The Calm Before

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It only stands to reason that the road to heaven is paved with pain and suffering.

Sky Sage
Day Two, Afternoon

Stalemate pranced ahead and pushed open the door to Copper’s store. “Hey, Copper! We’re back!”

“Go away! We’re closed. Come back when I’m not hungover. Actually, don’t come back ever!”

“Copper, this is important,” Rainfall called out as he strode through the doorway. “And I told you to keep your drinking to reasonable hours.”

“If I’m awake, then it’s a reasonable time to be drinking. What does it matter to you anyways?”

Rainfall sighed and pressed a hoof against his temple. “Just get the lockers open.”

“Why the fuck do you need to get into my lockers?” I heard something hit the floor with a hard and painfully familiar thump. Copper had just rolled out bed...literally.

“Because these nice ponies are going to go out, murder some raiders and get your shit back for you. Either that or die trying.”

Copper finally lumbered out of his makeshift bedroom, reeking of whiskey and worse. He just leaned against his doorway, staring at the group. On his face was a slight smirk for all of us but Rainfall, and I hoped it wasn’t because Rainfall was possibly sending us to our dooms. Meanwhile, Radheart had left to go prepare a field medical kit for the townsfolk.

“Well, if we find any goodies,” Page stopped to smell the air, “like whiskey, he paused for dramatic effect, we’ll bring you a bottle. I bet you they took one!”

Copper’s eyes immediately lit up upon hearing ‘whiskey.’ “Fine, just let me get back to my date.” I took a chance to steal a look into his quarters. The back room of the store was large enough to take up most of the rest of the building. Stairs at the back of the room ascended to somewhere that was most definitely not Copper’s bedroom. His bed was smack-dab in the middle of the room, and consisted of no more than a pile of straw wrapped up in some sheets. However, bottles of all shapes and sizes lay empty next to it, each one placed with the artful distinction that only a practiced drunkard could manage, creating a derelict cathedral of shining glass. On the walls, shelves held up all kinds of farm tools and supplies, but my attention was fixed firmly on the row of lockers on the right side. Copper was slouching against the lockers, rivulets of drool dripping off the edge of the keyring in his jaw.

As he unlatched the third locker, a small rain of guns pushed the door aside and clattered to the floor. Picking up a hoof-full of weapons, and swearing under his breath, Copper trudged over to us. “What do you all want?” Copper more spat than spoke.

“Yeah! Give me a gun!” cheered Stalemate. “I want a big one!”

“Oh, I got a big gun for you, little colt.” Copper sifted through the pile until he pulled out something that looked like a rifle, but gave me pause. The barrel was narrow, thinner than even the old .22 rifle I used as a kid. It had a handle-pump designed to stick a hoof into, and I could hear the clattering of a hundred little metal parts as Copper hefted it in the air.

“What the hell is that?” Stalemate looked up and down the rifle, and then looked longingly back down at everything else in the pile.

Copper chortled, coughed, and cleared his throat. “A BB gun!”

“Pfft. That thing couldn’t kill a bird!” Stalemate huffed and then snorted, and for the first time in two days didn’t immediately break into swearing at the noises he was making. “I bet it doesn’t even work.”

“Doesn’t work? You think it doesn’t work!?” growled Copper. He stuck his tongue inside the trigger guard and hefted the rifle at Stalemate, who ducked as the gun spat a loud hiss. A pellet whipped through the air and tore a hole a quarter the size of my hoof in the wall behind him. He then spat the rifle in front of Stalemate, and nudged the rest of the guns toward us with a hoof. “Pick over the rest of these yourselves, since your friend doesn’t understand that beggars can’t be choosers. Fucking purple bitch with a tiny horn.”

While Stalemate sat back, muttering under his breath about having an average-sized horn, the rest of us fell to the pile. Copper sure was right about us being beggars. None of those guns were anything I would have felt happy to take to the range, let alone a fight. Anything metal was at least somewhat eaten by rust, and the wooden parts were either worn or in some cases, rotted. Dizzy had already started a pile for the older ones that were clearly useless. Once the sorting was at an end, we were left with a two slide-action pistols, a revolver, a pump-action shotgun, a break-action shotgun, a large-game hunting rifle, and traveler’s carbine. Seven guns, five ponies.

“Anyone want to call dibs now?” I looked back and forth between us.

Ash took the larger of the two pistols quietly and slid the action back to find that it was empty. As if he’d been waiting for that to happen, Page levitated a shotgun over to his hooves and pumped it a few times to get a feel for the action. That left two choices, because the revolver was entirely out of the question. Not that I really wanted to put that on Dizzy or Wingnut, but there were few things I’d found that were more annoying than the slow spin on an old revolver cylinder. If it got stuck in a fight, I didn’t want to be behind it. Nor did I have the coordination to really work a bolt action rifle, so I bit down on the end of the carbine, and pulled it my way. As I rested my teeth around the grip, Dizzy kicked at the lever of the hunting rifle. On the third kick the bolt finally slammed open. He picked it up and regarded it cautiously. “Needs lube, they all do probably.” Oh shut up, brain.

I nodded. The carbine I was holding in my mouth looked like what might have been a modern Equestrian design, but now rust had spiderwebbed over the barrel and body. If I were to make an M4 rifle mouth-holdable and bury in in a locker for two centuries, this just might be what came out. Joy. Wingnut reached for the revolver, and I looked back down at the second pistol. I’d make a note to come back and pick it up when I had more mouth room.

Wingnut took the revolver in his mouth, trying to get a feel for how firearm sat and actually tried aiming with his head. He sighed lightly and promptly set it back down on the countertop. “Should work alright for me,” he mentioned in a neutral tone.

“I got yer lube over here, and some bullets too. Rainfall said you actually should have some. Bring ‘em on over to the table.”

While we’d been digging and choosing, Copper had set a couple of bottles and brushes out on his table, as well as few old boxes filled with rounds. I got in line after Dizzy, who was more than eager to help Copper clean up his rifle.

“Is that motor oil? You honestly expect us to put motor oil in our firearms?” Dizzy set his rifle on the table, scowling at the bottle.

“That’s all I’ve got in the way of lubricants, you freak. You want something nicer, you go find it. I promise you no one else in this down has oil this clean. Now do you want it or not?”

In response, Dizzy shoved a rag in front of Copper, who dumped some on it and moved to wet a few more. As soon as he moved on to Ash, I started to look for some way to take the carbine apart, and everyone else was working on the same. Only Dizzy found success, and helped the rest of us take ours apart as well. Having a gun nut around was really handy.

“Ammo is in the boxes...” muttered Copper has he stumbled back over to his bed. “Rainfall said he’d cover your tab, so take what you can fit--”

His last instruction was slurred as Copper slumped over his bed. I wondered briefly if he’d remember anything when he got up and decide that he’d been robbed, but realized I still had a job to do and worry could wait for later. Rainfall apparently trusted us, or more likely Copper did -- enough to leave us alone with a bunch of firearms. Everyone else had moved over to peruse over the ammo while I was still working the action, save for Wingnut, who was frowning over his revolver.

“It keeps getting stuck.” He was rubbing at his cheek where the grip had pushed into it, frowning. He’d been shoving the cylinder round and round and it was getting stuck every chamber slot or two.

“Just keep spinning it, and hopefully it will loosen up a little, or you’ll grind off whatever the obstruction is. Once you get it off, check it every few hours, and make sure it doesn’t get stuck again. Make doubly sure to check before we go into the fight, ok?”

Page wandered over after hearing the hammer clicking repeatedly, “Hey, Wingnut, you want mine? You’ve already drawn the short straw since we’ve gotten here. Want the easy gun? It’d be fine for me to mess with it with magic. Hell, I might even be able to do that Buck Norris hoof thing again if it doesn’t work.”

“As long as you feel comfortable with it, absolutely!” Wingnut deftly flipped the revolver out of his mouth into the air, leaving it for Page to catch in his magic grip. Damn he’s figuring this out quick. He only just woke up and has a better feel for this than I do. In response, Page levitated the shotgun to Wingnut and held it momentarily in front of him so to grab.

“I gotta know; think it will be awkward to hold a rifle with your mouth?” Page asked.

“Yeah, very, brt yu’r gert ur’sed tr et,” the second half of whatever Wingnut wanted to say was hilariously muted from grabbing the weapon. Wingnut immediately began practicing the action on the shotgun, and despite confirming the awkward, he looked far more comfortable this way. Page, meanwhile, began spinning and pulling parts on the revolver with his magic, first forward, then backward. It looked like he was practicing dexterity more than learning the weapon. So long as he got that all out of his system right then instead of during the fight, I was more than happy with it. That was a thought for another time though, as there was ammo to be had. I didn’t even have to work the press for it! Before I could ask what kind my carbine would take, Dizzy pushed one of the boxes toward me.

“I’m guessing this is for your rifle, check to make sure though. We don’t want to get all the way out there just to find out you have the wrong ammo.”

“Check?” I muttered aloud. I could check if it loaded in the old magazine, but I wasn’t so sure if I wanted to try shooting it. The locals had freaked out when the lights started flickering, let alone at gunfire. Nor did I particularly want to wake Copper up. With a shrug I hoofed the button beside the magazine well and let the old piece of metal clatter to the table. Much more gently, I set the carbine down next to it and tried to scoop some of the brass out of the box. Trying to lift a bunch of small rounds with a hoof was like trying to scoop pasta with a pool noodle. I sighed as they clattered back down into the bin like rain. What else was I expecting? Each time I balanced a bunch of them on my leg, I was never able to lift them out without most falling up. Soon, I resorted to pushing a bunch into the corner and shoving them up. That worked a little better, and it wasn’t long before I had a small pile in front of me.

Now came trying to shove rounds into a magazine...I did not fancy putting any soft parts of my face close to an old, rusty, and probably razor-sharp magazine. It looks like tetanus waiting to happen, and testing which immunizations I still had wasn’t high on my priority list. In what seemed like a slightly smarter way to do things, I bit the magazine gently between my teeth. With a great deal of concentration, I balanced the first round between both hooves and then slowly pushed it down and back into the magazine until the rear end of the round was flush with the back of the magazine. One down, a bunch to go. How many did these hold anyway?

It turned out the answer was not twenty, not thirty, but twenty-five of all numbers. Because this totally makes sense, right? Who in their right mind builds a double-stack magazine with an odd number of rounds? Ah well, I’ll need every last shot I can get. Speaking of which…

Guns, ammo, and lube. Sounded like a great set of things to have at the check-out counter. Did I find everything alright? No, I was hoping to find a few empty magazines on the shelf that I could load up. Nope, we don’t carry those, sorry.

As if by command, Page dropped a burlap sack in front of me, and I saw that Wingnut was holding four more in his mouth, each somewhat filled. Dizzy motioned toward the box.

“Well, he said we could take what we wanted, so fill up. We’ve got thirty-aught-six, three-fifty-seven, thirty-two, twelve gauge, and it looks like all we need is a bunch of five-five-six to make this a party.”

“Cheers.” Filling the bag without fingers was going to be akin to making a sandwich with my elbows. Some voice in my mind reminded me that handling a number of fine objects and thin materials with blocky limbs was going to be the norm for a while. Now that I was thinking outside the corral, though, it seemed possible. After I’d wrapped the sack’s top around the box, one good push tipped it over on its side and sent a few hundred rounds into the bag. That was a lot more than I had intended, if nothing else because it would be damned heavy, but hey, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

The old strap on the carbine was frayed and wearing dangerously thin in several places, but for lack of a better way to carry everything, I slotted the magazine in and slung it over my back. That left my mouth free to carry the bag. Good. I bit down on it and gleefully lifted it off the table. Pain lanced through my jaw as I jerked the cloth, and all the joy from my assumed cleverness evaporated.

“Frk!” I cursed, then immediately regretted it as the bag dropped further, forcing me to set it down on the ground. That ammo was heavy. I was probably going to need it sooner or later, so I bit back down and tried not to think despite my teeth feeling like they were trying to escape from their sockets. How Wingnut was getting by astounded me. With a start I realized that I needed to make sure that everyone, not just Wingnut, was getting their weapons in order. They all needed to be ready for tomorrow.

Metal grated on metal as Dizzy helped slide the action on Ash’s pistol back into place. In the time that I had managed to load one magazine and fill a sack, he’d helped everyone else clean their weapons and re-assemble them. Wingnut and Page were pointing their guns at each other in mock battle, until Dizzy sternly told them to knock it off. What I would do without him, I didn’t know. What I did know was that their guns were safe in his hooves. They all now had some kind of weapon which was loaded, lubed, and ready to go, in the time that I’d accomplished the same for just one pony.

Page reached into one of the ammo bins and scooped up a whole bunch of brass, then started levitating a whole bunch into the air and spun them around. He grinned wide and started spinning them around his head into a metal halo, earning oos and as from everypony present. It was certainly unique, until he winced suddenly and all the rounds fell to the floor with a clatter.

“Oh... that’s the fastest way to get a migraine I’ve found yet!” Page slumped as he spoke, looking visibly disoriented. He kept his eyes tightly shut and vigorously rubbed his temples with his hooves. “I’ll need to practice a lot before I do that one again,” he shook his head then body back and forth in a way that reminded me of a wet dog, and he almost lost his balance in the process.

“That’s badass, Page, but you probably should save it to mash bad guys with instead of whatever it is you’re doing now.” I had to stifle a chuckle, half out of trying to save Page’s pride, and half because there wasn’t much funny about our ‘mage’ burning himself out. Apparently we all had a long ways to go before we became truly dangerous. While I sat in thought on the prospect, everypony turned to head out of the room.

Getting back to the door around all the empty and broken bottles was a feasible prospect on the way in, but now felt like a minefield on the way out. If I slipped, I’d be bleeding from everywhere, and I really didn’t want to ask for more medical help from Radheart. One step at a time, I negotiated the mess, slowly making my way toward everyone else on the other side. Gosh, and I thought I drank a lot back home. This guy makes me look like a Mormon. I wonder what the Equestrian equivalent to that would be?

On the other side of the glass, I spat the bag to the floor and winced. Every tooth ached in its socket, which was entirely different from all those years in braces. It wasn’t a small section of pain, but instead everything in my skull seemed to throb. Almost all my teeth were molars now, and my jaw felt like it had moved from a ‘small’ to an XXL. Each and every one of them had been tugged, strained, yanked, and jarred against their roots; I was not used to this kind of regular usage. My entire mouth and skull protested the torture. Firing a gun was assuredly going to be worse.

“Got enough ammo there?” asked Wingnut.

“Too much ammo never hurt the good guys, bro.” I stared at the bag, contemplating a way to get it into my saddlebags without spilling the brass everywhere.

“Until the good guys need to run away, and you have four tons on your back,” chided Dizzy.

“How does that even work? I remember watching Pinkie doing this like it was nothing. We’re all standing here, not able to pick up anything, and Pinkie could pick up stuff and move it better than any of us could with hands on the best of days. Is it some weird magic? It looked like she was able to pick things up with the blunt ends of these awkward things.” Page waved his hoof in small circles for emphasis. “Think we’re missing something really, really obvious?”

“Maybe it was under ‘E’ in the encyclopedia of how to be a pony?” pondered Wingnut.

I considered that for a moment, then shrugged. “Dunno, I figure it’s some kind of learning curve issue. One day I’ll be able to manipulate things well, but two days isn’t enough to replicate a lifetime’s experience. Anyways, Dizzy, I won’t be running into a hail of bullets with this bag on my back, then. But loaded ammo is probably pretty scarce around here. I don’t want to run dry tomorrow.” If we live, then we can discuss how much it will cost. “Ash, think you can tie the bag for me?” I motioned to the bag, then sat down and took off my saddlebags.

Ash nodded, then furrowed her brow. The ends of the sack folded inward just a little, and toward each other. They pulled apart, and then around each other, but not quite into a knot. She scrunched her face harder and started the growl through her teeth, but it still stayed in place. Green light joined the red, and soon the burlap was in a fine knot, ready to settle into a saddlebag pocket. Digging through the right side, I started to move our odds and ends over, then stopped short.

“Page, do you have our bottlecaps?”

“No, why?”

Panic seized my chest, or whatever the area below my throat was, and I rifled through the bags again. A charcoal stick, two old pieces of paper, the odd opal thing and that was it. The plastic bag that held the caps was gone.

Everyone erupted into astonished discussion around me, but my mind didn’t have space to listen to what they were saying. I could worry about emotional implications after I’d ruled out all possibilities of losing them, not before. The first thought to strike once the surprise wore off was to question my own accounting of past events. Sadly, flipping the saddlebags upside down and shaking everything out failed to yield the caps. Immediately after came the obligatory recollection of the day’s events. The last place I had them was at lunch, and I’d put them right back in the bags afterwards. We’d gone to the generator, worked on it, and waltzed over to Copper’s, but at no point during that time had I unlatched my bags or let anypony touch them.

There was no way I could have known. Either they had fallen out, or someone had stolen them so silently that no one had noticed. Regardless, I wasn’t counting on getting them back. With that firmly in mind, the rest of the world rushed back with a whirl of color and sound as my vision finally lifted off the odd water damaged spot in the floorboards it had been locked to the whole time while I’d been lost in memory. The first voice I picked up on was Page, who was recollecting the day out-loud.

“I don’t remember having them since this morning when I had all the bags. We didn’t take them out since breakfast, and I didn’t seem them fall out when we were at the power plant… I’ve got nothing.”

“Where did you set the bag down?” Wingnut queried.

Ash interrupted the heated discussion. “Hey, where’s Stalemate?”

A hush fell over everyone as we froze -- then slowly turned around in recognition, only to find that Stalemate wasn’t anywhere in sight. Dizzy didn’t wait for any more discussion, and instead bolted out the door. Hard on Dizzy’s heels (hooves?) we bounded into the front room of the general store. It was empty as well. There were several more possibilities, but right now, Stalemate was gone and so were our caps. Why he’d do something so childish was beyond my comprehension, but I knew that there was only one other place he could reasonably spend them in town. Short of skipping out of town, he’d be at the inn.

Standing in the lobby and slightly short of breath, the party broke into little conversations of abrupt ideas of where to go. It seemed everyone had reached the same conclusion, or got there pretty quickly as soon as somepony yelled ‘the inn!’ and then a chorus of agreement before we bolted towards the door and the square.

The first one out the door was Dizzy, and he must’ve been thinking about pounding Stalemate’s face in more than running, because his back hoof got caught on the threshold of the door, causing him to sprawl out and fall on the entryway. Not expecting the obstruction, I tripped over Dizzy, which tripped Page, then Wingnut. Only Ash was standing in the lobby, but not for long, as she fell over laughing from watching all us tip over like fuzzy dominoes.

I could barely hear a wheezy groan from Dizzy, as the remaining air in his lungs was pushed out from the force of the ponypile. One by one we got up, and there were more than a few yelps as legs and ribs were bruised from hooves trying to find solid ground again. This will be an absolute miracle if we make it more than a week. Friggin MTI’s would have loved to have seen us breach that doorway. Quickly but with a greater respect for single-file running, we departed Copper’s for the Inn.

Morningside was was so thrilled to see us barge through the door that there was a shotgun up in our faces before I managed to get a word out. I wasn’t sure how she was managing to talk around the gun in her teeth, but I was sure glad she managed without pulling the trigger.

“You had better think real hard about charging right into my establishment while armed to the teeth. You start any trouble and I will end you. I’ll make the survivors mop the place afterwords, got it?”

She stared me down and made it clear that the shotgun wasn’t leaving that annoying spot between my eyes until I gave a satisfactory answer. “Yeah, I got it, boss.”

As she slipped the shotgun onto her back, I sat down and let out a whooshing breath and rubbed my forehead roughly. Ash was probably gonna hate Morningside for a while, but I was just glad that no shells or slugs went through my skull. Seeing as I was not despised enough to be shot, I figured a question wouldn’t be out of the question.

“Hey, Morningside, have you seen a purple unicorn buck in here?”

“Funny you should ask. He’s in the next room.”

Morningside pointed toward the room past the the stairs, and we thundered along. It’s kind of amazing just how much noise the hooves of five ponies makes on hard floors. There weren’t many patrons inside, but those who were present barely even looked up. Of course they were used to the noise, but for me it was grating.

I was expecting Stalemate to pop up and react to us charging into the room. Perhaps he’d jump up and try to run before we piled on him, or he would be expecting us and be ready to run, or perhaps he would have some sort of good reason that we needed to hear. He did none of those. For that matter, he paid no attention to us whatsoever as we charged in and skidded to a stop.

The room was almost empty, with only a small table about the size of something I’d like to see on the end of a sofa near the window. On one side of the table sat Stalemate, his rump against the floor as he poured over the chessboard. I knew this face all too well: it was like running into him while he was still in a chess tournament. His expression was utterly blank, his breathing was all-too-calm, and even his body was still. Across the table sat another unicorn, boasting a white coat so smeared with dirt that I thought it was beige until I saw the few clean spots. Atop his head was a mass of black mane held in place by a worn stetson hat, or whatever it was called in this place, and on his flank was a tin can with a cap resting on it.

He was frowning, which was the usual expression anyone had while playing Stalemate at chess. That certainly was chess, no doubt about it -- an eight-by-eight black and white grid board with pieces carved from wood. The white side had Celestia as the king with guards as her pawns, and a myriad of other pieces I didn’t recognize as the bishops, rooks, and knights. Luna ruled over the black pieces, again with her guards making up the bulk of the pieces, and more pieces that probably meant a lot more to somepony a few hundred years back. Two more things were readily apparent: Stalemate had almost exactly the same number of pieces on the board than the stranger did, and our bag of caps was on the floor next to the table beside several more bags that were spilling caps on the floor.

“What the fuck are you--”

I cut off Dizzy with a foreleg. There was no doubt that Stalemate needed quiet and focus for the time being, and we could reprimand him for being an idiot later. If he won, and really was betting everything it looked like, we’d be doing a lot better. This would be shooting fish in a barrel. Dead fish, with a bazooka. Two minutes passed with Page and Wingnut making small talk before the stranger moved, prompting an immediate move by Stalemate who slouched back wearing a triumphant grin. As his telekinesis faded out, he spoke one word.

“Checkmate.”

The other unicorn stared for a few moments, frown turning into a gaping jaw. “No! That can’t be! You cheated!”

“No,” countered Stalemate, “you lost. And you’re trying to cover it up with protests. That won’t work, now hand over the caps.”

“Hand over?” asked the unicorn with some confusion.

“Hoof over!” yelled Stalemate, holding out his foreleg.

“No, you’re trying to rob me!” The other unicorn stood, and seized two of the bags on the ground in his magic. Curiously, he left one of them on the floor next to our bag, which Stalemate scooped up. Before I could process the thought, the stranger charged right at us, running headlong with the caps in tow.

“Oh no you don’t!” hollered Dizzy as he threw himself toward the unicorn. Page, Ash, Wingnut and I all spread to fill the doorway. Whoever this prick was, he wasn’t about to get away.

The unicorn ran headlong into Dizzy who simply collapsed on the smaller pony. They fell to the floor in a heap of flailing legs and wings, and Stalemate ran in to kick his dishonorable opponent while gently explaining his fury.

“You cheating piece of shit! I am going to take back the caps you owe me and then beat you until you’re more purple than me!”

One more good kick landed on the stranger’s ribs and I winced a little. They were taking this payback thing just a little too far. I opened my mouth to tell them to cut it out and just take their caps back, but I was silenced by a bright flash of magic. When the light faded, Stalemate and Dizzy were in a pile together, minus their victim. In that moment, light flashed somewhere behind me with a whooshing noise as the air displaced.

“Ha!” cried the unicorn as he sprinted out of the common room.

“Tin Tack you scoundrel, get back here!” hollered Morningside to no avail. The door hung open, still swinging from the force Tack imparted to it as he ran through. There was no way I’d be catching him unless I figured out how to fly in the next five seconds. Instead, I turned to see Dizzy and Stalemate getting to their hooves, and Stalemate dourly picking up the two bags of caps that he had.

“Well, at least I kept some of them. So I guess you guys are probably wondering why I grabbed your caps and ran?” I nodded. That was an understatement, but it would do for now. “Well, I saw this guy earlier at lunch, and picked him out for who he was, and knew you’d never let me clean him out if I asked, so I took matters upon myself. And see? Now I have about two hundred caps, like double what we used to have.”

“That’s great, Stalemate, but what did you do?”

“Well, after I got the gun, I lifted your caps, then went over to the inn to find Tin Trash still here. He went into a predictable pattern of losing a few caps to me over board games to try and lure me into a false sense of confidence, and I let him. Then, after we have even amounts, he went ahead and bet everything, and I took him apart for real. That’s when you bounded in, and he cheated.”

Morningside sighed as she walked into the room. “Yes, I’m sorry you had to meet Tin Tack. I’m not quite sure how he hasn’t been thrown out of town yet, but I keep booting him out the door every time he sets hoof in my inn. He begs for what caps he can, and cons what he can’t off travelers and the less intelligent locals. It’s safe to say you’re not going to be finding him, and I can’t get you your caps back.”

“I can’t really complain. After all, we did double them off his ungrateful hide.” I tried to sound cheerful, but Stalemate wasn’t having it.

“No, that fucker cheated!”

I wound up a hoof, and lightly punched Stalemate in the side. “Well, that’s just how it goes, I’m afraid. If we run into him again, I promise I’ll let you do the talking.”

“Stalemate, you got your cutiemark!” Ash pointed at his rump, and smiled before clicking her hooves together in glee. There stood was a white knight clashing against a black king, both firmly etched into the purple of his flank.

His brows furrowed for a moment, then a little more as his face shifted from confusion to anger. “I got my what?”

“Look at your ass.” Dizzy pointed at Stalemate’s flank, and Stalemate turned to look it some curious mix of bewilderment and horror. “It means that, by some of Celestia’s grace, you don’t suck at something.”

“Wait, this means I have like some kind of knack for this, right?” Stalemate turned around several time, looking at both sides and finding it to his liking. With each look back and forth, his grin grew wider.

“Yes, chess is apparently your special talent. Or maybe games, we already knew you were good at chess though. Too bad it couldn’t have been something a little more useful, like a rifle, or a grenade, or maybe a swooning mare.”

“But I got mine first out of all of you! That means I’m better! Or smarter, or something awesome! You should all call me Checkmate now. And I got us caps!” He held up the second plastic bag, just as full of caps as ours. “I won that off him the first few games when he was trying to play me up, and he didn’t manage to grab it when he ran.”

“I dunno,” sniggered Dizzy. “Perhaps I’ll just call you ‘Purple Smart.’”

That earned a round of laughter from all present, and I suspected that despite Stalemate’s protests, his new nickname would stick. It was still better than ‘Fluffy’ in my opinion.

“Come to think of it, my glyph mark is built in!” Page interjected as the excitement was still dying down. “But since we’re on the topic, I don’t really know what it means yet. I bet you… Actually, I don’t bet you anything, but I think I’m supposed to figure out what it means or something! What do you all think?” He turned to show off his flank, which sported a swirl of sorts, with a trio of single-barbed arrows curling around the outer edge.

I honestly had no idea what to make of it. Zebras had some other governance that was not explained as far as I knew, and guessing at it wasn’t likely to come up with the right answer. “I dunno, Page. Maybe if we run into some other Zebra, we can ask later.”

Stalemate would flaunt that cutiemark, despite it being a representation of everything that he hated in life. I couldn’t blame him. He needed something to hold onto, anything to keep his wits together in the wasteland. We all did, and he had found it. For him especially, this world is exceptionally foreign.

I wasn’t going to begrudge him it, though it got me thinking as to what my solace might be. The answer came to mind relatively quickly, in the form of a gray unicorn still trading banter against Stalemate with a smile on her face. I could stare and stare and stare, and pass away days and nights with her in my eyes. Yet life seemed bent on throwing me something else to get in the way every last time we got close together. Ironically, the wastes had been the most time we’d been able to spend within a hundred miles of each other for the better part of a year. Not much use in dwelling on that, but at least there was one way to be optimistic.

It was in the aftermath of the chaos of having guns shoved in our faces and panic over lost money that we found ourselves waiting the rest of the afternoon at Radheart’s clinic. With time to kill, Dizzy and I had decided to try to figure out the aberration that was the flying horse. By clambering up onto the sagging and low-slung rear section of the clinic’s roof, we could slowly make our way up and over the arch and glide off the top of the building. ‘Glide’ was a relative term, and each of us had planted our faces in the dirt a dozen times that afternoon. If anyone dared to use the term ‘like riding a bike’ I was going to chuck them off the roof.

Eventually we gave up on flying practice after our legs, muzzles, wings...hell, everything got scraped up and ached in one fashion or another. There wasn’t much more to be said for falling ten or fifteen feet out of the air. Once I’d made it as far as the middle of the square and flapped hard enough to shake myself completely upside down before slamming to the ground.

Being in the air, even for moments, was a chance to get a different view on what everyone else was doing while we were busy. As far as I could tell, Page, Stalemate, and Ash were off practicing magic by the inn, lifting objects and manipulating them in creative ways. Every now and again a flare of bright light would erupt and I would wince a little at the sight. I just hoped they’d ready to fight later. Page had already burned himself out once or twice practicing, and judging by the random shouts, it didn’t feel nice either. I didn’t have much of a choice but to trust their judgement. Wingnut, by comparison, was shifting between watching Dizzy and I crash, and being entranced by the pretty magic colors of the other three.

At some point enough was enough, and we all cut our losses to go back inside and pack our saddlebags for the trip ahead.

Ash found her way to my cot at some point during the night. It was a dark hour that I would have normally reached for my watch out of a compulsive need to know the time when I woke, but I had no timepiece. I don’t know why losing something as trivial as my watch was bothering me so much, but it was just another something to reinforce the reality that we were hopelessly far from home. Put it at the bottom of an endless list of such things. Uneasy, I took Ash in my forelegs. There wasn’t anything in her touch that wanted more than just to be held and looked after. I was fine with that, but wasn’t long for the waking world either. So I held her as the night continued its weary walk over the wastes and slowly drifted back to the sweet void of sleep.

There were dreams in that void, to be sure, but they were not whole. Flakey, piecemeal little things that the subconscious dragged out of the rain and into my house to throw onto the rug for my approval. Some things were missing all their color, others their sound, and still others were devoid of sight entirely. Definitively, all of them lacked every form of emotion, as if I were a computer watching the event unfold. A raider fell onto a chainsaw under me. I pulled him up. I wiped the blood off. Wingnut screamed as his wings were shorn off his back. Oops. Stalemate ran off with our money. Come back here, you scrawny miscreant. I chased after him and found myself in a car. I was driving with hooves. We watched as a crackling ball of plasma overtook it, and shook me awake.

I must have shuddered or moved, because Ash woke too. She groaned, then shifted around a little, then pulled one of my forelegs over her tighter. I resisted the urge to grumble as she dozed off again. Dreams never really made any sense after I awoke.

Morning came too soon, as it always did. Being a morning person, or pony, wasn’t about enjoying getting up when the alarm rang. It was more of a state of functioning, a body that behaved a lot more like a battery than a person. Right after charging it, you’d get the highest voltage off the rails. Just like charging that battery, sleep was like plugging me in, and so for the few hours after getting up I’d be the most energetic and observant. Again, that didn’t mean I liked getting up.

“Wake up down there!” hollered Radheart from the top of the stairs. “You’re lucky that I’m feeding you idiots today!”

At the word ‘feeding,’ Ash was gone. That was not fair! Ponies should not be able to move that quickly. I clutched at the empty space where she’d been, missing her warmth and comfort, then sighed and slid out of bed. A heartbeat passed before my hooves slammed into the floor. This time, no one came to my aid to steady me, but I didn’t need help. Yes! Three days, and I can get out of bed!

All that joy was short lived as Wingnut and Page ran right past me and Stalemate staggered along growling at all that was good in life. For once I agreed with him.

“Don’t you wish they would just trip and fall every now and again?”

“Dom, I just want out. I don’t really care what’s going on, who hurts, or what we’re doing. I can’t take this nightmare any longer. I want to be home, I’ve got to have hands, I need to go back to my life. Niceties like food, a warm bed, and chess don’t make this place anything better than the worst few days of my life. No dream could go on this long, so I’ve had to accept that we’re actually here,” Stalemate began to quiver. “And that we’re gonna go get into a gunfight in just a few hours! How the hell did you get us into that? I’m a chemist, not a soldier!”

“Sawyer, I’m not enjoying this any more than you are. It’s not some sort of fantasy I’d enjoy. In my perfect version of this, there’s more food, less trudging through cold hills, and far less getting shot at. Oh, and you wouldn’t be here.”

“That sounds a lot nicer.”

We started up the stairs, taking them slowly to avoid a repeat of the last few days.

“Well, for whatever it’s worth, I’m just trying to get us back. There isn’t exactly a manual on how to do it, you know.”

“Whatever.”

That was probably all I’d be getting out of him for a while, as everyone else was just one room over in the kitchen. Page and Wingnut were eating heartily, but Dizzy wasn’t touching anything. Radheart hung onto him with a grin, trying to feed him with spoon. He wasn’t having any of it, but that sure didn’t stop her from trying. Ash was looking longingly at what was probably going to be my bowl.

Radheart had prepared some kind of porridge for us, and two ceramic bowls of it were left out on the table, still frothy and steaming. The table was low to the ground, just the right height for everypony to sit on the floor and reach their food. It seemed so much more ergonomic than chairs. Conversely, sticking my face into the bowl seemed outright barbaric. Rather than stare at the light-brown goop with its enticing steam rising into my nostrils, hinting at grainy goodness below...awww fuckit.

Covering my snout with gruel was not how I wanted to start my day or present myself to the town, so I opted for trying to lick it up. Eating like a cat simply wasn’t meant for other creatures, and with each lap I got just enough to taste the salty, wheaty mush. It was good! And I was ever so hungry. The bowl beckoned, telling me to just go for it and devour.

“If you don’t eat it, I’m giving your portion to somepony else,” threatened Radheart.

The bowl lit up with a cherry-red glow, and slowly started to slide along the table with a scraping noise. It got almost a quarter of the way over to Ash before I growled, grabbed the edges, and dragged it back.

Time to cave. The bowl filled most of my vision as my muzzle went several inches deep into the porridge. As soon as my face entered the mush, Ash sighed and let go. Eating became as simple as sucking up the food and making sure it didn’t go down the wrong pipe. In seconds I had finished the entire bowl and sat back up, trying to lick the mess off my face. Across the table, Stalemate looked at me with some amusement as he levitated another glob up to his face.

“Having fun now, horn-head?” I demanded.

He daintily chewed, then swallowed, and answered with a ghost of a smile. “A little, yes.”

The remainder of breakfast went by quickly, and all too soon we were strapping on saddlebags, checking weapons, and heading out the door. The morning air was cold and refreshing, complimenting the early sunrise. Alpine was not just waking, but ready to move. Farmers left their homes, sporting rifles in their mouths and on saddles, everypony bidding husbands or wives goodbye at the door and walking away steel-faced. The echoes of the tears of children and loved ones staying behind could be heard, and I cried with them on the inside. I couldn’t promise that all of them were coming back, and they knew it too. Radheart must have seen me shudder, because she stopped me as everyone else went forward into the square.

“You know Rainfall has been looking for a good reason to clear those raiders out for a long time, and so have the townsfolk. It’s them or us, and you can’t afford to worry about any more than your own.”

“Right.” I’d have my hooves full taking care of my friends, assuming that I could even control that. Radheart was correct, of course, but that didn’t change the enormity of what was taking place. Up ahead, Rainfall was standing in the center of the gathered villagers giving some kind of motivational speech. I didn’t care about a word of it. I was only looking at the five ponies gathered on the edge of the crowed.

Stalemate stood twirling his BB gun out of boredom. He was looking over several of the local mares, and right now I wasn’t about to stop him. Page was paying rapt attention to Rainfall, as if drawing some kind of inspiration from the mechanic turned mayor. Wingnut shifted about uncomfortably next to Page, shooting covert glances at the villagers. There was Dizzy, checking over his rifle once more, making sure that if everything else went to hell that he’d still have something to shoot with. His dark, leathery wings were more than enough to cause the locals to steer clear of him. Ash stood next to him, staying close for warmth. That was where I needed to be. Without further mind, I trotted up next to her and nuzzled up against her other side, earning a warm hum from her.

“...and when we return, Alpine will be safe for all! Let us march out and meet them, kill them, and prove that honest living is what ponies will fight and die for!”

Rainfall finished his speech amid cheers and thunderous stomping of hooves. After a few moments, the revel died down and he led the crowd out toward the town wall and the gate at the far end. I shivered and hunched my saddlebags firmly over my bag, savoring the spot underneath them that was free from the chill breeze blowing down from the mountains. We fell into the back of the mob, following Radheart away from the one safe place we’d come to know.

Three hours later, the mountains seemed closer, but still deceptively out of reach. Mid-morning had not yet left the land, and the eternal gray above held the light at near-dusk and obscured any sense of time. Heavy fog covered the range’s expanse, so thick that it may as well have just been clouds that descended from the heights and coalesced to obscure the road ahead. The fog just sat there, waiting, wisps breaking off the edges like snow in a river. Far out into the low-lying white sea, the snowy caps of their taller rocky brethren poked through the mists. Somewhere in that swath lay an entire camp of raiders, bored and waiting for us to show up. Yet on we went.

The trail had been a constant change between the ravines and the ridges, for when the path along one could go no further, we had to change our route. It was a never ending game of pushing towards a goal that we could never approach straight, but following the guide at the front of our group was the best we could do. Small comfort came in noting that none of us were tripping consistently. Even though Stalemate, Ash, Dizzy, and myself had all tripped once at some point along the way, it was a good deal less than two days before. Still, there was no avoiding the stares of the townsponies. Somewhere along the way I’d heard all the usual drivel about ‘strangers’ and ‘raiders’ in reference to one or more of us, but even more amusing was hearing the pegasus racial slurs. Or species slurs. Whatever they were, it made me laugh. I had no deep pegapride burning in me that being called a feather-duster, a buzzard, or feather-fuck could hurt.

I’d tried talking with a few of them, but apparently the mistrust ran deep enough that they’d held their silence until I’d given up and left. Behind me, Ash, Stalemate, and Dizzy were all trudging along in silence, and years experience told me that they didn’t want another soul interrupting their thoughts. Up ahead, Page and Wingnut were trading banter and jabs at each other, but there was not enough room on the path next to them. I was getting bored and restless, and honestly just wanted someone to dump the churning contents of my brain onto before they burned a hole through the bottom of my skull and leaked into my throat. I was walking toward a firefight in a body I’d reached child-levels of mastery with, toting a rifle very likely eight times as old as myself, and planning to fight with my back up against ponies who hated me. All of that was whirling around my head and needed a place to get dropped off. Since my friends were out, and the villagers were out, that just left one other pony.

Radheart was a dozen paces ahead of Page and Wingnut, whom I dashed around as soon as they hit a point in the trail just barely wider than two ponies. Rocks crunched and soil spread under my hooves as I thundered forward and tried to skid to a stop next to the doctor. Tried. Instead I slid, lost my balance, and sprawled into the dirt.

“Smooth.” Radheart giggled and helped lift me up.

I growled, shaking off the pain. “Just practicing my moves for the upcoming fight.”

“Sure, sure. So what’s going on?”

“Well, needed to ask somepony a few questions, and you didn’t look busy, or like you want to push me off the next ridge.”

“Oh I wouldn’t dream of doing that. Somepony has to stand and take bullets for me, and I need my Dizzy in one piece.”

I bit my lip and pushed forward, making sure not to trip over a protruding root. “So, after all we gave you about ourselves yesterday, I was hoping I could hear a bit about how you became the town doctor?”

“Oh, I’m glad you asked! You see, I was born an ignorant filly in stable forty-two, and my whole life I was utterly convinced I would live and die there. When our overmare had a bad estrus day, she threw several pretty filles out of the stable who were banging the stallions she fancied. Once out of the stable, we were forced into a desperate existence of fighting for every scrap of food we had and learning to fight with weapons we never had to touch before. Only through my medical training did we hold together for long enough to realize that there was a greater meaning to our existence, and that we had to use our new skills and friendships to help the wasteland. It was also in that time that I found that every last friend I had was gay.” She shrugged. “It helped keep the loneliness at bay on the long walks across the northern tundras, and really helped to have somepony warm to hold onto when it was cold. They died one by one as we pitted ourselves against greater and greater foes in order to bring peace and prosperity to all, and when none were left save for myself, I settled down in Alpine to use my medical knowledge and help others as best as I could.”

At some point along her narrative, my mind had decided to listen solely to her, rather than focusing on my hoof placement, and I stumbled again. “Wait, really?”

“No. I was born in Alpine, and got apprenticed to Hock, the old doctor. When he died, he passed the clinic on to me, and I’ve been working there since. The end.”

I couldn’t help it, and let out a chuckle as she petulantly pointed out how quickly her story sailed over my head. Perhaps if I could just look past the part where she was prostituting my best friend, I might warm up to her a little. It just might work.

“And Rainfall?”

“A childhood rival, and the town mechanic. He’s held the generator together with tape and pine tar long enough to keep us going, and he negotiated with neighboring towns to get the parts we needed to fix it. Hence why he’s also the mayor.”

“Not exactly what I was asking for. What’s your deal with him?”

“His family and mine have some old dispute over farm property. If I remember it right, his dad and my dad lost track over who borrowed a shovel from whom at one point, and it turned into an unfriendly, unforgiving game of ‘steal it back.’ Since then, there haven't really been any smiles between us. It seems pointless, but I can’t make up for it.”

“And now?”

“Now I help the town as the doctor, like I always have. And I’m here because odds are we’ll need one.”

“Yeah...about that. Raiders don’t really seem to like to go quietly. And you’re somehow convinced that it’s a good idea for us to be here?”

“Aside from Rainfall forcing you into this and the townsfolk demanding it? Not really. Especially with Wingnut being just off the operating table. But while you’re here, you may as well try your best. It might help you come back in one piece. Now, you told me how you got here, but since you have more than enough of my life story, what do I get of yours?”

I grumbled at the dirt. “Can that wait until after we get done being shot at? For all my life I dreamed about it, but it doesn’t sound quite as much fun now that I’m walking toward it.”

“You’ve never had to do anything like this before?”

“No, I had to go through some training where I ran through a fake town and shot at paper cutouts with fake guns. That was four years ago, and then I learned to be a computer guy. I’m not a deft hand--hoof, excuse me, with a gun, but rather just familiar. And no, I’ve never been in a gunfight. So I’m not exactly relishing the thought of it. I’ve seen what raiders do, and there is nothing nice or friendly about it.”

“No, there’s not. But that’s why what you’re about to do is the right thing. It’s not nice or glorious, and it could really hurt, but it’s going to help a lot of good ponies. And it might even help you a lot too. Take comfort in that.”

“Trust me, I have seen firsthand what raiders can do, getting them out of the wasteland is a good thing for everyone.” Radheart’s eyebrows lifted at the reference to human appendages and I made yet another mental note to use proper local terminology.

“Can I ask you a question about Dizzy?” Radheart’s voice dropped, losing its usual cheer, as her eyes found the ground.

“Sure?”

“When I first spent the night with him he seemed rather quiet, I attributed that towards almost losing a friend, but he still seems so…distant. Is that just who he is?”

I looked towards the sky, thinking. I shifted my weight to sling the rifle a little more evenly on my back, somehow managing not to trip. After a while I found words. “We are all in a weird place, in different bodies, and one of us almost died. But most of all, he killed a pony, not with a gun, but with his bare hooves. And yes, he can be downright cold if he’s in the mood for it. It’s more often than not just how he is.”

“I’m not sure...I’ve never seen a buck that unhappy to get rutted.”

I sighed. “Radheart, you’re not going to like the answer.”

“Try me.”

“Very well. I know he wouldn’t bed a mare short of the most honorable intentions. The sole reason you talked him into your room is because he had to choose between that and being the reason one of his friends wouldn’t live to see the next day.”

Silence held us as Radheart looked away. Only the sounds of the hoof-falls of dozens of ponies echoed over the landscape now as we marched forward into the mist.

Sky Sage: Level Two (50% to next level)

Here’s to hoping for the best.

Adonicus: Level Two (50% to next level)

I’m going to have to kill again...

Ashen Shield: Level Two (50% to next level)

This is only one step down from a suicide mission. That’s hardly comforting.

Stalemate: Level Three

I will teach Tin Tack manners one day. One day.

Perk: Ass-tattoo...Butt-Brand...err...cutiemark. Whatever.
Your butt has a picture on both sides. Yippee. This clearly means you’re better than everyone else. Also, you now feel like you have an edge whenever you need to outmaneuver an opponent.
+1 INT and +1 LUCK when dealing with board games or tactics

Page Gemwright: Level Two (50% to next level)

I can’t die now, there’s far too much to lose. Do anything to keep moving ahead.

Perk: Glyphmark
You’ve realized that you have a pair of strange marks on your sides. They seem so intrinsically familiar that you’re ashamed to admit not knowing what they mean...

Wingnut: Level Two

Life is like a boxing match, you won’t last long if you can’t roll with the punches.

Author's Note

Finished formatting this twelve minutes before midnight, but that still counts as published on the appointed day. Expect the next one no later than a month from now. Hope the song was worth the wait too.