The Twilight Guard

Chapter IV

        We were on the road again. Brightwing trotted along a little further behind me than usual, and rather than her usual “quiet”, she was being downright silent. I cast a glance back at her, but her stoic nature hid anything I might have gleaned from that look. I stopped.

        “First Spear, you look troubled. Speak  your mind.”

        Brightwing just looked at her hooves and mumbled quietly. This mare was beginning to bother me.

        “Damn it Brightwing! Speak up!” I was being harsh again. The poor mare didn’t deserve all the abuse I’d heaped on her since we set out, but she took it without complaint. I’m still not sure if that was a good thing or not.

        My companion stuttered, tripping over her own tongue before stammering “I don’t trust him, sir, and I don’t think you should either. He’s clearly up to no good, and this mission you’ve accepted is either folly or just plain wrong.” Seeing my stunned expression, she hastily added “But it’s not my place to question orders, sir, I apologise, sir. I will follow where you lead, even if the mission is wrong. Even if this unicorn is slimier than the food back home.”

        I was at a loss for words. This was the longest sentence I think I had ever heard Brightwing say, and it was.... against me? Against what I’d chosen to do? I scowled. I didn’t think Cinnamon Sprocket was slimy. He seemed to be the only pony interested in helping us out here. He’d even given us expensive equipment! We were now sporting what Cinnamon had called “battle saddles”, mine secured a combat shotgun on each shoulder, and Brightwing’s had semi-automatic rifles. He’d given us ammunition aplenty too, and even trained us each to be able to use, reload, and maintain the weapons. As far as I was concerned, that was incredibly generous. Certainly not worthy of calling the poor unicorn slimy, even if he wasn’t around to hear the offense.

        “Well, I don’t want to hear any more badmouthing of Cinnamon Sprocket. He’s done well by us so far, and this should be over soon enough. Then we can get back to our mission.”

        Turning around and continuing walking, I thought back on what Cinnamon had asked us to do. It seemed easy enough. Go to an abandoned Ministry of Wartime Technology warehouse outside of Horsaw, meet a pony named Hoofschev, get his key whether we killed him or not, and then bring the key back to Cinnamon. When I’d made my report this morning, I’d left this mission out of the transmission. I really don’t think Commander Slaughter needed to know I was doing a hit job for a local until I brought back what Cinnamon had promised would be enough firearms to equip the Guard three times over.

        Horsaw was due north of Hoofsinki, and had apparently been a major city, one of the most important in the Unicraine region of Equestria. It had been the site of some of the Ministry of Wartime Technology’s main research facilities and manufacturing centers and even before the war it had apparently been a manufacturing hub. Cinnamon had told us to avoid the city itself and stick to the outlying buildings like the one we were heading to, but he hadn’t explained why. I aimed to find out once we arrived.

        With Horsaw only being a few miles north of Hoofsinki, I was left wondering why Cinnamon didn’t go himself to get this key. I got my answer within an hour of leaving the village. The roads were infested with raiders. I won’t bore you with the details, especially since we didn’t encounter that many of them and none of them had anything particularly interesting on them, but suffice to say they delayed our arrival outside of Horsaw until nightfall. Normally, we would have camped and waited out the night, but with our armour being so dark and us having the element of surprise, I wanted to take advantage of this so we could get the hell moving again. Before moving to the warehouse, I made a quick transmission to describe the journey and roads from Hoofsinki to Horsaw.

        The warehouse we were supposed to meet this Hoofschev at was as dilapidated as one could expect, but with all the work that had been done on it by its inhabitants, it looked sturdy and even a little fortified. Armed ponies stood guard. I counted maybe a dozen I could see. Definitely not ponies to tangle with. No battle-saddles, but they all had guns. Mostly revolvers in earth pony mouths, but I did count a couple of unicorns with heavier munitions. These guns found themselves trained on us. Apparently my “sneaking in” plan was already scrapped. Time for Plan B.

        Brightwing and I marched up to the gatehouse with practised military ease. I presented myself to the guard as a mercenary in the employ of Cinnamon Sprocket, come to see Hoofschev. The guard watched me lazily, as if deciding whether she should just have me shot there for her amusement until I mentioned Cinnamon. Suddenly she was alert.

        “Sprocket? Oh yeah, Hoofschev’ll want to see you. Go right on in.” She said slyly, as if she knew something we didn’t. In hindsight, she did and I was a fool not to have caught on. She waved one off the other earth ponies over with a hoof and he proceeded to take us inside the warehouse.

        The warehouse was just as ramshackle on the inside as it had been on the outside. The emblem of the Ministry of Wartime Technology was still painted on the walls, on every pried-open box and crate in the building, and even on the floor. It was too dark to see what was in the crates, if anything, but they were scattered the entire length of the building. We were led to the back offices of the building, where a large, gruff, balding earth pony sat behind a carved-up oak table that had probably been very fine once upon a time. The earth pony looked up at us.

        “Who is this? Who do you bring to disturb me in the night?!” He was very loud. “I told idiots not to bring me ponies at night! I should fucking kill all ponies now!” His broken, accented speech I couldn’t account for. It was unlike any accent I’d heard before or since.

        The guard spoke up before I could. “Excuse me, sir. These ponies approached the gate and mentioned your brother by name. We figured you’d want to see them.”

        Hoofschev’s expression lit up. “Cinnamon? You bring word of Cinnamon! Tell me. Tell me now! What in fuck are you doing here? Get out!!” This last part was addressed to the guard, who scurried out like his tail was on fire.

        “Cinnamon Sprocket would like the key. He’s sent us to retrieve it.”

        Hoofschev soured immediately. “I bet he wants key. Tell him I want bunker, and to see him fucked in ass. Then killed. Or other way, I don’t care.”

        This was already going poorly. His incredibly foul language was getting on my nerves, and his obstinacy was clear and problematic.

        “I’m afraid that’s not how it works. We’re to get the key and meet him back in Hoofsinki. I’d like the key, and I don’t want any problems.”

        Hoofschev was now on the verge of rage. Clearly he had a very very short fuse. “You come into my home, speak traitor name I kill ponies for saying, and threaten to steal from me?!” His face purpled, clashing strangely with his light brown coat and thinning white mane. He began banging his horseshoes on the big oak table. “I will bury him! And you too!” I could hear guards scrambling to respond to Hoofschev’s barking and raving.

I nodded to Brightwing, who moved to the door and jammed a nearby broom through the handles so the door couldn’t be opened from the outside of the office. Hoofschev was now screaming to the point of being unable to make coherent sentences, just strings of accented words with a “fuck” or “cunt” thrown in every couple words.

I yelled right into his face to try to make him hear me. “Give us the key NOW! I may just let you live!”

He screamed right back. “You think you kill me? Tiny pony is idiot! I will skin you and your fuck toy! But first I fuck her too! I have your corpse fucked! I have you nailed to warehouse! Body will make others learn manners!” I’d had enough. Threatening to kill me was one thing, threatening to rape the live then dead bodies of myself and Brightwing was something else entirely.

I aimed my battle-saddle and chomped the bit. A round flew from each of the two combat shotguns strapped to my back, converging to split his back left leg from his body. Screaming, he dropped, taking the table down with him. I noticed a glint falling from his jacket as he hit the ground. I grabbed for it, and sure enough it was the key! Well, it was a key. I assumed it was the right one because of how Hoofschev howled when I took it.

By now, the guards were pounding on the door, trying to break it down. When a bullet burst through the handle of the left-hand door, I knew we had to escape somehow. I looked around the room...... and of course there were no other doors. How had I planned this so poorly? Surveying the room carefully for a moment, clearing my mind of the terror that was so omnipresent in that moment, focusing out the yelling and pounding of the guards and the screaming of the maimed Hoofschev, I found my out.

I dropped to a seated position and positioned my torso and my battle-saddle so they pointed as close to directly up as possible, then lowered my head and fired a half-dozen rounds from each of my shotguns straight into the rusted, centuries-old sheet metal ceiling. Shards of steel went flying in all directions. Glancing about through squinted eyes, I noticed Hoofschev writhing on the ground trying to dodge every piece of metal coming at him very unsuccessfully, and Brightwing had dropped to her belly with her hooves and wings underneath her, leaving just a steel shell with a shapely rump sticking out of it.

Once I stopped firing, I looked up and saw exactly what I’d been hoping for. A more-or-less pony-sized hole in the ceiling with just a thin spider’s web of steel in place. I yelled for Brightwing to follow as I shot out through the hole, bursting through the steel cobweb in a scene that must have looked awesome. I started flying straight back in the direction of Hoofsinki with Brightwing in tow. The guards were firing wildly at us, mostly firing from their mouths (which was difficult enough to do) and clearly unused to shooting at aerial opponents. I heard Brightwing gasp in pain at one point, but she didn’t slow down. We flew off into the night, our errant task complete.

*#@#*

I awoke the next morning in the bunker. By all rights I should have been freezing. I wasn’t wearing my armour. I tried to piece together the previous night. We’d travelled to Horsaw, I’d blown a leg off Hoofschev, and we’d grabbed the key and made it out of there. Not stopping moving until we reached Hoofsinki, we’d galloped when our wings could take us no further. We were concerned that we were being pursued, and we had been correct to assume so. I would learn later that day from Cinnamon that the militia that tried to protect Hoofsinki shot and killed one of Hoofschev’s ponies who’d pursued us, scattering the rest.

We’d stripped off our armour and given it to Cinnamon for him to work on as he’d promised to while we slept. We had been so tired. But if I’d just collapsed in a heap on the concrete floor like I felt like I had... why wasn’t I freezing my feathers off? I got a better look around the room. Cinnamon was cursing to himself as he soldered his own hoof across the room.

Brightwing. She was asleep on top of me. She was very warm. Her left wing was draped over me, and I could see a jagged, light wound on her flank. I found myself unconsciously tracing it with the tip of my wing, thinking that this must have been why she yelped during our escape. I made a note to make sure she cleaned and dressed her injury. As I traced the wound, I saw Brightwing’s face screw up in pain. I pulled my wing back and pretended to be asleep.

Brightwing rolled to her hooves and stood up nonchalantly. “Good morning, sir.”

The jig was up, I suppose. I stood up as well, shooting up much faster than I expected to. Having been wearing armour constantly since leaving home, I overestimated the amount of strength I’d need to stand.

“Ah.... yes.... First Spear Brightwing.... um.... what in Dash’s name was that?”

She blinked at me. I’d never seen her without armour before. She was thinner than I’d expected. Not weak-looking, but a lithe, spring-like thinness. I suppose fit would have been a better word. “Cold room, sir. Makes more sense to conserve body heat. Practicality and field training, sir.”

Across the room, Cinnamon Sprocket began to laugh like a jackdaw, but didn’t say anything.

Brightwing trotted outside with a canteen in her mouth. She always washed alone. I moved to Cinnamon to see what the silver-tongued engineer was working on.

His horn was aglow, orange magic encasing a plate of wicked-looking steel he was fastening to a joint. His creepy goggles turned to me. I still, even this close, had no idea what his eyes looked like. I just knew they were boring into me, examining me in ways I didn’t feel were necessary.

“Hold still, kid. Need to check something, and even I thought it was creepy to measure your bodies as you slept. Just bad form.”

He levitated the wicked-looking steel contraption to my side, and compared how it fit on my wing.

“Damn it, too short!” He magically dismantled the whole thing and began reassembling it with longer struts and plates he magically brought over from another table, and tried it again.

“Haha! Perfect fit! See kid, this part’ll be bladed. I’ve been looking at your ‘17s while you slept, and thinking of all the most fun ways to make you into a genuine killing machine. Or at least look the part. Ever hear of the Talon Companies? Ah the fuck am I thinking of course you haven’t. Griffins, y’hear? Part lion, part eagle. Vicious. Before the Enclave hit the wasteland, they were the best and coincidentally the only way of securing aerial power in the wasteland. Anywho, they wore and I think still wear wingblades. Fuckin’ boss, kid.”

“Wingblades?”

“Just what it sounds like! It’s a fuckin’ blade on your wing. Just fly by a pony and rip ‘em to bacon. No need to shoot or stab or nothing. Super easy, super awesome.”

I nodded thoughtfully. It was an interesting idea, and certainly one that could prove combat-effective.... My nod turned to one of approval, and despite my training and discipline, I felt a smile spread across my face. I took back in that moment any ill I’d thought of this pony, other than his creepiness. He was alright. Looking over the modifications he’d made to my armour, and hearing the enthusiasm with which he talked lightened my spirits after the adventure we’d had the night before.

“See, I added another plate, thin, to the inside of the breastplate. Hold up a bit better, y’know? Ah, filly’s here. Good, you should hear this too. As I said, reinforced breastplate. I tried to tinker with the magic on your suit to see what it was about, but I didn’t get far. Somepony pretty good built this stuff. I mean, I only managed to get a hint of what it was. Tricky stuff. High-level defensive magic, but I can’t tell anything else about it.” His eyes narrowed. Or so I figured based on his eyebrows. “You don’t seem that impressed by this information, kid. Sheesh, I mean.... Luna’s frigid cunt, I’m a repairpony non pareil! If I can’t fix it or built it, it’s not scientifically possible.” I hinted that this wasn’t just exaggeration.

I stayed quiet, but Brightwing offered a question. “Non pa-what?”

“Non pareil. Family saying. I might explain it on the road.”

Now I needed to speak. “The road? You make it seem like you’re going to travel with us.”

Cinnamon beamed. “There’s that smart kid again! That’s exactly what I’m planning to do. See, since you fuckups didn’t kill my brother, and then led his goons here, I can’t stay. So..... You and I are going to open this armoury, and take all this shit to your base. Yeah, I’m such a fucking gentlecolt that I even waited for you to be awake to open the vault I’ve been camped out next to for the last year and a half.”

I began to become suspicious of him again. “So.... you’re going to just hand over this equipment? Assuming there’s any left in there? From what I’ve gleaned of life in the wasteland, that doesn’t add up.”

Cinnamon looked insulted. “And last I checked, when somepony says ‘bring me his head on a fuckin’ plate’, you don’t blow ‘his’ leg off and leave him very much alive and really pissed at his little brother who sent incompetent mercs to ice him.”

I couldn’t help but squirm. I still to this day don’t know what possessed me to spare Hoofschev that day. Uprooting Cinnamon Sprocket would prove to be only the first repercussion of that bizarre act of mercy.

There really was no other way around it, though. Doesn’t mean I wanted to dwell on it. I nodded my head toward the vault door.

“Oh yeah! The armoury.... Let’s see what got locked away in here. With my luck, it’ll be the place the Ministry kept all their fucking cleaning bots.” He levitated the key into the keyhole in the center of the door and turned it. The rusted bolts released and shot back. For about a foot. Cinnamon cursed horrible profanities that would have offended myself and Brightwing if we’d worshipped Celestia. Kicking the door angrily, the unicorn unintentionally shocked the bolts to movement again and the heavy steel plates that made up the door shot back into the walls.

“....or not....” Cinnamon’s voice was hushed as he surveyed the heaps of weapons and ammunition that filled the room. There were so many weapons, and I didn’t even know what some of them were. There were guns of myriad types, there were flamethrowers and rocket launchers. Metal apples in different colours, landmines, sticky bombs, and other explosives. It was quite a haul. Father should be very pleased with me. But how could we move all of this? We’d need at least a dozen ponies and Dash’s divine approval to be able to haul all this loot back to Stalliongrad.

“So what’re we going to take with us?” I was already planning what to leave behind.

Cinnamon scoffed. “Celestia you’re either cheap or lazy, kid. We’re taking everything.”

I looked at him, dumbfounded.

“You don’t think I really didn’t plan for this, did you? I’ve got a car.” I had no fucking idea what that was supposed to be, and it bothered me that he seemed to expect me to know. Cinnamon sighed at our blank expressions. “Follow me outside.”

Leaving the bunker, he magically levitated a tarp and a heap of garbage off of a large form parked behind the bunker. It was a strange vehicle, with a cow catcher on the front and a podium at the front, and the smashed remains of what must have been glass tubes on the back half of it on top of a large block of machinery. It had two large wheel on the sides and one small one centered at the back.

“May I present..... this heap of shit. It’s been in the family for centuries. It’s not very fast. Or useful. But it beats walkin’. I feel like with some modifications I could rig it up to carry your prizes for you while at the same time deliverin’ me to what had damned well better be safety for me. It should just take an hour, so run along and try on your 17s while I fix this junker up a bit.”

“What.... is it exactly?”

“Used to be a cider press. All magically-powered. Unicorn exclusive. I just use it to ride around sometimes when I’m feelin’ too fuckin’ lazy to walk somewhere. Just sit back, use your horn, occasionally kick the engine block to get it running again, and before you know it you’ve reached wherever it is you’ve got a deathwish to go to.”

Rather than listen to the unicorn prattle on about his contraption any longer, Brightwing and I headed back inside to investigate our armour. Helping each other dress (Quiet you. Armour’s easier to put on with help.) we both liked what we saw. The armour felt lighter, despite having been reinforced. He’d even washed the quilted barding we wore underneath. I’d have to thank him for that. The wingblades were nothing short of, to use the sacred word, awesome. I couldn’t wait to give them a try. There was a tingly feeling that Brightwing reported to me and that I noticed too. I’d have to ask Cinnamon if he’d enchanted the suits. The wingblades had been painted to match the rest of our armour, and he’d even cleaned and maintained our battle saddles for us. Very well done. I was very impressed with the unicorn’s workmanship. I reported to Commander Slaughter that were were returning with supplies and information.

*#@#*

True to his word, Cinnamon Sprocket finished the modifications within the hour. We spent most of that morning loading the vehicle, and securing the weapons and crates of junk that Cinnamon insisted we bring with us. “I’ll need to set up a new workplace, and I can’t really do that if I don’t have any of my assorted wasteland trash, now can I?”

The vehicle was heavily laden with junk, weapons, and assorted belongings of Cinnamon’s. He’d had to tear out much of the machinery on the back to be able to fit everything, but somehow it all worked, despite looking mountainous and precarious. It moved very slowly when powered by his magic, but just fast enough that it justified not hauling boxes individually. Brightwing and I took position on either side of the vehicle and were able to leisurely walk beside it as it moved at full speed.

It was a bright, sunny day out. Hot, but not so hot that it made the march uncomfortable in armour. The roads were shockingly clear again. Though I suppose the sight of two heavy cavalry flanking a lumbering machine with a unicorn on it would have given any Raiders a second thought anyways. We got to talking with Cinnamon.

“So you said this machine’s been in your family for centuries? How does that work?”

Cinnamon laughed. “Well, before the war my family was basically in snake oil sales.” We didn’t laugh like he wanted to. “I’m sayin’ we were basically scammers. My insert a bunch of greats here grandfather and his brother travelled around with this machine connin’ ponies out of their bits with shitty imitation cider. Called it the Super Speedy Squeezy Drinkin’ 6000 or some shit I don’t remember. Anywho, they lived a fun life. Travelled from town to town, makin’ money and havin’ others pay for their accommodations and beddin’ mares wherever they went. Spawned a lot of bastards, and I mean that in a literal sense, kids. Eventually one of them... Flim. The one with the moustache. Er shit I think that was Flam. Fuck it. One of them, either the one with the moustache or the one without a moustache pussed out and grew some fatherly responsibility. The twins settled in Hoofington and got jobs as salesponies for some firm or other, though the one who didn’t pussy out did most of the travellin’ and bonin’. When the bombs fell, the one who pussed out was able to sneak himself and I think a couple of his foals into one of the stables before it closed. Other one was presumed lost. When our family emerged again, we were surprised when one of us made it to his pre-war home and found this piece of shit still workin’. We picked up the old family business and sold irradiated water to wastelanders. With the plants returnin’ though, we had to find new work. Clean water was everywhere, so ponies didn’t need our crap. This was all long before I was born, mind you. We were settled into some low-end work in Horsaw when my brother dispatched me to Hoofsinki. Figured that with my repair knowledge I’d be able to fuck around with the door and get it open. Cocksucker never told me he had the key. He just hoped the journey would kill me. Well, I showed HIM not to mess with Cinnamon J. Sprocket! Or at least, you were supposed to show him me showin’ him not to mess with Cinnamon J. Sprocket. And now I’m here. That’s really everything. Not that interesting, if you ask me. But the repairpony stuff really is what I do.”

Seeing him in the light now, I was able to get a glimpse of his cutie mark. It was a wrench twisting the lid from a glass bottle. What in Dash’s name was that supposed to mean? I didn’t ask. I probably didn’t want to know, and I really didn’t feel like listening to him go on about it.

Instead, I suffered his barrage of questions about our unit, our command structure, our tunnel network, food sources, Stalliongrad, and answered precious few of them. Mostly I fed him the tired “affiliated with the Ministry, not at liberty” line until he started saying it with me as I responded to his questions. It was hard to tell at that point whether he was still asking just to hear that line so he could chime in with it as I said it just to bother me. Cinnamon was definitely a “small doses” pony.

“Oh, before I forget, you guys are big into Ministry of awesome history, right? With Rainbow Sprint and that sort of thing?”

“Rainbow Dash, and yes.” I bristled.

“Well you know that orb you brought in?”

“The one we didn’t tell you about and kept hidden in our saddlebags? Yes.”

“Well I stole it and took a look at it. I’m a unicorn, in case you hadn’t noticed, so I used my magic to view the memory inside.”

Wait, memory? “Explain. What is the orb?”

Cinnamon looked nonchalant about it. “It’s a memory orb. Ponies used to be able to have memories extracted and stored in these things. Some ponies nowadays collect ‘em. You guys, in the care of any other pony, would be forever unable to view this precious piece of history that you will undoubtedly want to see. However I, the great Cinnamon J. Sprocket, have pioneered a new arcane technology that might, assuming I ever get it field-tested, allow non-unicorns to view memory orbs. And let’s just say that, uh, you’ll want to get this glimpse inside the lively mind of Rainbow Dash herself....”

Wait. We’d been carrying around a piece of Rainbow Dash’s memory? My knees felt weak at the thought of it, and I saw Brightwing visibly stiffen. I played it cool, calling the whole thing “interesting”, and asking him to remind us about that when we arrived. I could see Stalliongrad’s walls rising in the distance.

It only took a short time to reach the walls themselves, and I could hardly believe it. I noticed banners on the gates from a thousand feet away. From a few hundred feet, I could see figures patrolling the tops of the intact parts of the walls, and from the base of the gates I recognised our unit’s insignia on the banners – A Pony’s head with pegasus wings sprouting from either side, and with a sword above and another below the head, which carried an unrolled scroll in its mouth bearing the word “Twilight” – and received a stiff salute and hello from the Guardsponies on top of the walls. They hollered down to ponies on the inside, who opened the gates and allowed us entry into the city.

Ironside: Level 3

-Level up!

-New perk: Precision shot: When aiming, you now have a 10% better chance to hit limbs, or other specific targets on a pony’s body.

-New equipment: Modified Type 17 Steel Armour; Combat shotgun battle saddle

Brightwing: Level 3

-Level up!

-New Perk: Rapid reload: Brightwing now reloads her battle-saddle, and any other firearms she happens to be using, 25% faster.

-New equipment: Modified Type 17 Steel Armour; Semi-automatic rifle battle saddle