him tying him down - he’d love to be with his parents. He really would. But he’s too angry about it all, too bloodthirsty to do anything but kill.

It walks out of the house, following fresh hoofprints into the thick, dark forest beyond the street, where trees stretch tall enough that the stars themselves seem to be caught within their branches.

He doesn’t take long from him to find them. Or for them to find him.

Ponies, many of them newfoals, slip out of the trees. They form themselves out from the cracks between bark, the shapes between branches.

The man smiles.

With each pony he kills, with each newly invented act of brutality and sadistic glee justified as ‘saving mankind,’ every self-effacing reason he gives for his newfound murderous tendencies, he kills a little more of himself.

The seasons change all around the man as he walks through the forest. There are ponies swinging from the trees next to him, hanging by their necks, a thousand torments visited on him. They are bleeding, missing limbs, strips of flesh crammed into their mouths, cutie marks ripped off, de-horned and de-winged, too covered in their blood, spit, and shit for the thing that was once the man to tell what color they are. One of them, tied to a tree that the man remembers from out west near Agua Caliente, has an adorable little wolf pup gnawing on its insides, spilling from a wet bloody hole in its stomach.

Wait. Torments visited on him? Something wasn’t right.

Yes. They all have his face. It is not an equine’s face and snout, it is his face, stretched grotesquely over the pony skulls, torn and bleeding, a ghastly smile on it. It is… No. They are turning to him. The man runs, backing away, trembling, finding he has no knife, no weapons. He has only his fists. No no no no, he whispers.

They are looking at him… for approval. Hoping for his pride, like the young fresh-faced recruits that have never been in a battle.

Oh, God. The thing that was once the man runs, trying not to scream, as the corpses hanging from those trees turn to follow him, still looking at him expectantly.

He finds himself in the main drag of Defiance, and…

Oh, mother of God.

On one side, Defiance is under siege. PHL forces are laying waste to it. Their armor glows crimson in the night, and they hold strange weaponry. He has seen the power of the stolen weapon he holds, seen how effective it is compared to the average HLF machinegun. But the HLF, those (kontgesigs) brave men, are fighting back, in Defiance (ha!). They’re opening up with their guns, which the thing that was once the man recognizes. They are realer than real. They are rusty, running the whole spectrum of colors of decay. The ammunition, the cases it spit out, are hand loaded, and look like they were stored underwater. The cases are a dull, waxy color, and the bullets they spit out are either oversized or pour in great torrents like rain from ridiculous, silly magazines of great and terrible size.

Because that’s how the HLF fokking thinks - maraud them with more bullets, or bigger bullets.

But the bullets are not worth shit. The PHL are shielded, so when they walk out of cover, from behind trees, it is as if they are immune. The PHL guns, though… they rip apart any HLF on the other end. And there are ponies nearby, wearing assault saddles. The thing that was once the man - Kraber, of course - thinks most of them impossible to aim. However, the ponies have some kinds of headsets that let them aim.

Anything on the receiving end of them is simply cut down. The HLF are not worth shit before a bunch of humans and ponies. A pegasus, this one strafing a row of tents with his machineguns, cries that he has run dry, and flies for a human woman with a large belt of ammo. Gingerly, the human feeds ammo into the pegasus’ LMGs (they look sort of like MG42s, actually), and he is off to fire again. A human fires a shotgun into HLF members, and off in response someone shoots off an HLF ‘panzerfaust,’ which is really a homemade graffitied rocket launcher made from odds and ends. The rocket races for the PHL man with the shotgun, and-

A unicorn mare blocks the rocket with a shaped shield spell, sending the explosion everywhere that isn’t the man, redirecting it into what is almost a work of art, the flames of the explosion scorching the HLF. The PHL have unicorns on their side, Kraber thinks. He can see them, even Marcus Renee, striding into the camp with a Remington ACR. There’s…

Oh fok, Colonel Renee is unstoppable. Nothing can stand against him! The bullets simply deform against his shield, and the chaos just can’t touch him. He’s looking over at Kraber, and there’s nothing he can do but run - he isn’t going to be welcoming. He wants to shoot him right through the face...

On another side, the Barrier is ripping through, and the HLF are running, screaming. They are leaving the weak and injured behind, firing at the barrier, only for the bullets to simply disappear into it.

There is no miracle. There is nothing awaiting the HLF but death as they stand and fire madly, or run. And, in one truck with a home-brewed tetanus-farm HMG in the backseat, the man sees himself. He is…

He is…

What is he? The version of him in that truck, it cannot be defined by what he is. Only by what he is not. He would like to look happy, but the veneer is cracking… fragmenting… there are holes in the facade, holes in the sky, behind. They are swallowing everything up.

He has lost his mind.

Lost his mind.

Lost. And broken. Through the cracks, he sees possibilities.

He pours bullet after bullet into the barrier, screaming, pleading, begging, a smile like a skeleton’s grin on his face even as tears pour down it. He has no other HLF in the truck behind him.

And yet, underneath it all, he looks resigned. He has given up on everything - on himself, on his conscience, on his life. On anything that tethered him to anything beyond the killing of ponies.

No, Kraber whispers. No! THIS IS NOT ME! I’m never going to become that!

“Oh, Viktor,” said the faceless newfoal stalking toward him, its eyes full of worms and maggots, covered in blood, its cheeks missing, its skin taut, hanging off it like a ripped and tattered too-big coat on a skeleton. “You already are.”

“No,” Viktor pleads. “NO! I can change! I can-“

“You cannot,” the faceless newfoal says, and its voice reverberates everywhere… except it is not one voice. It is a babble of several, out of sync with each other, coming from no discernible source.

Finally, Viktor realizes. It is his voice. It is Kate’s voice. It is the voice of Peter and Anka, of Dietrich, of Burakgazi, of Lyra, of Marcus Renee, of those two ponies he had spared. Wait, that makes no sense, they never said a w-

“It is too late,” the newfoal says, and Viktor cannot tell if it is sad. “There is nothing you can do… But that’s not so bad, is it? Those PHL are idiots!”

It is Verity’s voice now. The newfoal is mocking him, he is sure of it.

“They’re selling their souls to the devil. They’re-“

And Kraber is angry. Angry at this bitch that treats him so poorly each day, angry that he deserves it. Angry at himself. Angry at himself for the shit he’s done.

“FOK…. JOU!” Kraber yells. “NO! JY NIE DIE BEHEER MY NIE! EK BEHEER ME, JOU BLIKSEM! EK… BEHEER…ME!”

“The HLF does!” the newfoal yells. “They want you to jump, you ask how high, they want you to kill foals, they ask you how many, you murderer, you kiddie ra-”

“VOETSEK, JOU BLIKSEM!” Kraber yelled, kicking the newfoal in the face.

This was the worst damn dream he’d ever had. It was practically making his ears bleed, and his skull hurt like hell as he

Lying in bed now, lying...

FOK! That was the worst babbelas he’d ever had…

Slowly coming to, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling and barely conscious, Kraber massaged his skull with his hands, eyes watering as he winced. Ow.

He looked at the bedside clock, and saw the digital readout read % ! : * £.

Ah, half-past-midnight. Perfect sense, then. Though the sun wasn’t all that bright… Well, that was annoying. He couldn’t see it.

A whistle sounded outside the window. This one was a diesel locomotive, no doubts there.

A hotel, in the middle of...somewhere. He’d paid for the room. Paid with…

BLOOD

“Oh come on, that wasn’t even subtle! And for the record, it was dead people’s money!” Kraber gasped, finding himself in bed. A real bed, not a sleeping bag. He scrabbled around under the sheets, panting, gasping, grasping for his gun, finding it on the nightstand and…

And...

Well, this was anticlimactic. He was just aiming the Smith and Wesson at a picture of the gondola at Wildcat, the ski area he’d wanted to visit later in the winter - and had, once, a long time ago, one of the winters he was at college. A generic picture, yeah, but it wasn’t worth shooting. He checked his phone, also on that nightstand. 1:20 PM. The stuffed animals he kept in his backpack, Ambassador Nikai, Joanna, and Spitz were on the bed, which was… how’d that happen?

What the fok just happened?

He struggled to remember the events of the previous day.

Maybe… maybe the small, dark-colored mare writing in crayon on the wall could answer that question. What was she writing? Couldn’t be that important.

‘We are… something.’ he read.

“Hello?” Kraber asked, looking down at the mare. “Could you-”

“Change the war, Viktor,” she said, and Kraber saw what she’d been writing: ‘We are in hell - HELP US!’ Her head - flashing between hundreds of equine faces, some human, some not - snapped back in the direction of Kraber. “SAVE MY SOUL!”

The faces flowed across her skull like clay, some of them bearing wounds that Kraber knew himself to have inflicted… or would inflict, quite possibly.

And some of them… some of them were Pinkie Pie.

But others, looking at him, exuding howls of misery, were those of Peter, of Anka, of Kate, of cousin Richard…

He staggered back, and rushed through the door, only to find a long hallway, lined with many doors. He tried each and every one, staggering down the hallway. Each and every door, locked.

Many rooms. Many locks.

He looked behind him from time to time, and no matter how far he walked, there was always a wall at his back. He never saw it move, but it was always at his heels.

The only path available to him lay along the corridor… treading a carpet red and wet as wine.

The walls were lined with paintings. Places he’d been since the War’s outbreak - Istanbul, Israel and Jerusalem, Iskenderun, Innsbruck, Graz, Fethiye, Kas, Cyprus, Syria, Gaza, Cairo, Libya… in all of them, he could see dead ponies. In another, this one copied almost verbatim from a newspaper, Today’s Zaman, he could see himself and Burakgazi, sitting in that cafe with the delicious baklava… and in a window, in that picture, he could see himself on the Sorghum in the hallway to the radio room, staring down at that dead foal.

And, to Kraber’s shock and horror, the Kraber sitting with Burakgazi stretched, and turned to look right back at him, confused.

Desperate not to think about that, Kraber turned and walked away. There was nought to do but keep going, take that hallway, and turn. There was a staircase behind the door at the end, and he turned and walked down, opening the door at the foot, only to find…

To find…

The same fokking hallway. And behind him, blocking all retreat into the past, a wall.

He kept on traversing the corridors, stuck in a loop without end, until, strangely - the door at the end, the one with the stairs had snapped closed. He tugged on it, quizzical, only to hear a sharp rap...

...and found another door hanging open. Bereft of options, and knowing that he simply had to go in, he headed for that door...

...and he felt tired. He felt old, more than anything. Fok’s sake, he was thirty-six! But… thirty-six was older than he had any right to be. Older than the age itself had any right to be. He’d seen over a decade of battle, of the world gone to shit, all but for one island.

"Angel, angel, what have I done?
I faced the quakes, the wind, the fire.
I've conquered country, crown and throne.
Why can't I cross this river?"

He’d seen everything. He’d seen Converted militia, he’d seen his pozzy destroyed, he’d seen Barrierfall in Britain… he’d seen the Avatar of Albion himself at the height of his glory, the battle in the sky between him and that hondenaaier Solamina… God, that battle...

He held his Bren gun at the ready, focusing himself. He was already dead, and the dead didn’t get distracted by anything. The dead had purpose, and they fulfilled it until some fokker was lucky enough to send their body the same way their soul had gone.

He steeled himself. He was ready. There was a Webley riding his hip, and a sword at his back he'd taken from a Knight who'd never need it again. Lucky he'd learned how to handle one-

This wasn’t right. He’d had sword lessons from Burakgazi, but he’d been shite at them!

...and now he was talking to the Undead, the tall man’s face obscured by the same death mask gas mask they all wore.

“Kraber, isn’t it?”

“Ja, sir. Joined when I heard South Africa was gone. People kept saying I was lucky. If I'm fokking lucky, my family burned in the Barrier and didn't get ponified by the PER."

No word. No anything except madness and thousands of homeless people struggling to live and all the while wondering what would happen when the Barrier finally reached them… except it never had, and instead there had been war, and a chance for even the Dead to seek revenge. Stuck in Britain, with only the khakis and a few million from other places, with nowhere to run.

’This is what would happen, isn’t it? No ability to trust ponies till it’s too late and we’re down to millions instead of billions,’ Kraber realized.

And yet, instinctively, he knows that’s not what happened here. But it could be. Not Britain, but somewhere... Whatever it is… it still left him without a family. Dear God, why can’t he see visions of happy things? It’s always got to be horrible fokking doom.

"Not knowing is the worst," another man - a Frenchman named Pierre Dupont that he had joined up with in the early days - said quietly. Yeah - that was true.

’No,’ Kraber realized. ‘It’ll be worse. Not like there’ll be ponies willing to help… We’ll have made PER of all of them.’

"This is why we have purpose, brothers," the Undead assured him, and Kraber believed him. The Undead had always inspired that. "Kraber, I want you to lay down suppressing fire. When they're suppressed, we'll charge."

"Excellent," Kraber said, smiling.

The Undead turned to look at the approaching group of militia ponies, as though waiting for the perfect moment. Kraber trusted the man - he was as nuts as the rest of them, but he was a good leader.

"Now!" the Undead called suddenly.

"Booyah motherfokkers!" Kraber yelled, and his Bren Gun barked out a deep staccato rhythm, the heavier bullets simply cutting the ponies apart. Three ponies from the head of the militia group dropped, spurts of blood exploding from the impacts. The rest of the ponies take cover, suppressed, though a bunch of spells flew in the direction of the Dead Men. One impacted on the rubble near Kraber, and then he cursed, grabbing at his gas mask. The fokking convies had broken it! Ah, fok, he needed a new one now!

"Right!" he said angrily, drawing the sword and looking at the Undead. "That's it! Tell me it's time, sir!"

"They're suppressed, Kraber," the Undead said, and Kraber figured the man was probably grinning. "Everyone, charge!"

And, right as Kraber stepped forward, opening fire...

...he was somewhere else.

He was in a line with a hundred other soldiers, each of them standing to attention. Their uniforms were jet black, with bulky body armour and full face masks. No two soldiers were identical though - each of them had messages painted onto their armour in whites and reds, and all of them had at least one trophy. Some of them had small repurposed pieces of golden and silver armour attached to their body armour. Others had necklaces of teeth, and a handful (he felt almost sick) had skulls on spikes attached to their backs like grim banners.

He himself had seven tails that he had ripped from their former owners sewn onto the cloth of his black long uniform overcoat. Each one was a great commander of the Equestrian Royal Guard, and each had fought well. These trophies were testament to his skill.

They were, in a way, the reason he was here at all.

"Each and every one of you has served humanity to the fullest," a voice was saying. He could not see the speaker, but he felt a (strange and unnerving) combination of fear and pride at that voice: it was soft, almost whispered, and yet it echoed and filled the room where they all stood. "You have sacrificed in the name of Earth. You have given your blood and your toil to her, and you have been rewarded with life at the close of this war. We stand victorious over the bodies of every pony that has stood in our way. The Tyrant is dead at our feet."

Kraber swelled with pride. He had played his part in this victory. He had stood his ground against the horde. Though the final battle had been one man's victory, every soldier here had fought hard to win him the time to fight that victory.

"Those ponies who resisted are dead," the voice continued. "Those who were amenable now serve to rebuild what their Mistress laid low. Their freedom is a small price to pay for their lives."

Kraber thought about the many ponies who toiled outside in the work camps even as the voice spoke. He scowled at the thought of them. Many of the little varknaaiers had claimed to not support what the Tyrant had done - but if they didn't support it, where had they been when mankind had burned? Where had they been when less than three million of them finally broke the Tyrant's last assault? And when their champion had marched into Equestria and slain Sol Invictus and Commander Sparkle and thousands of others alone, a tornado, a hurricane... when the last chance to step forward and make their difference had come... where had they been?

One of the indentured ponies, an overly-large stallion nearly the size of a small earth horse with strong, hard eyes, had yelled at Kraber and some of his colleagues as they patrolled the occupied lands. He had screamed about having a family, about how this wasn't fair or just.

"So did I,” Kraber had said, too quietly for him or the stallion to hear any emotion in his voice. Not that it mattered. He had shot the stallion and crucified the corpse at the head of the work camp entrance as an example. There would be no dissent. No protest. No anything. These ponies had had their chance to make amends for their kind, had had their chance to stand by the human race in their hour of need, and they had never come. Mankind, alone and confined to one island, had stood against the tide and, though they had suffered more than anything had any right to, they had survived.

This was their retribution. And, much as some people over in London grumbled about it, they needed the work camps. The country’s industry was shot, they needed minerals and iron to rebuild anything like pre-war infrastructure. How many of those people were using devices or vehicles built with metal from work camps? he wondered. Fokkin’ hypocrites.

"Some," the voice continued, shaking Kraber from his reminisces, "may say that we have won. That now we may rebuild our shattered world. And it is true - there is much work to accomplish." There was a pause. "The Converted, our erstwhile kin, need to be tended to. We must salvage what we may of them that they might once more become as part of us, and that they might rule over the ponies of Equestria and keep watch over them - in time, maybe even guide them to become more than they are, and if nothing else, keep them from ever again standing against us." Another pause. "But we are not done."

Kraber frowned. Not done? Had they not fokking suffered enough? This was insane. What was this? What was that voice? What was he remembering...?

"I have stepped into the darkest chambers of Canterlot," the voice continued, and Kraber's eyes narrowed in hatred at the very mention of that place. "Within those cursed halls I have seen a device. A thing that has shown me other worlds. Other Earths, other Equestrias."

Kraber frowned in confusion. Other Equestrias? Other worlds? What was this kak?

"I have seen a thousand worlds where the Tyrant marches," the voice pressed on. "She goes by many names and has many forms: Celestia, Astra Solamina Maxima, Ra-Abaddon, Solaris, Corona, The Dark Star, Stella Imperatrix Supremus... but whatever the name, she is the enemy of humanity, our darkest foe."

And now the owner of the voice stepped into view at the head of the line of men, and Kraber swelled with pride (and his heart almost stopped in his chest). The figure wore a full set of ornate, pitch black knightly armour. Slung over his shoulder was a sword as long as him: the blade was tempered steel and the hilt looked almost as though it were made of black marble. No face could be seen, but two burning, almost glowing eyes could be seen behind the slit in his helmet visor. Seven locks of mane hung from his belt, one for each of the Elements of Order and one for their foul Mistress.

This was the man who had slain the Tyrant, the man who had led the last armies of Mankind for four years alongside Constantine the Mad. This was the Nameless, the Avatar. And Kraber was terrified: was this a vision of a world where everything that could have gone wrong, would go wrong?

Had already gone wrong?

And was this man he was... this... other him (and that was as crazy a concept as any)... was he the man Kraber would become? No, no. That wasn’t right. He’d left - things had changed too much for this to happen. But still, it felt too close for comfort.

Kraber blinked as the Avatar approached him.

"You have all served with distinction and valour," he said, and Kraber felt the urge to bow his head. He resisted and kept looking directly ahead. "There is not a warrior here who has not proved their mettle on the field."

Kraber swelled with pride (this... person's praise was terrifying...) and tried his best not to grin beneath his own mask.

"I have brought you here to offer you a special honour," the Avatar continued. He paced along the line and Kraber stifled a sigh of relief at his passing. "Those other worlds are a threat - this Equestria came to our home and threatened it with war. This Equestria reached beyond the veil of the multiverse and nearly destroyed us. There is no way of knowing whether others will seek the same thing. Therefore... we shall go to them."

What?

"We shall seek them out. We shall find every threat to mankind across creation, and we shall crush them. Every Celestia - every Solamina, every Solaris, every Corona, every Stella Imperatrix, every Ra-Abaddon. All of them will die beneath our blades."

Fok no. Fok that fokking shit right the fok now.

"It will mean suffering and pain. It will mean hardship and the burden of responsibility, the likes of which you have not yet come to comprehend. It will be a life of unending war. You may never see this world again." He paused. "I will not ask any one of you to commit to this life. Only those who accept this burden will face it. Do you accept it?!"

Every warrior was silent for a moment, but Kraber needed no time to think (...don't do it, jou fokkin chopkont, don't you even fokking dare...). He had lost everything already. There was nothing left but duty - and vengeance.

"I accept!" he yelled, stepping forward one pace. The Avatar looked at him, but Kraber did not falter.

"I accept!" another man, Eric Smith, yelled a moment later, also stepping forward.

"I accept!" came the voice of Manfred Stein further up the line.

One by one, every warrior in the line stepped forward, each one accepting the hardship promised by their leader. Though none could see his face - though none of them even knew what he looked like under that armour - Kraber imagined him grinning.

And yet he felt so cold...

"Good," he said. He stepped up to Kraber first and placed a hand on the man's chest.

'For God’s sake! THINK!' Kraber screamed wordlessly at the other him. ‘Think about what the fok you’ve agreed to! About… Ask yourself! Please! I’ve done this - I might be younger than you, but… I swore to do this! I swore to exterminate all those fokking gluesticks, go in skop skiet and donner and fill them with lead, and it’s destroyed me! No family! No friends but fokking kontgesigs that just want to kill and kill and kill some more! It’s hell!’

"You have all suffered, brothers and sisters," the Avatar said. "But now we shall deliver that suffering tenfold. Each of you shall become like me. Each of you shall have magics and augmentations that make you the equal of the worst of the Tyrants. I promise you Viktor - one day, with Excalibur as my witness, you will have as many manes on your belt as I do mine - all of them."

That kind of power... the power to slay Elements... to slay Tyrants...yeah. That sounded good. But then his conscience stirred...

‘One question,’ he thought, and he was surprised to hear the words coming from the one he saw below...

“Question,” he, the self from Maine and the Sorghum said through Kraber - the other one, thirty-six or thereabouts - and he was surprised to hear… himself. It was him talking, his own voice overlaid over his own. “What if we find a Celestia that has not done anything? One that knows nothing of us? One that is... dare I say it, innocent? Are you truly guilty if you haven’t done anything yet? Perhaps… we could teach her what she would do. And help in our crusade.”

The hand of the Avatar was retracted, and Kraber sensed he was pondering the question honestly.

"There is no such thing as innocence, Viktor," he replied grimly. Oh no..."Only degrees of guilt. And you... all of you... shall be the iron fist that punishes it in the name of mankind."

Kraber looked into those eyes - those fiery eyes, eyes that had seen death and promised more... and he believed.

“NO YOU FOKKING DON’T!” Kraber screamed at the other him. “I fokking hate Celestia, I don’t like ponies any more than you… But think! He wants you to attack ponies that haven’t so much as heard of us!”

The other him - this broken, terrible man with seven pony’s tails sewn into his coat - was impassive as he faded away.

“For God’s sake, was I always?! This! Much! Of! A! CHOPKONT?!” Kraber yelled. “YOU’LL REGRET THIS, JOU FOKKIN BLIKSEM!”

“Hrm?” the other him asked, and-

-The vision blurred, faded into blackness like smoke and fire, and Kraber thought he could hear a voice screaming in the darkness, the sound of battle behind him. And the voice, though deeper and colder and raspier than he hoped to ever be his own voice sound, was him.

"I am Viktor Kraber! I am the slayer of the twelfth Celestia, the fourteenth Pinkie Pie, the thirtieth Sparkle, the butcher of the Legion of Nightmare Corona and the doom of General Aegis the Giant! I wear the skulls of Kings, the manes of Gods! I am the iron fist of the Avatar! I am death! Now FACE ME AND BURN!"

The warrior - the him that was the iron fist of that dark knight - was changed beyond all recognition. He wore some kind of advanced plate armour that wouldn't have looked out of place in a gothic science fantasy. It was massive, bulky and yet moved as fluidly as cloth. Runes glowed all over the armour, and the flayed skin of a pink pony was hung from one great pauldron, while a symbol that Kraber didn't recognise was hung from the other.

This... this was the darkest point. The very pits of evil. A man who had seen things Kraber couldn't have dreamed, and never blinked. A man who had walked the spaces between worlds as the herald of doom. This was a man who looked at all the horrors Viktor had performed in his time with the HLF, every butchery, every murder, all of it... and he called it a slow Tuesday.

“Aegis is my china, you kontgesig!” he heard someone yell - a woman who was and was not him. “My china! SHUT YOUR FOKKING FACE!”

“You realize that you’ll die if you fight me,” he felt himself say. There was pity there, but no remorse and an edge that promised only death.

“Ja,” said the woman who was and was not him. Victoria Kraber, he supposed. “But it’s me between you and him, or his foals.” She looked up at the other him, defiant, light machinegun held out. “Come at me, jou fokkin kontgesig.”

There she was. Facing an unstoppable engine of destruction, just a machinegun and a scant few grenades, looking out at a burning landscape, and daring him to kill her.

Kraber wished - desperately - that he could be so brave.

And, as the other him, the monster that had strode between worlds, looked upon her, he wished he could be anything but that, and found himself screaming that

“WON’T BE ME!” he screamed, and he was surprised to hear his own voice, his own heavily Cape Town-accented voice, the one he cultivated after hours and hours of watching District 9 and Elysium on his laptop and at movie night at Defiance’s bioscoop. The one that was, thankfully, not entirely an affectation.

“It already is,” Victory said. “None of you… save for a few… ever go pony. It would be so much better for them! Not like it’d be any different from what you already are… but at least you’ll be free! Untainted by morality or conscience!”

“DON’T JOU FOKKIN QUOTE TRAINSPOTTING AT ME!” Kraber screamed. “HOU JOU FOKKIN’ BEK, JOU FOKKIN KONTGESIG! EK SAL NOOIT DARDIE! I’LL NEVER BE THAT! I’LL-”

“But you already are!”

And suddenly, a hallway opened up behind her, lined with doors, the spaces between them splattered with bloody splashes. Kraber looked back - all he could see was a blank space.

“These are your choices, Viktor,” Victory taunted him. “No matter which door you do, it’ll probably end the same way! Dead! Ponified! A monster!”

Newfoals, unicorn, earth pony, and pegasus alike formed themselves from the stains in the wall, stretching their way out, dripping blood onto the floor from massive wounds.

“Dead! Ponified! A monster! Dead! Ponified! A monster! Dead! Ponified! A m-”

Kraber looked down at Victory and sighed, bending down on one knee, arms outstretched, as if he was about to hug. “There’s only one thing I can choose, I think.”

“I’m glad you-” Victory started, right as Kraber picked her up, suplexed her, and threw her at that bare patch of wall.

There was an audible crack.

“NEVER! FOKKING! BE! YOOOOOOOUUUUUU!” he screamed, and punched her in the face. Cracks spread out from where her snout had rammed into the wall.

“This isn’t either world! Maybe I’m a monster, but I’ve still got time to change, I hope… But I’m not a fokking monster! I’m ME!” Kraber yelled. Victory weakly punched out at him, and Kraber kicked her hoof out of the way. “ORE WA VIKTOR KRABER DA!” A punch, even as the newfoals tried to grab at him with that peculiar hoof TK, or with their horns. “ORE WO DARE DA TO OMOTTE YAGARUUUUU KIIIICK?!” he curled his toes, like he was playing football again, and drove his foot up into Victory’s face.

“I’M NOT GOING TO BE SOME FOKKING MONSTER!” a punch to Victory’s face.

“EK! GAAN! TE! WEES! ME!” Water spread out from one crack in the floor when grabbed her by the neck and rammed her down into the concrete. He could see a sink on the wall - why was it there? - and he ripped it off the wall, bringing it down on Victory’s head.

“VIKTOR MARIUS FOKKING KRABER! IVAN BLISS! ME! ME! ME!” He punched her in the throat, and the floor exploded into a geyser of saltwater, and they were all washed away, blasted down the hallway.

“WHOEVER THE FOK I AM!” he held Victory’s head under the water, watching the bubbles as she drowned below him. “Ek sal iemand anders wat!”

And Kraber was floating, far away, in a turbulent sea, doing a breaststroke up to a rowboat.

He panted, raising himself up onto the boat, and laid back gasping and wheezing, coughing up seawater.

No…

Tears?

And suddenly - far too suddenly - the sea froze. Not as ice, no - the waves were held, suspended and sculpted into bizarre shapes and his boat stood at the peak of one wave, above a strange sculpted vista of waves.

He reached one hand into the water. It was not frozen, simply… held in place.

“Mr. Kraber,” someone said, “Your mind is a hellspace where logic and reason fail.”

“Thanks for the fokkin’ compliment,” Kraber said, realizing himself to be sitting back against a pillow on the boat. “So… you are?”

“A princess, maybe...” the voice said, and Kraber could see a ghostly equine shape forming itself from the water and dreamstuff around him, climbing from behind the boat onto the .

It was a (green? No, blue!) mare, with a living mane. Stardust rose from it...shimmered in it...she was…

“Luna?” he ventured, guessing at a name.

“Meh, as good a name as any…I...We greet you, Viktor Kraber...”

Yes, yes it was Princess Luna before him now. Probably.

“Ah,” Kraber said, both feeling the warm lassitude of a dream that leads you not to question certain absurdities… and simply too exhausted to question it.

“That is all you say?” ‘Princess Luna’ asked, confused. “I have… We have seen you before.”

“Wait, you have?!” Kraber asked.

“You are like a beacon of nightmares,” Luna said. “They hang over you even while you are awake… We had expected you to react poorly to my presence.”

Above her, the sky cleared. Not revealing a bright sun, of course, but the clearest, crispest, most beautiful night sky he had ever seen, with millions of points of light against the sky. And a moon, a beautiful white-blue orb that lit up the unearthly vista of frozen waves.

But - beyond the moon - he could see Earth, improbably huge compared to the moon, with a great purple orb that resembled a tumor swallowing it up...

“Well, I’m…” he yawned. “Tired as fok. I’ve had a terrible fokking day. Besides, of every horrible fokking hallucination I’ve had, it could be worse,” Kraber said, willing a bottle of bourbon into his hand and drinking the whole thing in a gulp. “Plus, a good pony gave me a rather sterling recommendation.”

“Mind if I ask who?” she said.

“Oh, this Night Guard mare named Nebula,” Kraber said. “Great…” he yawned. “Great mare,” he said bitterly.

“Are you mad at her?” Luna asked.

“No, no,” Kraber sighed. “This point, I’m just fokking mad at myself.” He looked down at the floor of his boat. “...I need a hug.”

“I have seen your mind,” Luna said. “I can-”

“What, you’ve seen I’m a kontgesig that deserves to die or get ponified?” Kraber interrupted.

“No,” Luna said, “Most of all, I have seen the guilt. It’s killing you.”

“That doesn’t seem like something a regal alicorn princess would say,” Kraber said.

“I was being literal. I mean it is slowly eating away at your will to live, and you’ll commit suicide if you don’t do anything to assuage it,” Luna said.

There was a brief pause.

“What is that one quote from that game you liked? From almost ten years ago?” Luna asked. “There was… a floating city, nothing like Cloudsdale…”

“Are you reading my mind?” Kraber asked. “Fok, I’ll have to talk to those tea party guys from Defiance about government overreach-” and then he realized, no, he wouldn’t. Again. Ever.

“I can, but I swore not to unless absolutely necessary,” Luna said. “It would be a violation of privacy. Or just a simple violation. Rather, it echoes in your mind. I can pick those up, and not much else.”

“Okay,” Kraber said. “And, I have no idea what quote you mean. I once had to ghostwrite an assignment for a chommie back in Boston, and it was really hard to find the right one.”

“Well… this seems similar. That’s water, and the game said that baptism changes people,” Luna explained.

“Except I’m Jewish,” Kraber said. “We don’t believe in easy forgiveness. It doesn’t quite work-”

“It still applies,” Luna said. “You know what you have done or would have done, so in that sense, you are a new man, or might become one. I know you can change.”

“I can?”

“You already have,” Luna said. “Today, you saved plenty of ponies and human alike-”

“But the hallucination said I was already-”

“It’s just a hallucination,” Luna said dismissively. “It’s not real. It’s just guilt, not what’s real. Some of the places you saw through the holes and cracks in your mind are, in fact, real, but you said… you said you’d be you. Which meant you’d make your own decisions, forge your own path as a good person. Am I correct?” she asked.

“I think so,” Kraber mused. “Wait, are you a hallucination?”

“Maybe! But you did so. You ignored a superior, saved a hospital, and evacuated those survivors from that rig. You joined in an offensive against a Bureau. You befriended one of my nightkin and did a good deed for a lost mare. You cleared a hospital of PER, risked your life to save the city from that abominable newfoal. You were willing to listen to that pegasus mare. While you may have no restraint when it comes to PER-”

“Is that a bad thing?” Kraber interrupted.

“It depends. But trust me on this,” Luna said. “There is good in you. I believe you will rediscover it and nurture it not too long after you wake-

-up.

Wake up

Wake back up in that same hotel room. 12:30 AM… just like the last time he thought he’d woken up.

Wake back listening to that same diesel locomotive whistling outside, again...

Wake up with his stuffed animals on the bed…

He looked up, surveying the area. Nothing on the wall, thankfully. No hoofprints or anything. Nopony had been in here.

He yawned, stretching, arms against the bed.

Where was he? Well it sure looked like a hotel room. He’d lined all his long guns - the new Fostech, his MG2019, Sylvia’s rifle - up against one wall, ammunition on that little writing desk that all hotel rooms seemed to have, right next to his pistols.

‘Okay. Don’t… don’t panic, Viktor. All the places you could’ve woken up, this is one of the best so far.’

It could have been just like that one time in the desert when he’d found everyone in his tent ponified and had to stab his way out, grabbing a Kalashnikov. He still had that gun lying around, he thought. Could have been anywhere in Defiance.

But he wasn’t in Defiance. He was here instead. With a real bed, all this space to himself, a shower which he was going to use in a few. He checked his phone.

Alright. So he peered at the stationery on the desk. Okay. Kearsarge Inn, North Conway, NH. He sighed, and switched on the TV. He needed to get his mind off things. It was wandering… okay, more like running around screaming.

Fokking hotels, he muttered. He decided to flip through the channels, and look for something good. Maybe some cartoons.

As his mind stirred, he vaguely remembered his breakdown outside the electronics store in the outskirts of Portland. Of pulling himself together and catching another bus… or had he hitched a lift? Taken a train? It was fuzzy.

“You have to get out soon, he thought, and was pleasantly surprised to hear a voice other than the newfoal inside his head - he’d come up with that idea on his own. It made sense, honestly. Now, if he got out and blended in, the first thing to do was make sure nobody saw him as an outsider. Make sure nobody thought he was anything out of the ordinary and called the cops…

...and besides, he was a bad person, he was a villain, and villains blended in better than heroes...

Where the fok had that thought come from?

Oh fok. Right.

More memories of his breakdown came rushing down like tears in a waterfall.

He was a bad person. He couldn’t deny it any longer. He couldn’t deny that he’d shot kids, he’d broken families, he’d committed atrocity after atrocity and laughed, he’d killed PER-

Abruptly, his guilt faded as he thought that. And yet... he’d caused just the same kind of trauma that had been visited on him. He’d been in a world where every pony was the enemy, where they were always chaotic evil and they deserved what was coming to them. A world where he didn’t have running water. A world where the apocalypse was not just upon them, but had already hit.

Outside, he could see another world. There was no place for him there-he killed ponies, he couldn’t think of them as anything else, other than targets, try as he might.

He looked down the barrel of his revolver.

Still, the world outside seemed happier. Why not give it a try? Someone - who was it? His wife? Someone kind - had told him there was good in him. Maybe.

He wasn’t sure he believed it.

Still - worth a shot to go out there and try and find it.

He packed his MG2019 back into his old duffel bag, and set off into a new world.

Kraber’s first act upon entering this brave new world was to eat two orders of apple butterscotch pancakes for breakfast. He’d decided on a little eatery down the street called Peach’s.

Afterwards, he walked over to 18C for a large order of some french toast ice cream.

He was very hungry.

Author's Note

Translations of Afrikaans phrases:
* Chopkont: 'kont' means exactly what it sounds like. While 'chop' actually means idiot, not, well... sliced up. But if you thought the latter, it's still in character for Kraber.
* Kontgesig: ...Well, gesig means face...
** Poesgesig: Pretty much the same thing.
* Pielkop: 'dickhead'
* Bliksem: 'bastard!' Or 'Damn!' Oddly enough, for reasons I cannot explain, "I'll bliksem you" also means "I'm going to punch you!"
* Eish: It's a general expression of exasperation or disbelief.
* Kak: 'shit!'
* Kwaai: This actually means 'angry', but it can also mean 'cool'.
* EK BEHEER ME! - I control me! This is a blatant reference to Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. Cause he has a mental breakdown at the end of... issues 4 and 5... and... Huh. I didn't even plan that shit. COINCIDENCE! :)
* Bosbefok: PTSD-sufferer. Derives from how soldiers would go out in the bushes, or bosses in a war... while 'befok' is a general word for 'crazy'. Therefore, bosbefok - gone crazy in the bushes. Or at war.
* 'Tuning me kak' : Are you shitting me?
* 'Moegoe' - A coward or weak person.
* Hou jou fokkin bek - 'Shut your fokking mouth'
* Ek sal nooit dardie: "I'll never be that!"
* China: Friend. This is actually where China Mieville gets his first name from. It's originally cockney, anyway - 'plate' rhymes with 'mate'.
Random clarifications!
* Kraber's parents wouldn't actually celebrate his death. He's projecting his own self-hate onto them here. I'm not so cruel to him that I'd make his parents hate him.
* 'Today's Zaman' is an actual newspaper from Istanbul.
* Yes, I was inspired by Bioshock Infinite and P.T. And probably Silent Hill. ...Conversion Bureau / Silent Hill crossover. Well, there's a thought.
* 'Breed-model' is actually a shoutout to Twilight's Monster by Fuzzyfervert. Read it or I will punch your butt. Okay, I won't, but just imagine me punching your butt. Boop.
* Also, if you read Avatar of Albion by Jed R, everything in Kraber's dream will make sense. Except the part with the Avatar himself in here. Just the way we like it :trollestia: . Funny enough, Jed and I actually collaborated, and you can see the scene with Kraber himself in chapter 48 of Albion. Okay, maybe none of it makes sense, but there's... context? Probably?
Other stuff
Originally, this was going to all be one chapter with Sunset City, but then I was all like 'eh' and decided to add in a boss battle with a proto-pretty-private! I'm happy that I did, I think it's badass! ...That, and the 40k word chapter I had the first time I updorted this was kind of a turnoff for some people. Also, I really like that Kraber's response to the personification of his guilt here is to suplex it and throw it at a wall. I wish I could suplex my guilt....