Fallout Equestria - The Eerie

You eventually get used to the height.

These walls aren’t exactly massive, but in a world populated by toppled buildings and ruined towers, they were about some of the only tall buildings left standing in the world, and why shouldn’t they? If the walls to Penumbra fell, Equestria fell with it. At least that was the consensus in Ranger territory and in the garrison itself.

The air up here was clean and even with the thick layers of cloud locking away our sun it was still very bright, most of all it was peaceful. It almost made you forget that if you were to turn your head left you’d stare right into gateway to hell.

Because that's all the highlands  are; Hell.

This far the effects were not that obvious but you could still see it if you tried. Between the massive jagged peaks and rugged bluffs that dotted the climbing highlands those thick and angry black clouds, you could even hear the clapping and roaring impure thunder and lightening from here.

I sucked in a deep breath in and immediately hacked and sputtered as an inconvenient waft of pungent cigarette smoke filled my nose, Lemon  Zest my newest ‘friend’ of sorts had sparked up a poorly packed and scrunched up cigarette as we sat perched atop the domineering wall, looking down on the absolutely packed crumbling main road leading to the Alwhinny gates. The braziers and sulfur yellow lamps that gave illumination to the garrison beginning to be snuffed out and made redundant in the faint grey light of the early morning.

Tens, maybe Hundreds of merchants lined up to move their caravans outside of the gates of hell and into the real world in order to sell the horns of daemons to the ignorant and the foolishly curious.

The tightly grouped carriages groaning as the lofty chassis shifted and cargo rocked, the jolts from the sudden starts and stops making the rocking transports form a wave of sorts, however the carriages were vastly outnumbered by the droves of caravaneers and traditional pack mule traders flanking us, clamouring about their demographic markets, exchanging tips and hearsay, not to mention the sly swapping of caps for contraband that the road has come to be known for.

    “Look how many of them have foals! why the hell is that?, who the fuck takes kids out into the Highlands?” Demanded Lemon Zest with furrowed brows, a not quite lanky not quite lithe buck, in the short time that I have known him he spoke with levity and jovially, his incessant knowing smirk made him dubious but likeable, he had that familiar glint in his eye of those who spend too much time in the Bazaar, like the sheen of polished caps was embedded in his iris. He took great care in his appearance, his light green mane stylishly unkempt, his bouncy fringe just coming short of his eyes, his youthful vibrant citrus yellow coat making his age difficult to discern.

There came a deeper masculine yet somehow exotic voice from behind us, The massive griffin shaped figure that was our commander stepped up behind us. Talc was his name, friendly enough and about reaching the point where you could consider him a Veteran Ranger, rumor had it that he was set to get a seat on the Ranger High Council. Titanic in stature, even for a griffin, his puissant, rigid frame spoke volumes about the beastial figure, it said ‘Killing is my business, and business is fucking booming.’

“Superstition, some say that foals can see through the eerie as if it weren’t even there.” He grumbled gruffly, sounding disinterested as he’d probably gave the same answer to the same shade of idiot that joins a thousand times over. Indifferently preening  the feathers from his long chestnut brown and gold pinions and plumages with his sharp talons.

“Thats insane.”Lemon flatly stated with a deadpan expression” Nobody sees through the clouds, and even if they did what's the point? It's not like there is anything much hiding in the dark out there anyway,” Lemon Zest scoffed, sucking loudly on the butt of his rapidly shrinking smoke, the warm glow inside reducing it to a stack of ash a faint reminder of what I had left behind.

The griffin gave a booming bout of laughter and shook his head “You know I heard the veteran rangers say that it's that kind of thinking that gets greenhorns like you killed out there, Penumbra is nothing but superstition recruit, in some places they say the mountains drive you insane, in others they think the bulldozers are alive, without Superstition, Penumbra is just a really dark shithole on the edge of the world.” He spoke, thoroughly bemused by Lemon’s supposed ignorance enough to be roused from his state of disinterest.

    “The Darkness is alive.” I shyly repeated the familiar adage in response as if it was a valid interjection into this conversation.

Our commander chuckled lightly and nodded his hulking avian head “Exactly, now get up and get your shit ready, the cart will be here soon.”

We did as we were told slinging our bags onto our backs and raising to our hooves to stand around and boredly watch down the length of the wall, the railway disappearing into the horizon The hoofcars loaded with rangers skirting the perimeter off to their distant destinations, rookies were the ones usually stuck working the pump as powered rail was too expensive to maintain, at best you could hope for one of those rare blessings of a small sputtering diesel engine mounted on the rear of a trolley.

    “What are we even doing today sir?” I asked to the griffin who despite my height still towered over me.

    “Darkwater Watch thinks they found a tunnel under the wall, looks like smugglers have been using it to dodge the gate and the taxes, Council thinks the garrison recruits like us need more field training and the Sapper intake needs actual work in the field so we’re meeting the Sapper - thats the engineer squad - for East Watch to go watch them plug up a hole under the wall.”

A pit opened up in my gut, a quickly bottled grievance spilled silently within me.

* * * * * * * *

There was a slight murmur from the handful of recruits that stood around waiting for the cart before another familiar voice spoke up, a softer feminine voice, bouncy and excitable. Margarine, an Earth Pony mare from some township near the Ponyville ruins, I don’t remember if she was actually named Margarine, she had some cutiemark that resembles a stick of butter so we just started calling her that.

    “Darkwater Watch, the keen mind would guess that is  the fortification nearest to Darkwater Down, thats where you’re from isn’t it Ashes?” She asked with that irrepressibly jaunty air about her, the thick tangerine coat and wildly fuzzy deep burnt orange curls made her look like a giddy filly cunningly masquerading as a full grown mare. Her warm smile and slightly cocked head adding to her aura of childlike wonderment and naivety

I nodded briskly, before I could even speak up Talc spoke for me “Yep, of course I don’t need to remind you all that Darkwater Down was attacked by some mutant about uh, month or two back? Well High Council has a very reasonable theory that this is how the thing got past the wall.”

I nodded a weakly, the reality that I could come face to face with something directly responsible for the death of my father was harrowing, I was all but lost in thought until Lemon elbowed me to snap me out of it  offering that same coy smirk of his along with an affirming nod, before us along the rails there was a cart rumbling slowly up to us with a bored elderly looking stallion sitting up front on it, as the cart neared he pulled a lever back and put on the screeching breaks before twisting his body and spinning around on a swiveling chair to face the correct direction once we left for the way he came.

The cart was nothing special, in fact it was most likely not even originally on the wall, as time wearied the wall the Rangers were forced to patch it up, and without a nation and its industry to build the new materials to replace it, the Rangers had to do what they did best, improvise.

The cart looked to be a minibus of sorts with the roof sawn off, the seats replaced with bare metal benches, the wheels replaced with that of a train to allow it to sail along the metal rails.

Talc and the stallion at the engine shared nods as the griffin silently gestured for us all to climb aboard.

As we took our seats I relaxed my magic and let my rusted old standard issue bolt action rifle sit between my knees as Lemon Zest sat beside me on the bench,  the cigarette still smoldering between those charismatic lips.

The bouncy mare Margarine sat behind us along with another mare I had never seen. While not exactly a large group, we were never together for long periods of time, given the small team nature of the Rangers.

Zest reached his hoof into his olive fatigue pocket and fished  out the crumpled and ancient box of rolled tobacco, offering the mares, the recruits around us and even me one in his incorrigibly affable way.

I declined.

I stopped smoking when my father made me prepare a chain smoker’s body in the morgue.

The engine behind us spluttered to life and the cart lurched and began began to trundle back to the east, taking us to the small black stone castle that loomed over my home town of Darkwater Down, it had been months since I had even seen the town, let alone gone back, we had spent most of our training at the Alwhinny gates, learning how to shoot broken bottles and tie tourniquets beneath the shadow of the ungodly massive Lighthouse of the Sisters.

    “Where did you even get cigarettes Lemon? These butts are filtered, they gotta be prewar” the mare I had never seen before in my life spoke up as she lit her own hundred millimeter long stick of moulded tobacco the sick grey smoke wafting up away from her dark mossy green coat and up over her long black mane that flowed around her tiny horn.

She had glasses of some sort that she wore over her vivid orange eyes, the left lens had a miniscule crack in them but for the most part they were immaculate, something you’d see in some prewar fashion magazine, they suited her well. She was decently attractive, the kind of mare you see at the tavern or the pubs and you delude yourself with liquid confidence into thinking you can end up in bed with them by the end of the night.

It made me suspect that maybe she didn’t even need the glasses, that maybe she wore them perhaps as a fashion statement.

I’d have to get her name soon, training was nearly over and we’d probably end up in separate squads.

The lemon yellow coated stallion nodded with a proud smirk “Good ol’ pappy sent them up last night, we got fucking boxes of them, about the only goddamn thing my father can sell in the shop these days, nobody else comes to our store anymore.”

I turned my head to him “You never speak much of home, why is that?” my curiosity piqued, I had spoken to Lemon at length about the most banal and innocuous shit, though he had the gift of livening any conversation, it was peculiar how little I actually knew of the stallion.

He shrugged “Dunno, guess because Berryripe Bleaks is pretty...bleak for lack of a better word, I mean its massive don’t get me wrong, being the first town on the road out of the Alwhinny gates does that but ever since the Vanity Bazaar set up shop in Berryripe, they strangled the shit out of the traders in town, my dad used to sell just about everything but ever since the Vanity Caravans showed up in town, only way he’s been able to make money is by selling crates of cigarettes, ironically to the fucking leeches.

Apparently they don’t have smokes in the Highlands. Or at the very least, busy blowing all their own smokes up their asses.”

I nodded losing myself in thought again. The Vanity Bazaar never set up in Darkwater Down, perhaps a town near the East Coast was much too far away from their prefered trading routes, they usually led their caravans straight to Equestria proper. They passed by from time to time but never much more than that.

The only Zebra I had ever seen was with the Vanity Bazaar, she was this thin and tall elderly mare who set her cart up in the market.

When my colt aged self wasn’t staring at her stripes in awe I sat down in front of her stall all day, she told me every kind of story you can imagine about the Highlands, the mountains and the towns between those hellish peaks.

The Rangers garrisoned in town shot her for smuggling refined Eerie that same night, why anybody would want to buy that shit is beyond me but apparently there's a market for it somewhere. Should probably ask Lemon about it sometime, guy seems like he has the family ties to know about that kinda stuff.

The bleak drained colour of the wasteland rolled past as I let my eyes rest, a weak gaze projecting out, overlooking the hills and horizon as it gently panned passed. The unyielding wall to my left, the expansive nothingness to my right.

Traveling by the wall top railways was by no means something to hold to any impressive standard, it was however fast for Wasteland standards, a straight railway that rolls along a mountainside is much faster than walking the way on some decrepit crumbling road.

There came a screech of metal on metal as the brakes were put on and the cart lurched forward as it’s momentum was suddenly denied, we eventually rolled to a halt beside a few bored looking rangers on garrison duty at one of the elevator stations. Most of them sat perched around on ruined deck chairs or sitting on their ammo crates, they wearily waiting for action that never came.

One of them pulled herself to her hooves and lazily saluted Talc striding over to the elevator controls as Talc ushered us all into the tight cabin which as soon as the gates closed began to lurch down toward the earth once more, my stomach rose into my throat from the initial speed but I got used to it quick enough. Thankfully the bases along the forest’s rim were still structurally sound, they see the least of the action and as such have least amount of stuff constantly breaking down.

The thrill of touching real dirt for the first time in days was sullied quickly by the fact that the Recruit Sapper intake was late,  we walked a ways east more to our destination, nestled between two trees and the ruin of a prewar cart was a large tunnel bored right under wall.

It was quite large, about two stallions tall and wide enough for a cart. It was difficult to believe a bunch of thugs could even carve something like this out, there was thousands of rumours in circulation about the abyssal veins that led into the pitch blackness, some say there are armies of slaves chipping docilely away to their master's bidding, others say they're old shelters and smuggling routes from before the war, others even say they're cleaved by a giant worm thrashing under the tainted Penumbra soil as the Eerie that birthed it sears its flesh.

My eyes were glued to that inky blackness the whole time we waited the rush of anxiety I felt coming from years and years of being told the old ghost stories about the tunnels under the wall, regardless of the mystery of their formation, some say they're  haunted by sickly ghouls and insectal mutants, there was even a story about dozens of rangers tangled in large webs, slowly feasted upon by the insect life burrowing alongside the cavities us ponies carved out, I was only able to pull my gaze away when the Sappers arrived.

The Sapper intakes were obviously much smaller as it was a more specialised role, but I did not envy them, they had to carry so much equipment then the rest of us and in this case had to haul a cart with a hoofful of pony sized machines. Our one branch not expected to fight, but still possess the highest kill counts per head, Sappers were in charge of establishing and maintaining the expansive minefields and traps inside the walls, due to the massive amount of land and distinct shortage of troops it was vital to the Rangers that they could funnel beasts and anything else down a narrow corridor of fire, not to mention to impede smuggling and give our guys safe avenues of entry and exit. Sappers were also in charge of production of flares, chemlights, explosives, weapon maintenance, equipment maintenance, quartermasters, and a plethora of other duties.

They were lead by a very old stallion, his mane and facial hair totally grey and his body frail looking, to his credit he was doing an excellent job of making himself look not frail, in the way he purposefully marched and carried himself, his posture pushing his chest and shoulders out, he must’ve been, at one point, quite the formidable workhorse.

The elderly stallion and Talc shared a short conversation, hooves and talons pointed before they nodded in mutual understanding, the two parting and our griffin leader walking back to us “Right, to start, Margarine, Allure, Copper Coin and Worn Jacket, you’re going into the tunnel to watch over the Engineers, every hour when the Sapper’s shift out you will too, I’d say some bullshit like we need to train you to operate in tight quarters but it is honestly more because the Sappers need more flashlights in there, the rest of you will guard this entrance on sort of a pseudo break until we shift roles.”

Allure. So thats what her name was.

There were nods,  acknowledgements and salutes before Talc led the group over as they assisted the sappers in lowering down the machines and tools before one by one my comrades disappeared into the inky black tunnel, as if the highlands themselves were swallowing them whole, the darkness was pushed away vaguely as lights were switched on and headlamps activated but it was still quite worrisome how eagerly the dark ate the light away.

Eventually Talc reemerged from the tunnel, flicking the light on his breast pocket off with a talon and heading out to join us as we did the other thing the Rangers were good at, sitting around doing nothing.

We played cards briefly but that ended as soon as we realised there wasn’t a complete deck, Lemon Zest swore up and down there was but we gave up on that. Conversation however took an interesting turn as the subject again switched back to the Vanity Bazaar.

    “You’d think with reknown for being so organised, the Vanity Bazaar would sell a full pack of fucking cards.” I mumbled irately, tossing mine back at Lemon Zest.

Talc scoffed and shook his head “Please, the bazaar like to pretend they’re organised, that badge looks really good next to the ‘free market capitalism’ one they like to wear around too." the griffin began. “Don’t let the glamor of the rich ones fool you, Vanity Bazaar territory, is a fucking nightmare, they like to hide that behind a curtain of ‘Clean drinking water and electricity’ but the lie is there to see if you try.”

His voice was sullen and laden with the lead in one’s throat when speaking of something damaging, it didn’t take long for me and Lemon Zest to realise he wasn’t speaking from theory and and he was in fact deep within his own painful ruminations.

    “Sure you can buy batteries and water cheap, energy is plentiful in the Bazaar, but it doesn’t stop there, you can walk another two floors down and buy a slave or two, work or pleasure, the cartels don’t care what you need them for.”

Me and Lemon remained silent and let him talk.

    “You want to know a funny story?” he began standing up from his seated position “When I was still an egg, I was sold in the Vanity Bazaar as a ‘dragon egg’ and some rich prick bought me and took me outside the wall.” he laughed weakly “Sat me under a lamp in a display cabinet by accident, which was enough to incubate me, and then I hatched out.”

The old griffin chuckled lightly as he reminisced to himself “He was more angry that the seller at the Bazaar had lied to him more than the fact I wasn’t a dragon.” he sighed strangely content, his head cocking to listen to the tunnel a puzzled look on his face.

I heard it too, evidently so did Lemon Zest, we all peered curiously toward the darkness of the tunnel.

It sounded like panicked yelling.

“Grab your fucking rifles.” Talc ordered sternly, his demeanour shifting suddenly, a massive gust sweeping over me and Lemon as he thrust into the air and landed with a heavy thump at the rim of the thick darkness, Lemon hurriedly followed suit, his ancient battle saddle mechanically clacking and rasping to life as he levelled his own equally antiquated rifle at the gaping void below

I galloped frantically to Talc, the puissant griffin butting me backward with his elbow “Keep spacing.” he hissed angrily, I cast a glance to the lithe jovial buck across from me, there was a tremble in his frame, I held the long amalgamation of cast iron and plywood in the thin layer of my magic, sighting the chasmal void below. As if my bullets would be absorbed into the black mass of darkness.

Inside the maw of the tunnel I could see the beams of flashlights glinting and the sounds of thudding hooves on soil. Something was galloping right for us.

I kept a tight hold on my rile, keeping my magic off trigger just as I had been trained, lining the circle of black beneath me between the points of sharp iron on the upper side of my rifle.

The lights whipped around wildly in the darkness, rapidly becoming more and more intense until a band of a dozen, panicked ponies madly dashed from the dense blackness, eyes dilated in fear and their coats caked in sweat, our guys. Some had even discarded their weapons in the frantic stampede.

Many heaved hoarsely, keeled over as they fought to catch their breath, others cheeks’ were bloated outward, faces purple as they frightfully held in their breaths, toppling to the ground once in the embrace of daylight, panting weakly as they collectively greedily sucked in oxygen.

One by one more rangers poured out from the tunnel, like blood droplets spurting from a vein, until finally our own squadmates emerged, Worn Jacket came first, then came Copper Coin.

The elderly stallion leading the Sappers emerged last, at a brisk marching pace, a scowl plastered over his face, accompanied by the mare from the trolley, Allure.

    “Don’t dawdle! this ain’t no goddamn snow day recruits, get your masks on and back into the tunnel we don’t go back until this job is done!” the old buck barked angrily.

Talc helped the elderly stallion up with his massive muscular arm “What's going on down there?”

The elderly stallion was panting too, his chest heaving as he let himself relax “Well first I smelled blood, then we found two decomposed corpses they looked nearly a month or two old, easy” he began, spitting onto the dead grass under his hooves,  “poor fuckers must have been sneaking under the tunnel when that mutant came through” he chuckled “Then we found an upturned cart, when I checked the bags I was pleasantly surprised to see they were smuggling bales of Eerie on their cart, so I ordered everybody out to get their masks on so we can continue.”

Talc looked concerned but I could see he was at least relieved it was not something more serious.”That could have been bad, do we need to call up a medic, did anybody inhale it?”

The old stallion shook his head “Not that I know of, the Eerie was in bales and it looked like what had been kicked up when the cart was shoved over has settled weeks ago.”

Talc nodded easing his arm down and letting the frightening hunk of shotgun shaped steel rest lower “Thank Celestia for that.”

There came a worried voice beside me, I was surprised to see it came from Lemon Zest “Uh...Captain?”

Talc looked at him with a sigh of relief, his plumage ruffling. “Where is Margarine?”

As I heard the bouncy filly’s name I looked around, looking at the mossy green coat of Allure and then to the dirty blue fur of Worn Jacket.

My heart leapt into my throat, we were indeed missing a certain burnt orange mare and her childish voice.

I glanced back to our glorified foalsitter, Talc softly muttering to himself as he did a quick head count, a grimace coming over him as he swore loudly, striking the dirt under us with a sharp thwack of his beastial shotgun, “Celestia fucking damn it!” he roared incensed beyond reason.

“Lemon, Ashes!” he barked sharply, causing us both to jump in fright, his colossal wing span shooting outward with a loud rush of air, flapping those powerful appendages as he hovered several feet above us, “Mask the fuck up, that fucking dolt ran the wrong way. You idiots chase her down, now! I’m cutting her off from the other side.” he ordered us sternly, nervous nods of compliance as he launched himself into the air, soaring over the wall and into the deadlands beyond.

It took a minute for me and Lemon to really register what happened but sure enough we blinked and both yanked our masks out of our saddle bags, with my magic I pulled the latex mask over my face and fitting it snugly on and jumping down into the ditch with Lemon.

My breath laboured through the thick filter as we flipped our meagre UV lights on and ran into the blackness of the tunnel. The strikes of our boots on the rough dirt echoing around the cylindrical cavern, making it seem like a small mob of rangers was stampeding boldly downward into the impermeable blackness.

As the light from the outside disappeared the sound grew louder and more alien, the whistling of our masks as we panted into them running through into the tunnel reverberated just as loud as our hooves crashing against the gravel and soil did.

I looked to the other end of the tunnel, right into the white light that betrayed the way out of this darkness, I moved so that the light sitting on my shoulder shone forward to illuminate the dark as best it could, however even still it only breached less than twenty feet of the void before me.

She wasn’t in here.

Ahead of us was two corpses, long since dead and rotted away as we galloped over the top of them I couldn’t help but stare at them. They were disgusting fetid rotted masses, still not rotted fully away, their flesh a sickly wet leather texture, their insides still glossy from the liquid and fluid still rotting festering away within. The home of several generations of mouths and centipedes to come.

They were nowhere near their cart, they had died with their heads to the exit we had just entered from. Whatever killed them, cut them down as they ran for their lives. The colossal trenches gouged in their backs and flanks, shredding their cutie marks and exposing their spines, the flaps of ruinous skin dancing in the soft breeze within the tunnel.

Even with the mask. Knots binded within my stomach.

We moved further and soon enough we were on upon the cart itself, it was a simple wooden carriage about a stallion’s length and about half that in width, on the floor scattered around the base of the carriage they once rode upon was about half a dozen or so hessian  bags, one or two of them were torn open  revealing their contents.

I had never seen refined Eerie before in my life. It was such a bizarre sight, it looked almost like dark grey or purple colour, my mind could only think of it as some nightmarish cotton candy wrapped up tight with cables in a vaguely square shape.

The Bales were nearly invisible in the dark, I noticed as I shone my light on it that the bales of the dark purple  otherworldly cotton candy consumed the light I shone on it hungrily almost as if the material was absorbing the light that touched it.

The freakish bales of wispy midnight purple fibre were nearly invisible in the dark, even as they gave off their unsettling gloss coating, as if a tangled mesh of fiberglass, the errant beams of light that hit it seemingly piercing right through it, like the light ended where the surface of it began, consuming the smarting violet light.

We rushed past it quickly, our hooves rumbling against the ground as we hurried as fast as we could down the last sixty or so feet remaining in the tunnel.

We wasted no time skirting it, the surfeit of nightmarish tales about those who even spend time around the precious mineral vividly recalled in my mind as we rushed onward, on toward that distant spark of daylight.

The light at the end of the tunnel was blinding, when we emerged, it was difficult to not use an analogy for an alien world.

I nearly tripped when the texture of the floor changed beneath my thundering hooves. Going from gravel to a smooth albeit dirty and grime layered granite tile floor

Lemon and I came to a screeching halt on the floor as we twisted our masked faces around. We  were half looking for Margarine and half trying figure out where it was exactly we had exited.

We were in some mind of ancient bathroom, a change room it appeared, the inky black hole tucked neatly in the centre of the rear wall.

As we briskly continued our light gallop out of the changing room we saw some of the obscuring walls to ward off peeping toms had been hastily sledgehammered over to make the doors wider, I could only guess to fit the smuggling carts into the building and through it's hallways.

We exited the winding halls into a massive room which buried in the floor featured a huge fifty metre long competition pool which besides the large puddle of collected rainwater, now foul from an eternity of stillness; was now dry.

The northmost wall had long since collapsed into a pile of crumbling rubble, revealing the grey and gloomy world that was the other side of the Alwhinny wall.

Lemon Zest pulled his mask up, letting the complex contraption of latex, valves and filters become his hat as he flicked his ears and peered around the room and especially out the hole in the wall.

"Do you think that's wise?" I remarked gesturing my head to his mask.

He shook his head in reply taking a deep slow breath "Eerie clouds never come this far out from the highlands, only thing we have to worry about with this far from the peaks is thieves, raiders and other shit that bullets can easily persuade."

I nodded slipping my own mask off with my magic and letting it hang by its straps, dangling on the rear of my head.

The sound of our hooves as we slowly moved around the pool was deafening, the tall ceiling and thick concrete walls bounced the sound right back into our ears as we paced toward the collapsed wall.

Once we reached it me and my companion peered around the outside. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t terrifying to me, this was the first time I had ever been on the other side of the wall. Sure I had seen it from atop the wall, but from up there it was different. From atop the wall penumbra was more akin to an ant farm or some zoo attraction.

This was different, now I was in the antfarm.

It felt wrong. It looked wrong. It smelt wrong.

The grass looked more grey, more gloomy and more dead than on the other side, the air was thicker. My chest was tight as if something inexplicable was pressing gently on it, soft enough to evade your notice but tight enough to deprive you of precious oxygen.

    “Look there she is!” Lemon remarked loudly elbowing me quickly in the side snapping me out of my panicked thoughts.

He lifted his left leg and pointed ahead to a small ruined office looking building in the middle distance something I can presume given the size of this small town was probably what this ruin had once tried to pass off as a town hall.

Sure enough on the ground floor there was the almost indistinguishable shape of pony entering into the front foyer.

    “How the fuck did she get so far ahead?” Lemon questioned quietly.

I shook my head and began to gallop hard “Who cares, come on we need to catch the idiot before she walks any further into the goddamn Highlands.”

Lemon blinked as I rushed ahead breaking out the ruined wall and out into the long dead long abandoned grass courtyards besides the community pool we exited from. I looked back briefly at the building as we galloped over the dead dry grass.

It was about ten or so metres from the wall. Behind it was a rusted and partially collapsed barbed wire fence that seemed to mark a five or so metre exclusion zone, from my training I remember hearing that the entire exclusion zone was a thick and well maintained minefield recently installed in an attempted to cut down on wall tunnelers, which didn’t work for long the, smugglers just started digging further and deeper to get under the wall.

I swung my head around to look forward at the office block we were rushing to.

I don’t know why I found myself gazing at all the buildings that that we rushed past but I caught sight of a decaying billboard perched atop what was now a long closed clothing store. The once presumably adorable foal and filly cartoons winked playfully at the camera as they held aloft in their hooves two cartoonish looking gas masks, drawn in such a way that it was obvious the artist had tried as hard as he or she could to make the normally cold and imposing looking pieces of military hardware as friendly and welcoming as they could.

There was in big red and yellow text beside them a warning thinly veiled as a child friendly jingle

“When the fog is thick with purple and black, wear a mask or don’t come back!”

It almost sent a chill up my spine as we rushed past, it was a sobering thought to remember once long ago this was a community, a town of ponies trying to make a life for themselves when the world ended all around them. Its terrifying to think the Eerie used to come down this far from the mountains let alone the fact that these survivors were spared the horror of the bombs, only for the horror to come to them.

It made me shiver, to think that at some point horrible abominations warped from the smog and the radiation once they had feasted on the stranded miners and soldiers clawed their way down the mountain hungering for more.

We were about a block away from the town hall when I heard Lemon Zest give a yelp of surprise. “Goddess damn it all, it was just her…look Ashes” he grumbled before pointing up at one of the second floor windows.

I came to a halt soon after and looked up myself the sight made me jump too. There Margarine stood looking down at us from the window. Something was off about her however, her nose dribbled blood and her eyes were sunken and bloodshot like she had been crying. All the while she projected a toothy and thoroughly menacing grin. Worst of all she stared right at me.

    “Margarine! What the fuck are you doing? Come down from there, you’re going to get yourself killed out here!” Lemon yelled  to her from behind me.

I however didn’t speak, her eyes gazed harshly into mine, like she was searching for something, probing my very soul with the the curiosity and wonderment of a foal discovering something for the first time.

She let out a soft giggle and began to step back before she turned herself around and began to walk back into the building.

    “Margarine wait!” I yelled.

She didn’t react.

    “Mother fucker…” Lemon grumbled as he galloped past into the dark entrance of the town hall.“Come on Ashes, before she gets herself killed!”

I followed quickly after, I couldn’t shake how she had looked at me, that gaze was menacing, unnatural, a warped and unfriendly look forced upon her like a puppeteer was pulling some invisible string above her.

We rushed into the lobby and looked around for some kind of staircase. Indeed there was a staircase located on the back wall in the dead centre leading up to some hidden second floor.

To our right was a small receptionist desk with a long dead computer sitting quietly atop the decaying wood.

We both ignored it and rushed upstairs, our hooves thundering on wood that creaked and groaned in stress as we pushed forward, rushing up the the second floor and taking a moment to look around again. It appeared as if the stairs continued up to the third floor.

Before us was a long hallway with two doors on either side of the walls that ran parallel to each other they had presumably once held name tags on them but one had since fallen off. The other one the door on the right specifically; proclaimed it was once a meeting room. A part of me wanted to take the time to explore but every other part of me reminded me that now was not the time for that.

At the end of the hallway was the window that Margarine was looking at us from.

Lemon thought briefly before giving me a weak shrug “You keep going upstairs, I’ll check these rooms.” he said yelling back to me as he rushed into the hallway, pushing the door to the unmarked room open and moving inside.

He of course didn’t really give me much time but I agreed and began to head upstairs, the pathetic light inside the building prompting me to switch my flashlight attached to my shoulder on as I headed up to the third floor.

There was a wall with an open door a few feet ahead of me, I trotted slowly up to it and peered in.

In the far corner by an open, crumbling window frame was the olive garbed frame of Margarine, gazing pensively out the window toward the towering grey monolith of the wall before her with a distinct anxiety ridden expression. By her side sat an ancient and rotted rosewood nightstand, atop that an even more ancient ceramic bowl filled with dozens of glittering glass orbs that absorbed and reflected the meager light filtering in from the open window that Margarine stood before.

I couldn’t even  finish opening my mouth to speak to her, she swivelled her head around and cut me off in a trembling, worrisome voice.

    “Y-You shouldn’t be here…”  she mumbled to me not bothering to look me in the eye, staring at the cracked tiles at my hooves.

My stride was halted mid-step as she addressed me, caught off-guard, bewildered and confused as to what caused this trepidation to come over her, “What?” I spat out, cocking my head. “None of us should be, we’re beyond the fucking wall, you, bolted here.” I asserted sternly, the sweat that caked my frame cooling uncomfortably in my fatigues.

She angled her chin higher, a small tremble in the action, like a rusted, lethargic mechanism coming to life. Her expression of pained anxiety worsening, like a needle was slowly being pushed between her shoulder blades, her eyes sullen and dejected “It… knows your name Ashes, i-it said it…”

My stride towards her halting again as soon as I touched the crunching, frail tiling under hoof. A pain developed behind my left eye, a pinch in the nerve that turned into a shiver as it slithered down my spinal column. A tension developing in my chest muscles, a familiar uneasy one. She was poisoned, mind tinged blurry with exposure to those sinister bales. Auditory hallucinations, textbook effects of Eerie exposure.

I took on a softer, more coaxing tone “Marge. Please. It’s just your head, a little Eerie you huffed just rattled your wits is all. Come on, please, we can get you back to Talc and you can sleep it off.” taking tentative steps closer to the startled mare.

As I edged nearer she reared up in a panicked outburst, stumbling backward and thrashing her hooves, a shower of flaking plaster and crumbs of a decaying wall pouring over her as she landed against it, “N-no! Ashes it wants YOU to go away, it’s telling you to leave, y-you gotta leave!” she sputtered, her chest rising and falling rapidly as it pumped like a wild piston. Accelerated heart rate, lapse in rational thought, paranoia. She was enduring quite the dosage.

I halted again, my own… relaxing mind almost heeding the frightened mare, shaking off my own instinctual compulsion to listen to her, we were still in ranger held territory. Nothing could harm us here. Her mind was a scrambled mess, she’d have to be forcibly brought back...

“No- Ashes- N-No!” she squealed, backpedaling frantically into the wall, her blood-shot eyeballs swivelling around in their sockets as she looked for a way to impede me, her eyes fixating on the nightstand she let out a discordant screech and bolted for it, pivoting and bucking sharply with her thick hindhooves, toppling the nightstand and sending the brittle glass contents of the frail ceramic bowl towards me.

Reflexively my magic flared just as I reared up to shield myself, my magic clumsily trying to yank the spray of projectiles flying towards me as they clattered against my frame, driving the air from my lungs.

Dull thumps followed by searing cuts rushed across me, as my magic halted one, through my magic I could feel the cold, smooth finish of its glassy surface before my vision burst into a blinding white, all audio subdued into a grating white noise. The last sensation I felt being a hot burning all along my body as I crashed into the ground and lapsed into unconsciousness.

ooo000ooo

Suddenly I was upright again sitting down at a desk. The first thing I noticed was the colour, It felt like my eyes wanted to strain but they didn’t. I had never seen such vivid colour before in my life. The air was clean too, so clean you could barely notice it as it flooded your lungs.

Thats when I first realised I wasn’t in control here. Part of my brain was in a total panic once it learned that my breathing pattern was not what it should be, I was suffocating!

I tried to take in a gulp of air but that desire was only half fulfilled. I could feel my mind screeching in agony as it tried to rationalise what was happening. I felt dizzy, I wanted to throw up, in fact I’m not entirely convinced my mind gave the order but no matter what I wanted my body refused. There was no lurching in my stomach, no need felt to purge up the contents of my stomach.

In fact I felt healthier than normal.

I wanted to look down, to take in more sights and try make sense of this mess but again my mind fired off useless orders to move a body that ignored it. My head didn’t move, nor did my eyes. They were glued to the screen of a terminal that hummed weakly as its fans cooled it and it’s screen glowed a gentle green.

The screen displayed a page, something I identified easily enough as a news bulletin. In big bold letters atop the screen there was a proud proclamation.

“STRIPES HELD AT DEVIL’S CROOK RIDGE: INVASION HALTED!”

I didn’t get much time to read however as there came a resounding and piercing buzz from beside me. I felt my ear flick toward it as my mind was once more sent into a frenzy as my head and eyes moved without my orders to look at a small telephone sitting on the desk. Again that feeling of wanting to throw up but not being able to reared its ugly head as a distinctly feminine rose pink hoof reached out and tapped a large button in the corner.

    “What is it?” a soft spoken and feminine voice sounded out. I was filled with even more subconscious confusion as this happened, I felt my lips move, my tongue shift and sound the vowels, I could feel my vocal chords vibrate in my throat all without a single order from my mind.

    “That Representative from the Ministry of Arcane Science is here for your ten AM meeting”  another distinctly female voice spoke through the tinny speakers of the phone.

“Good send him in.” my not voice replied.

Her body moved back and forth, her hips twisting in her chair as she made a pathetic attempt to make her desk look nice by shifting papers and moving cluttered objects around as a slowly increasing set of hoofsteps approached the door and knocked gently.

The mare spoke up again “Come in.”

One after another the steps gave away and in came a very impeccably dressed unicorn stallion. He appeared to be aging, middle aged or perhaps older. He looked very typical of a salary stallion except for the presence of a well armed guard who looked into the room angrily before closing the door behind the stallion as he sat down on the chair before him  after receiving a silent offer from this mare I was now in control of.

“I trust you know why you’re here Mister Solitude.”

He gave a cocky smirk as got comfortable in his chair looking back at the mare “Well I was told that the Mayor of the wonderful small town of Ablestride was complaining about smog and lowe and behold, here I am on a beautiful day, Celestia has sure done her best to give us a fantastic Spring morning.”

I could feel her clench her teeth “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t patronise me Mister Solitude, you and your Ministry know exactly what the hell I’m talking about.”

He rolled his eyes and sighs “Mrs Bastion, oh is it still Mrs...I hear you go by Miss now?” he said with a smile worth a thousand insults  This Bastion Mare tensed up even more and was clamping her teeth so hard they were starting to ache.

    “Is that how your Ministry teaches you to act in Professional meetings, with childish insults?” she replied.

He shook his head with a grin “Oh course, just a matter of...personal curiosity is all.” he laughed in such a way that I could only just hear how fake it was “Now on this Smog business? There is no such thing, the black clouds you are referring to are as the Ministry has said several times, wind currents blowing the gas attacks occurring from Zebra shells at Devils Crook Ridge, the Ministry of Wartime Technology has I believe been referring to it as “The Killing Smoke.”

She smacked her hoof on her desk and growled at him “The Zebra haven’t used a single gas weapon at at Devils Crook, you and I both know that Solitude, anybody who has any interest in that battle knows that!”

He smirked “Now Mrs Bastion, forgive my ignorance but what could a young respectable mare such as yourself possibly know what is going on at the frontlines of The Ridge?”

I could feel her teeth clamp up again, deep down in her stomach a pit opened wide as she relived a memory that I wasn’t able to see. I could feel the muscles on her face stretch to give an angry glare and I could even feel tears begin to well up in her eyes.

The Stallion shook his head and sighed “Okay, perhaps you MIGHT be wary to the goings on at Devils Crook Ridge, but this is the end of the line here Miss Bastion, perhaps the smog isn’t a Zebra weapon and perhaps it has been fabricated merely as a means to conveniently cause more outrage for the Zebra invasion however for the good of yourself and for the good of what remains of you family, I suggest you keep these findings to yourself.”

The stallion stood up and dusted his suit off “The MInistry of Morale has a very effective track record of...shutting mares like yourself up.” he said,  his cheerful and cocky facade dropping quickly. “The concern of these ‘black clouds’ is STRICTLY the concern of the Ministries as of now and the MInistries do not take kindly to ponies so brazenly cluttering up their concerns.”

The stallion looked down at his watch before peering up again “Concerning you and of course your safety Miss Bastion, I suggest that you do your best to take the MInistries advice and prepare and act on these Zebra gas attacks as best as you can.”

The stallion pulled the door open with his magic, his bodyguard peering around to look into the office, shooting this mare known as Bastion a glare “Now Miss Bastion, sorry to cut our meeting short but I must go.” Solitude said. his fake smile returning “Do not make me come back here again.”

The door was slammed and hooves began to stomp away as the mare growled, I could feel her magic flare up as she yanked a drawer open, reaching inside with her magic and taking out a small pen and a small notepad, flipping it open to a blank page before beginning to write.

Memory #33

Solitude arrives at my office after I requested to speak to him (see orb #30) Insulting tone, threatens me and my family after I expose this little “Zebra Gas Attack” nonsense for what it is.

She let go of her magic opening another drawer and taking out a small glass orb, my vision began to fade to white as I could feel  her begin to cast a powerful spell.

ooo000ooo

The white faded away into grey and muted black. That overwhelming feeling of wellness and healthiness was gone.

I think it was safe to say I was back to my old aching unhealthy self.

My ears were ringing and my head spun around inside itself. Dizzy and disorientated all I could register was the muffled sounds of yelling and dull thumps and cracks of noise.

The steady painful drumbeat inside my skull that was my pulse stung me every other second, each smarting pulse ordering me to breathe, breathe. As my senses recuperated and light poured in through the thin gaps between my eyelids, I greedily sucked in the assuaging air in great heaves, the dingy, polluted and metallic tasting air more refreshing than ice water under oppressive summer heat.

I don't think I will ever be able to explain to you how relieving it is after spending minutes without control of your own breathing to suddenly regain that agency. Revitalising, liberating and empowering all at once to simply be able to respire.

The splendour of sentience once more was short lived, as the numbness dispersed the overwhelming sickness returned, my stomach was knotted up so tight in my gut I thought it rip apart inside me like an overly wrung rag, rolling meekly onto my side, my throat convulsed and sputtered up what acidic remains there was in my stomach up onto the ground before me. My senses painfully aware of the sour, revolting residual taste and the pungent smell.

My eyes rolled around freely in my sockets, fighting for my bearings they lulled to the ground, my frame solely supported by a trembling forehoof I gazed confusedly downward to the debris under me, taking critical moments to reintegrate myself with reality.

My hearing bleed back slowly, I heard a noise, a yell perhaps, but very near me. A hoof yanked me backwards, a face appeared, a feminine face.

This face was  dark purple one with big green glittering eyes looked angrily into mine, in her teeth was a flashlight at glared bright painful light into my eyes making them ache and blink.

As I caught more and more of my consciousness I took her in as much as I could. She was short, a lot shorter than me, she had long a long curly dark magenta mane tied back in a neat regulation style. If I didn't feel so unwell I'd probably go so far as to say she was unbelievably attractive which gave me the suspicion that I was hallucinating some ethereal spirit helping me.

Until she gave me a sharp slap on the cheek.

She nodded repeatedly to herself, mumbling distractedly around her flashlight before spitting it onto the ground. She craned her hips around and buried her head into an awaiting medical satchel. rummaging hastily through it as I lay dazed.

She was not wearing the recruit fatigues, she was sporting a set of charcoal black veteran ranger fatigues with a thin cream yellow trim and around her upper forehooves a same creamy yellow band that sported a big bright pink butterfly.

A stallion galloped past, another veteran ranger. He was elderly but tall and muscular, a proud and powerful figure of a warrior. He stopped and turned to his left briefly to look at the Earthpony medic that knelt beside me.

"...gonna be okay?" I could manage to hear past my muffled hearing.

The mare nodded to him, not bothering to look him in the eye "He's fine; just took a knock to the head and he’s in shock, nothing I can't fix."

"What about the filly that was with him?"

The purple coated mare looked up, this time looking to address her a comrade with a sullen shake of her head "She's a goner, unless we can find a lot more HP Cotton and Health Potion then I have, and that's not even getting started she needs a major eerie flush and even then she's fucked unless I can get her a harmony potion to stop her seizures, and they don't come in any medic kits I have."

The older stallion looked at her with a sullen stare urging her on as if to beg her to try.

The mare sighed and shook her head "I'll try Speak, but don't get your hopes up."

It was difficult to see on the black but as it stained the yellow trim you could see that she was covered in somepony else's blood, all up her hooves and around her chest. I remember reading in a book as a colt that Ranger veterans wore black so "None would ever see a Ranger of Alwhinny bleed."

She shifted back and shoved a dull blue vial of potion that swirled with an otherworldly black spiral into my mouth and tipped it up forcing me to drink.

It tasted an awful lot like dirt mixed with some kind of disgusting menthol paste.

The moment it touched my tongue I blacked out, the lights in my head dimmed and the world darkened. Just as I was enveloped in the blackness did I return, jolting upright, like a shotgun starter went off in my brain, I was revived fully, cleared from the mental haze I was trapped in.

The potion had reset my senses, wiped clean the fog around my mind.

With my senses back I suddenly realised the extent of the pandemonium around me. The air was thick with burnt gunpowder, there was yelling all around.

We were on a rooftop, across from us was that same billboard from before, my best guess was that we still in the town hall except now we were on the roof.

The medic smiled and gave me another slap on the cheek before she yanked her saddlebag filled with medical supplies and threw it over her body "Welcome back to the world of the living Greeny." She said with a smile "Grab your rifle and start shooting anything not pony shaped." She said pushing herself up to her hooves and rushed over to my right.

Propped against the lip of the wall bordering the roof was the slumped body of Margarine. Her nose was bleeding profusely, the crimson cascaded painted the bottom of her face and neck red, and had stained her fatigues a disgusting rusty brown.

At first glance I thought she was dead, but,  as I looked closer she was giving slow and heaving breaths. The figure of the mare rushed up to her lifting Margarine's chin with a hoof, talking to her quietly. Margarine's eyes bloodshot and sunken, lazily gazed back at the mare talking to her.

I looked away and saw the figure of Lemon Zest, he sat atop the bordering retaining wall of the roof, his whole body angled downward as he aimed his rifle, a tall flare of fire and a loud crack resounded out. My eyes followed the ancient clockwork as the machine bolted to the saddle on his back diligently shifted back and forth, working the bolt action of the rifle.

So much effort went into just making it possible for an Earthpony to shoot a rifle, and this wasn't even the most complex you could get, some had small logistics matrix hooked up to gimbals so the frame the rifle sat upon could shift independently of body and aim at a specific target.

I looked around for a rifle as I made my way to the lip. Sure enough there was a faded bolt action rifle leant against the wall.

I let my magic flare up and yank the weapon toward me as I galloped up beside Lemon Zest.

All around us were a horde of bounding figures, they looked like a mix between a dog and a rat, their faces pointed to a small nose and two angry  looking mangled teeth. Their eyes were a beady red and brown and their fur a marred and grimey. Many screeched and barked but others bounded into the air and circled around the building staring angrily and hungrily at us.

"Fucking hell..." I mumbled looking at the situation we had gotten ourselves into.

I felt a heavy hoof slap my back and the large senior stallion who had been talking to my medic behind me  moved up beside me and gave me a nod. Despite his obvious aging, he was still in incredible shape, he was tall, taller than me and was boasting a large muscular frame. His mane was poorly kempt like the stallion had been cutting his own mane poorly, it was now almost totally gray with age but still sported specks of colour which betrayed the fact that his mane was once a deep smooth caramel colour.

He sported a beard on his face, it was that same aging gray colour, it was tied up in a way to keep it tamed, I could see braided into it were small beads and decorations giving him the look of some comedic looking pirate from a children's story book.

He was a decorated veteran, under his black fatigues and his body armor was the hints of his dark orange coat, almost a burnt pumpkin colour. He wore the Lighthouse Badge of Iron on his chest piece and wore a massive battle saddle that cradled a fearsome looking light machinegun on one side and a hefty looking shotgun on the other.

It was impressive, much more impressive than anything a recruit could hope to get.

I had no doubt it was military grade.

"Good to see you awake Greenie, are you feeling better?” he said to me in a rasping and bellowing voice which was strung almost melodically with a thick Stalliongrad accident.

I nodded at him somewhat bewildered I had been approached and treated with such friendliness by a stranger.

He nodded “Do not be worrying about that mess down there,  Mutts are not intelligent enough to find a way inside a building and navigate it to try find us.” he said with a jovial smirk.

“Your squad commander, Talc the griffin, he went to get some help for us, he should be back soon.” he said slapping the butt of the rifle that floated in my magic beside me.

    “Still it is being as good an excuse as any to get some target practice in, I’ll let you squeeze off some rounds in a moment I must ask you some quick questions about this...Margarine you were with.” he said gesturing to the slumped figure of my comrade.

I nodded sharply to him “Of course sir.” I replied.

He smiled disarmingly and waved me off “Please, I hate Sir, just call me Speakeasy.” he said with that same jovial smirk.

I had to keep my face from betraying the hint of excitement and childlike glee that comes with meeting a figure as important as him. First my squadmate runs off like an insane fool into Penumbra and now I was face to face with Captain Speakeasy, the oldest serving Ranger in the regiment. He was famous even outside of the Rangers.

Thirty consecutive years of service, six tours of duty.

The only Veteran Ranger to be offered a seat on the High Council, and refuse it.  The stuff legends were made of. The stallion had been walking into hell for ten years longer than I had even been alive.

    “Oh...gods Captain Speakeasy it's an honor.” I spluttered out to him.

He gave a deep chuckle and shook his large head at me “Save me the groveling, I need to ask you questions about her, your squad mate here says she inhaled Eerie, my medic tells me she got quite the high dose from it too. where was this Eerie for her to get such a big dose?”

I looked over to the indoor pool we exited from and pointed a hoof at it “There, my trainee squad found a smugglers tunnel, there was an old cart in there with bales of it.”

Speakeasy nodded weakly as his eyes betrayed that he was deep in thought “Raw?” he asked presumably referring to the Eerie.

    “No sir, refined”

He sighed shaking his head “Only know of one company that pushes Refined Eerie…” he pursed his lips mumbling under his breath to himself beneath his grey beard before he gave me a warm smile “Thank you green, what was your name again?”

    “Ashes sir.”

Speakeasy gave me a nod of confirmation but it was obvious he was trapped in his thoughts “Yes, Thanks Ashes, your friend said he didn’t look too closely.” he said looking Lemon who peered back upon hearing my name giving me that familiar sly wink and a short wave of his hoof.

Speakeasy kicked his rear leg back and with a sharp rasp and a symphony of clicking and shifting gears his weapons shifted into place as he strode over to line himself up to shoot some of his own targets.

I moved to try find myself a spot beside lemon, stepping up and easing the bolt back to see if it was loaded I let my ears flick to the sound of commotion behind me, drowned out by the sounds of gunfire and the occasional yell.

I peered back and saw that same medic who helped me earlier desperately trying to hold back Margarine as the Earthpony roared and wrestled her trying to get her off. Wildly spasming, flailing about  as she impotently battled a phantom.

With a yell for help directed to anybody that was listening I rushed over to the struggling pair. It didn’t occur to me then that perhaps my desperate cry for help may have been drowned out by the rings of gunfire and the yells from other squad members, but at the time I was too focused on the commotion before me.

Soon enough I reached their side rearing up and trying to pry Margarine off of the medic as they struggled with each other.

I’d be lying if I said I was expecting an easier fight, I was a big enough stallion I figured I could handle a mare, but I failed to take into consideration that Earth ponies were synonymous with being hearty and massive fighters with complimentary strength. Earth ponies were synonymous perhaps to a stereotype with hulking muscle bound frames and fierce brawler instinct with the raw strength to compliment it.

We were barely keeping her pinned with our combined strength. She twisted her head in a ghoulish fashion pulling her face in an almost terrifying snarl,  bearing a great deal of her teeth to me.

    “LEAVE” she screamed at me. “They make you stay Ashes!” she yelled

I growled back at her trying to hold her back “Margarine, shut the fuck up! Put this mare down!”

She gave a hearty cackle at me “Mare? She’s no mare she’s a lie! an abomination!” she said thrashing under our hooves “They all are, they’re all hiding something!” Margarine barked, her inequine resistance spurred by the Eerie, her grinding grit teeth and wickedly live eyes frightened me, she had departed from reality.

There came a great yell as finally more help arrived, Speakeasy was rushing toward us with a determined expression on his face, Lemon was behind him also rushing.

Her panic was as tangible as the cold sweat enveloping her body, behind her eyes the gears were corroding, overclocked and fracturing, she let out another round of shrill laughter, her gaze holding to my own. The deluge of dark red ichor from her nostrils slipping over her lips, distorting her words “Leave while you still can colt, you won’t like how this all ends!” she decreed giddily, with startling strength she reared upright on limbs trembling from strain, with a tremendous trash she took us from our hooves into her own free fall.

We were effortlessly dragged from the roof with the frenzied mare, sent into a spiral towards the dirt and starved freaks below, my own scream of terror was drowned by the sound of air rushing past me, all the while she laughed on the way down.

I had no time to double think, I looked around desperately as the ground sped toward us. An awning hung pathetically off the side of the building, an old tattered piece of tarp used to decorate the windows of the town hall, Without really thinking on it I stopped my yelling long enough to focus and with my magic grasped the awning in my magic and yanked it to spread out and fly fiercely upward toward us.

It was a total longshot, very few unicorns can handle the magical stress required to telepathically hold their own body weight let alone three ponies at once. I’d say that I never intended to do that, that really all I had in mind was to just use the tarp to break our fall and make our impact a lot more survivable.

But truth be told I’d be lying to you, I was acting on impulse, the first idea to come into my head.

We bashed into the tarp with a deep resounding smack, I yelled in agony as for a split second a nail was driven into my skull, my magic faltered as the tarp resisted the energy from our fall, for a split second I held the tarp before my horn faltered and we smacked into the concrete all at once.

The loud rushing of air was suddenly exchanged for the abrupt and sickening snap of bones, the dull thud of sacks of meat impacting the concrete as numbness flooded through my impacted side, dull throbs running through my tenderised flesh.

I felt my hind leg bend in ways that no leg should ever bend and wailed out in pain as I felt it the bone beneath my skin shudder and snap as I fell, my howl coming to a finish as I felt my skull bash against the pavement with a deafening crack.

My whole world was spinning, my eyes spun around in a blur that slowly began to fade back into solid shapes again as my brain stopped shaking in its skull.

I was tempted lie and wait for help but as my brain recovered from its rattle I blinked and tried to bounce to my hooves, I had nearly forgotten that this building was being circled by mutants.

I yelled  out in pain as I tried to put weight on my rear leg barely managing to keep myself standing as my body tried to fall down again. I had broken bones before in the past, nothing as bad as this. my entire leg was on fire, a dull throb of pure screeching pain.

I bit my lip to try stem my pain looking around. To my left was Margarine and to my right was the medic. The medic was groaning and trying to roll over, Margarine was stone cold unmoving. Either unconscious or outright dead. Her flattened, splayed out body and the lack of any noticeable lift of breathing making me lean towards the latter.

I limped a step or two over and tried to help the mare up with my own two shaking and wounded hooves grunting as I hauled the mare up to her own hooves. Her head hung low as she held her hoof to her head, her nose was bleeding and she was giving slow blinks, her eyes swinging in a slow and lagging way as she struggled to focus on her surroundings.

“D..don’t let me p..pass out…” she grunted feeling her flanks with her hooves weakly before cursing under her breath. I could only guess she tried to look for her medical kit but realised she had left it up on the roof. She coughed and I heard her dry heave “I..think I have a concussion...I need to stay awake…” she murmured sleepily to me, or perhaps keeping in trend, to herself.

I nodded as if she could see it gritting my teeth with a hiss as I let her bare her weight on me. I looked around blinking my eyes and shaking my head gently to try clear my blurred vision. As I suspected it didn’t take long for the beasts to spot us, It started with one or two outliers from the pack spotting us letting out menacing barks and before we knew it,  the jumping and leaping shape of a dozen more of these strange rat dogs appeared gnashing their crooked teeth and barking angrily at us.

I peered around once more, trying to find anything, we were beside the glass window of the lobby I grunted and bashed my shoulder weakly into it, causing a pathetic thud and nothing more on the glass. I tried lifting a forehoof and bashing it against it which succeeded in causing a crack to splinter out.

It was laminated.

I kept bashing my hoof against it, cursing that my much more powerful hindlegs were unable to make short work of the task As strength rapidly depleted from the gaping compound fracture in my hoof, my blood draining steadily from the deep tear in my limb.

Eventually I punched through it in a small hoof sized hole which of course ran small cuts up and down my foreleg but a cut leg was the least of my problems, you could fix a cut on your leg, you couldn’t fix being mauled to death by mutants.

They began to charge, a few of the bolder mutants in the pack began to stalk toward us staring their beady eyes at me as I tried to punch more of the glass out of the way uselessly.

This was taking too long.

I limped back a step before yelling and shoulder charging the window again. With a structural weakness in it the window was no longer as strong, it crunched and split away as I charged through it with a yell, tumbling painfully to the faded hardwood floor of the lobby with a yelp as I fell on my broken leg again, with the added weight of a concussed medic on me.

I grunted and forced myself back to my unstable hooves once more, repeating the slow process of helping the medic up as I limped with her into the familiar lobby toward the staircase.

As grim as it was, I had hoped the body of Margarine would keep the beasts occupied, and it did for two or three who began to pounce and bark as they began to maul the corpse on the pavement but there were more hungry beasts, many of them ignoring the slowly growing feeding frenzy to claw their way through the broken window to get at the two live ponies.

I was running out of options quickly, they clawed their way toward us as we limped weakly backwards to the stairs, there was no way in hell we were going to make it up these stairs with these two following us.

I  had to fight, or at least try.

Hooves would help, but I only had two of those I could use and keep my balance, I wondered if my head was in any shape to try use my magic. Trying to catch the combined weight of three ponies was probably enough to cause me to burn out for the day but I grit my teeth and bore the pain as I flared my horn up to try lift the terminal that sat on the desk to my left. With a yell and another nail driven into my skull I hulked the hefty computer over and let it fly, smacking one of the beasts square in the top of the head with considerable force.

I yelled again lifting the terminal up with my magic before bringing it down with just as much force to let it bash its weight against the head of the downed monster. I heard a sickening crunch of broken bones and glass and a yelp as the creature spasmed and life escaped it. I caved its skull in just as the other rat pounced on me with a growl and a series of barks, spewing vile spittle outward from it’s chomping jaws. The medic yelping as she toppled back over and fell onto her side across the stairs.

I bashed my hooves against the mutant as held its gnashing and wretched smelling jaws away from my face. I yelled out and grit my teeth as I threw my unbroken hind leg up, bunting the rat off me and launching it a foot or two away from me, leaving it to crash into the hardwood floor.

It threw its body around like an angry dog, pounding its claws to the floor it soon turned to face me as I struggled to get back to my hooves once more , the beast growling at me as it prepared to lunge once again.

Suddenly with a shatter of glass and a crack of distant gunfire the beast strangled out a yelp as its head was thrown to the floor by force moving too quickly to be seen. The bullet from this unseen rifle tore through the skull of this animal, killing the beast instantly as it was shoved to the floor by the round, spraying blood all over the wall and the floors beside it.

I blinked at the sight my heart still racing and my chest still heaving as I gave out quick laboured pants to try catch my breath again.

As I swung my head to face out the window to find the shooter I saw the weak sun glint off polished glass, looking at me from a window across the street was familiar looking mossy green coated mare in glasses, a rifle perched on the window sill and her body leaning in into it as her magic held it in place.

She gave me a short wave.

I turned my head back and limped over to the medic looking over to see a handful more of these rats begin to claw into the broken window to reach us. Before I had time to panic heavy thuds sounded from above, the large figure of the middle aged Speakeasy and the imposing frame of my griffin squad leader came thundering down the stairs rolling up beside us as my leader yanked his terrifying shotgun out and held it at his hip taking the enormous kick of the weapon into his arms and core as the shotgun let out an almighty boom, destroying a number of the windows and shredding the rats trying to reach us into bloody mince.

A pit opened in my stomach as I briefly remembered there was a squad mate of mine in that pile of rats he was blasting with his shotgun, but that quickly disappeared when I remembered that she was already at death's door on the roof, falling three stories and getting mauled by a pack of mutants for thirty seconds pretty much sealed the deal.

Margarine was dead.

That thought echoed over and over in my head. I had been surrounded by death my entire life thus far, I’d probably seen more dead bodies then even some Rangers had, yet for the first time I felt pained.

I tried to find an expression to give, but none seem to fit, I felt no need to cry, in fact it felt as if crying for this mare I barely knew would be some kind of insult to her memory.

Perhaps the adrenaline was fiercely fighting my emotions, the chemicals forcing me to push this news to the back of my subconscious. But even still, it remained sobering and impactful.

A loud crack of gunfire and the scream of a bullet whizzing past, shattering a window and killing another beast shook me from my trance, It occurred to me that I had just been staring at a pile of dead rats and a massive griffin making occasional passes with a massive shotgun.

Across the street the mossy green mare known as Allure kept squeezing off rounds into the pack of mutants as Talc minced them with his monstrous gun. Speakeasy with the help from another more thin and graceful looking mare hefted the medic onto his huge back and began to climb the stairs the mare beside him looking at me. “Back onto the Roof Greenhorn!” she yelled to me.

I began to limp up the stairs as Talc let out one last mincing blow from his shotgun before he followed up behind me, turning his huge avian head to peer at me as I limped up the stairs.

To the griffin’s credit he did wait a little for me, however he’d pounced up the stairs in three steps, I in the same time had barely limped up four. He gave an annoyed sigh, slinging his shotgun onto his shoulder as he stepped down to the same step as me, and with little more than a soft grunt he wrapped his massive arms around my midsection and hefted my frame into the air as he stormed up the steps.

My eyes bulged out of my head as I realized that my commander had just effortlessly lifted my entire body weight and had began running bipedal up the stairs behind the rest of group which quickly exited onto the roof.

It was a dreadfully emasculating, I had grown up one of the tallest stallions in Darkwater Down and here I was being held like a foal by a rather angry looking griffin. It was however a relief to be off my broken leg.

That relief didn’t last long, just as fast I had been picked up I was dumped beside the medic onto the floor with a painful smack onto the concrete rooftop.

Mincing a couple dozen of them seemed to give us enough time to navigate the stairs back to the roof. We were not followed thankfully and as we returned to the roof I learned that the pack had scattered running off through the town in an attempt to run, Against the wall I even saw one or two large plumes of smoke, dirt and grass along with the resounding thud of two or three of the mutants running into the minefield built against the wall.

Speakeasy stood over the medic looking down at the two of us as we lied on the roof “Gloom, be good and stay awake, tell us what we need to be giving you.” he said slowly and deliberately so she could hear.

The medic who I know knew was named Gloom caught her breath and looked around at us “I uh..um…” she began trying to think, sifting through the clogs in her mind “I need a Harmony potion...I have a concussion…” she said with a gulp “But those don’t come in any field kits...so just...give me a healing potion I can stay awake until we get back to dispatch…” she replied.

They passed her a small vial of bright pink fluid and she uncorked it gulping it down and sighing looking across at me after she relaxed for a moment peering at me “The greenhorn has a compound fracture...he needs to stay off his leg until we get him to a real clinic.” she said looking at me, her gaze still wispy but her eyes seemed much less dizzy.

“D..don’t give him a healing potion! he needs to have his leg shifted back into place first, if he drinks a potion now it will heal incorrectly and cripple him...just make him a splint and shoot him some morphine until we get him back to base.”

Talc shook his head “No need, I can fly you two both the Darkwater Watch now.” he said moving up beside me as he waited for Speakeasy to pass him the chem.

Speakeasy nodded “Thank you very much Talc.” he replied to the griffin. His hooves shifting through the medic bag and finding smaller kit within it, opening it up he slipped one of the small single dose syringes out with his hoof and pushing it gently to Talc who leant over, taking it in his talons and slipping it into the thigh of my broken leg, letting the chem drain into my body.

As he did so I made a decision now to avoid looking at my leg. I had seen compound fractures on a few bodies I had handled as a foal working in the yard, that sight alone made my stomach heave, It was probably best I didn’t let myself see such an injury on myself. I wanted to keep what was left of my breakfast inside me.

I felt a warm pleasant glow overpower my leg where the pain once was and I let out a sigh as the relief from the pain sent a shiver up my spine.

Talc moved away back to Gloom, he shifted his massive frame down and scooped the mare up in his massive beastial arms letting his wings unfold as he took flight, peering back down at us. “I’ll be back for Recruit Ashes in a few minutes, you think you can mop up Captain?” he boomed down to Speakeasy.

Speakeasy gave a smirk and nodded “I can handle a few scared mutts Sergeant.”

The griffin flew off effortlessly and headed back toward the small dark stone fort in the distance as the rest of us began to ease up and relax, weapons were put down and small talk began.

The morphine helped, a lot. With the cloud of agony gone I was able to let my mind stop racing and think clearly, my survival instinct was slowed down and once again more mundane and simpler topics were allowed back into my head.

I peered around, doing my best to avoid looking at my leg as I gazed at the rest of the troopers up here. Most of them had kept to themselves and stayed away, I hadn’t paid them much mind during the heat of it. Besides Lemon and another stallion I had never met they were all Veteran rangers.

One had the body of a stallion, I couldn’t make out the features of his face as he was wearing a series of camouflage scrimmage over his head, the other however was the mare that helped me up the stairs earlier. a lithe and athletic bodied mare with a short and styled tomboyish mane that was a dirty white color. She had a light gray coat from what I could see, her black fatigues covered most of her body and the smaller and purposely thinner armour plates she had were covering the rest.

She had one of the strangest looking battlesaddles I had ever seen, it was made to sit at a different angle on her back, most of the firing mechanisms for what I presumed was an SMG on her side bunched up in an odd way.

Perhaps it was jury rigged by some wasteland builder or perhaps it was just customised by her, either way it was designed shift the weight down to her sides rather than on her back to leave the space on her shoulders and lower back free, I only guessed so she could carry more weight there.

The veterans were calm, too calm as a matter of fact.  The only one who looked irked was Lemon who was still jittery from his adrenaline rush but the rest of the soldiers up here seemed relaxed, maybe even bored.

Despite the morphine I could still feel my muscles slip slightly on my unwounded forelegs, looking at my hoof I saw it shivering and jittering. Why didn’t I feel panic like Lemon? I could feel my heartbeat quicken as I realized I was too relaxed.

After all that had happened today shouldn’t I have been worried, shaken, or some blubbering emotional wreck?

Was this a side effect of the pain killers? was this the adrenaline or perhaps the stress? Why couldn’t I feel anything? I felt like I should at least make some sort of reaction but I just couldn’t feel anything, all I felt was the painkillers coursing through my veins and my body coming down from a rush of adrenaline.

For a brief moment I was worried i was already having some breakdown or hell if the stress had permanently stunted my nerves and I was going to be some vegetable but that was interrupted by the hefty ground shaking thud of my commander falling to his rear legs perfectly a few feet ahead of me.

Talc was back, how long had I been sitting here? I was sure Darkwater Watch was much further away.

Talc moved to Speakeasy and chatted silently with him, I saw a hoof raise and point at me as they spoke in very hushed tones to each other. After the point it seemed as if Talc and Speakeasy somewhat of a disagreement albeit a quiet one before Speakeasy spoke again and Talc gave a considerable sigh and shook his head, seeming to want to bring an end to the conversation before he began walking bipedal over to me.

Again with little more than a nod of acknowledgement he scooped me up effortlessly and held me like a comically oversized foal as he spread out his wings and took flight, I could feel my heart rise into my stomach as I saw the ground shrink and the buildings grow smaller as he shifted his weight and began to fly back to the wall.

    “Keep your nose clean this week” Talc grumbled to me.

Him speaking came as somewhat of a shock to me, I was hoping that this experience was as embarrassing to him as it was to me but apparently he didn’t seem to notice or if he did, didn’t care. He took my embarrassed silence as a response.

    “Pass your tests, stay out of trouble, hell don’t even go into the break rooms at all, stay in the yards and train.”

I gave him a puzzled look and managed to speak up “W...why?” I replied back “..Sir” I added.

    “I’m not meant to tell you specifically because it ruins the point of watching you all week by allowing you to alter your behaviour to show off, but Speakeasy plans to put your name in for selection, so a bunch of administrators are going to be watching every move you make to decide if you’ll be chosen.”

All I had for Talc was an even more puzzled expression “Chosen for what?”

He sighed easing his weight back as Darkwater Watch quickly grew until we were hovering over one of the tops of the towers, Rangers milling around watching us and one or two medics in bright cream yellow coats watched carefully with a stretcher read. “Chosen to be put into the Scout Squads.”

"...He wants me in the Scouts...W-why?”

Talc gave a short laugh and gave me a condescending look “Why the fuck are you asking me, I think he’s wrong, I don’t think you’re ready at all but...then I realized you suck at most everything else, you were a joke in Engineer training, you’re horrible at Garrison duty, about all you’re good at is shooting and walking, so better Speakeasy tries to teach you to be a scout, than me  having to put up with you sucking at everything you do because you were chosen as wall Garrison.”

We landed on the roof and Talc nodded to the two doctors as he gave a weak grunt and hefted me onto the stretcher.

    “Don’t fuck it up Ashes, last thing I need is more useless troopers on the Garrison.” he stepped back and flapped his wings once more “Oh and I didn’t tell you this, see you on the small council meeting Ashes.”

My doctors both grunted and stood up taking the stretcher attached to their sides lifted into the air and began walking back to the keep moving up to the steel door which hissed as it slid open and we headed into the large fortress.

    “So..uh” I began speaking up to my carriers. “Where's the shooting range at Darkwater watch?”

* * * * * * * *

They lose more bodies in Penumbra then they ever find. For some reason that beyond all else terrified me the most about the highlands. They could get Margarine's body back easily enough. Aparently it was not in a state you’d say was exactly worth looking at.

They don’t bury bodies typically if you’re a ranger, they usually cremate you and scatter your ashes off the Equestria side of the wall, unless of course you were the praying type who wanted hallowed land for your body in which case they sent you or what was left of you back to Darkwater Down to me and my father to clean you up and bury you somewhere you could pretend the gods were watching.

My father was the type to believe in all of that. Dad was a talented guy who actually  had a lot of skills one could consider profitable in a wasteland, but he stayed at the graveyard, he prayed every night and he went to church like any good child of the sun did.

Why? Because of duty to the Sister Gods. My father was a hell of a barter, which often times made me think he would have made an excellent merchant or shopkeeper. We got enough to live off simply because the church was thankful somepony was willing to haul dead bodies in the name of the Gods but given how low he could get the price when he was out trading or shopping I always figured the stallion could make a killing working trade routes or running a store. He could probably make more caps working any job but yard keeping for the Pastor. But he chose to stay.

Some would say rather cynically that perhaps my father was trying to bargain his way into the Ever After but my father was too genuine a stallion for that, his sense of duty to Luna and Celestia was true.

He of course dragged us along as foals in the faith, neither of us ever wanted to actually go, Dust got out of it because she got taken to Fillydelphia, I however had to be more clever, I told my father that I hated going to church when it was full, that I prefered to speak to the sisters in private and by myself. He believed me of course and stopped making me go mornings.

Of course that meant trips into town every so often under the guise of “Going to church.” which was probably more effort than it was worth but I was a foal, and children are stubborn like that and stubborn childish me hated church.

I wasn’t ever one to rag on those of the faith, it was a really shitty time to be alive, the world was not in a good shape and it gave folks the hope they needed to make it through the day.

I think even deep down the most faithful stallions and mares  in this world knew that the sisters were dead, and even if they weren’t they’d abandoned us and what was left of the world.

RECRUIT - SALT BUTTER

AGE - 21

KILLED IN ACTION

So thats what her name was.

It seemed rather fitting that all she got was a chiseled little memo in the granite of the wall hallways. Rangers come and go with little more than a whisper, the most thankless but the most important job in Equestria. To guard the wall and protect the Mainland from the gates of hell.

    “Recruit Ashes?”

A vaguely familiar voice.

I turned my head and saw the figure of the medic mare who helped me and in return I helped her back. Gloom.

She was in a much more clean looking uniform, not those drab black veteran fatigues I saw her in before. She looked much more casual, but still uptight and uniform.

“You shouldn’t have gone so far, they told you to wait outside, they need you back in the room now”

I gave the name one last look before nodding to her and walking back with her “Sorry, I was only told this morning on the way to the meeting that her name was put up, I figure I had time to go look at it”

She nodded weakly, not really paying attention to me “Don’t apologise to me, its not me you should be worried about.”

We trotted the empty hallways, which beyond us and a few wandering administrators, was all but abandoned. Very few were actually meant to be inside the inner hallways of the Lighthouse fort beside the Ranger High Council and the administrators.

We reached the large oak doors, Gloom leant on them and eased them open with a long reverberating creak as the small room which long ago served a much less governmental purpose but had long since been changed to fit an entire board room in it was revealed.

Gloom and I saluted as I came face to face with the highest ranked Rangers in the regiment’s history,. The High Council.

The room was little more than a large oak round table with large ornate chairs on it sat a dozen so well dressed and well maintained mares and stallions. Some were marred and scarred horribly, every single one had served at least two tours in the highlands and survived.

The very best of the Rangers.

Flanked either side of the table were large tiered benches, very old and very ornate, a lot of care and effort had gone into crafting these glorified benches. The room overall felt very official despite being almost comically cramped and tiny, almost as if the Rangers had stuffed an entire courtroom into a laundry.

Speakeasy was on a small stand on the far wall from the door, an elevated area where the current speaker would be sat to command some form of attention. He was casually dressed but still formal enough to be considered small council material. Littering the benches to my left and right was a litany of other veteran rangers who had joined in to watch or press their cases today.

    “Sorry to keep the board waiting.” I said stepping in as Gloom closed the doors behind us and gestured quietly for me to take a seat on the benches with her beside the other members of my squad that were here too. They’d all had to step outside during their own hearings on the council’s decisions.

I didn’t know my own fate but I knew the others, it was looking pretty good so far.

The room which had fallen silent at my interrupting arrival resumed as soon as I sat down on the hard wooden bench.

A voice spoke up, an elderly mare with a very gray mane and a face ruined by scars and wrinkles of age “Do you agree with the administrations observations of your selections Captain Speakeasy, for the record and latecomers, specifically Recruit Lemon Zest, Recruit Earnest, Recruit Allure and Recruit Ashes?”

Speakeasy gave a nod his eyes looking at me but his head facing the High Council as he began “Yes, I agree with the Board’s decisions, no objections.”

The High Council chatted amongst itself before speaking  up “Thank you Captain, you may now take a seat.”

There was silence and pens flicked across papers and murmurs were shared as Speakeasy shifted his huge frame back to the benches on the far side of the room, as he sat down on a spare seat I saw sitting with him was the huge figure or my current commander Talc who rather easily filled up two spaces with his size, directly beside him was the elderly stallion I’d saw the day of the incident commanding the Engineer intake.

The engineer commander was the least formally dressed soldier in the room, in fact he wore little more than some old tattered flannel shirt and a pair of fatigue pants. Talc was better dressed but I imagined not a whole lot fits a Griffin as huge as him besides his battle armor and his fatigues, he had to his credit managed to at least slip into a slightly formal vest, how any creature could wear so little this close to winter and not be cold was  beyond me.

Talc and the elderly stallion leant into one another and shared whispers in the silence, Talc was also looking at me much the way Speakeasy was. It was an analytical gaze, his eyes sizing me up as he shared silent small talk with the stallion beside him.

    “First Commander Neon will take the stand, all rise.”

There was a short burst of sound as all bodies in the room stood.

The most elderly looking stallion I had ever seen rose to his hooves. He had an angry and bitter look on his face, perhaps an expression years of wearying life would give one. His mane was silver and his coat faded in his age. His body looked frail in his uniform by he trotted with a sense of dignity and purpose,. albeit it shaking and slow as he took the stage.

A fitting shape and look for the overseer of the entire fortress The Leader of the Rangers of Alwhinny and the lord commander of the entire regiment, arguably one of the most influential and powerful stallions in the world and It looked like he could be pushed over by a light breeze.

He eventually reached the stand and he shook a hoof weakly as he stood up bipedal to it putting his weight onto it. “Be seated.” he grumbled out.

    “The...incident that occurred recently beneath Darkwater Watch is troubling. But this is why we ban Eerie trade, a single whiff and one loony little filly leads to one of the most serious incidents ever seen this close to the wall.” he said in his elderly and croaking voice.

He looked at us blinking and focusing “These recruits did well, Recruit Allure was fast thinking and able to quickly navigate unfamiliar terrain to assist her comrades, Recruit Lemon Zest was able to handle a situation that would snap any other recruit into panic and organize a distress call while managing a dangerous situation by himself.”

His eyes reached me “And of course Recruit Ashes saved the lives of himself and a Veteran Combat Medic Second Class Gloom with quick thinking and a level head in a time of extreme stress and high stakes while seriously injured himself.”

He reached up looking to the round table before him “While some of them...their basic training and test results leave...much to be desired, I can see that through action, these recruits have all proven themselves in a considerable way, worthy of more involved roles in the Rangers of Alwhinny.:”

He looked to Speakeasy “Captain Speakeasy, Scout First commander,  do you accept the transfer of command of Recruit Ashes and Recruit Allure to the Scout Branch?”

Speakeasy nodded “I accept, your honor.”

    “Captain Shae. First Commander of Reach Garrison, do you accept the transfer or command of Recruit Lemon Zest and Recruit Earnest to the Reach Garrison.”

A Zebra which I had surprisingly not noticed in the top corner of the bench dressed in his combat fatigues nodded also “I accept, your honor.”

I don’t know why I expected him to have an accent, but to my surprise, he didn’t.

The Lord at the stand nodded “So be it, I First Commander Combination Wrench, Eighty first Lord of the Alwhinny Rangers hereby Promote Recruit Allure and Recruit Ashes to Scout Private First Class under the command of Captain Speakeasy, and hereby Promote Recruit Lemon Zest and Recruit Earnest to Reach Garrison Private First Class under the command of Captain Shae.”

He stomped his hoof to the stand and the court spoke up in unison “Here Here.”

The Lord Commander scratched his hoof to his mane and gave a short nod “The High Council is adjourned for recess, public hours are done and the court is closed upon return the return, thank you for your attendance.” He stomped his hoof twice on the stand and the room erupted into loud speech and chatter as bodies shifted and stood up slowly filing out of the room one by one.”

Gloom looked to me and gave a weak smile which though small and forced did betray at least a mild sense of legitimate excitement before she too stood up and made her way to the door with the rest of the crowd as the room slowly drained away to nothing.

Speakeasy looked to me and Allure and gestured us to come outside as he left the room in the crowd which was not beginning to thing out and make the room less crowded, which we did eventually do, the two of us nodding to Lemon who got up and walked to the far side of the room to chat with the Zebra as we left out the door and saw Speakeasy standing a couple of feet down the hall waiting for us.

    “Pack up your things in your recruit barracks rooms and be ready to move, we’re going to come around the evening to be picking you up and taking you to the Scout barracks.” he said.

We nodded back and Allure spoke up with a “Yes Sir.”

He gave us a jovial smile and a nod “I have to go check on something back on the Veteran council hall, but congratulations to you two, welcome to the scouts!”

He trotted away with a sense of urgency to his step taking a sharp right at the corner and heading down a hall.

Allure looked over back to me, seemingly trying to figure out what to do next. It had only occurred to me just now that she and I had never really talked to one another.

    “So uh...you a drinker? I replied.