After Quiet had a lot of time to herself, and after I had my nap of course, she eventually exited Pinkie's room and had some dinner with my wife and I. Despite the fact our usual dinners were comprised of water and deceased mutants, the little filly seemed to enjoy her meal. Before we knew it, she wanted to go outside again to do something. Only this time, she had picked up my sword, which I remembered to take off before my nap this time, in her mouth and began swinging it around.

"Whoa, slow down there, kid" I immediately stopped Quiet before she injured us "You're gonna hurt us and yourself if you keep doing that. Gonna give me a panic attack..."

Quiet dropped the sword and sighed disappointingly.

"Aww, don't be sad, little one" Pinkie Pie spoke up, bending down and rubbing the filly's cheek "How about this: Rainbow Dash is gonna teach you tomorrow, okay?"

"I'm going to- Hey, no!" I retaliated as soon as I heard what my wife said "There is no way in hell I'm letting her hold a sword again. You're damn lucky I'm letting her stay, alright?"

"But Dashie, don't you think she should learn just a little bit?" Pinkie smiled sheepishly "You never know when she might need the training, am I right?"

"I... but... you..." I struggled to find words, until I eventually gave up and sighed "...you are impossible sometimes, Pinkie. Fine, I'll train her! But she uses a rubber sword, okay? No metal, no wood, no plastic!"

"Is that okay, sweetie?" Pinkie looked at Quiet with a gentle smile, to which she nodded gleefully to her offer "Great! Then in the morning, you and Dashie can go and play swords together. But now you have to head off to bed, okay? You can sleep in my hammock again, sweetie."

Quiet smiled before opening the door to Pinkie's room and entering it, closing the door behind her in a respectful manner. I gave my wife a stern look before I sat at one of the metal dining chairs and rubbing my left temple.

"Why the look, Dashie?" she asked me curiously.

"I would like it if you didn't call her sweetie..." I told her "Quiet is a good girl, but this is the exact reason why I didn't want to get close to her and why I wanted to give her to the neighbors... I'm not ready to take on a responsibility like that again, Pinkie. Not after..."

"Dashie, it's okay..." my wife put a hoof on my cheek "That was then and this is now. Quiet is different than Sweetie Belle. She's... stronger. I don't know what it is, but something about her is just so... bright. Like a flicker in an ever-lasting darkness..."

"Never knew you could get so philosophical, Pinkie" I cheered up a bit before looking at where the filly residing with us lay sleeping "But... I think you're right. I can't remember the last time I felt this... happy."

"Not even when we have sex?" Pinkie gave me a smirk.

"Sorry..."

"I was just kidding, Dashie" she chuckled a bit "You're right; she certainly does brighten up the mood a lot in this bleak world of ours. But I gotta wonder where on earth she came from..."

"Something tells me we'll find out sooner or later, Pinkie" I nodded before grinning quite suggestively at her "Now, while Quiet's asleep, why don't we have a little fun?"

"Oh, did my little talk of sex turn you on?" my wife blushed a bit, giggling all the while. Without saying a word, I lifted her up with my wings and carried her on my back into my room. Looking around and checking to make sure Quiet wasn't near us, I closed the door behind us.

After a long night of fun, it was of course time to wake up again. Once we cleaned ourselves up, we exited my room only to see that Quiet was already ready to head out. She wore a confused yet slightly cross expression across her face, as if she wanted answers for the noises we made last night.

"Oh, um, hey there, Quiet" I nervously greeted "How are you this morning?"

She simply raised an eyebrow and gave Pinkie and I a look in her eyes that she wanted an answer. For some reason, it scared me the way she did this.

"Well, you see, little one," Pinkie began "When two ponies love each other very much, they go into a room and make very, very interesting noises for a few minutes before they go off to sleep.

Quiet wasn't very convinced by this.

"Pinkie, she's smarter than this... I think" I looked at my wife before looking back at the young filly again "Look, kid, we had sex. It's something grown-ups do that you won't be doing at all with anyone, got it?"

She nodded confidently before bringing out a black rubber training sword made out of some old tires and balloons probably lying around the village, and holding it in her mouth gleefully.

"Ah, so you're all ready to go, eh?" I smirked "Alright, meet me outside then. I just gotta have a little word with Pinkie Pie here and I'll be out in a sec."

Quiet, without question, walked out of the house and waited for me to join her. I sighed and looked at Pinkie with concern. Somehow, she knew exactly what I was about to say.

"Dashie, she's strong, okay?" she reminded me "Give her a chance and you might be surprised, okay?"

"Right" I nodded with a slightly sad smile before grabbing my own sword, placing it on my back, and heading out to join the little yellow filly to begin training her how to use a sword.

But the moment I stepped out of my home, something large flew over me with a loud whooshing noise, telling me it was fast enough to break the sound barrier. It was proceeded by several more, creating a gust of wind that was difficult to move around in.

After a while, the first large object flew back over Haven and landed on its two feet. The thing in question was bipedal and made entirely of a grey metal, with a few blue lines of paint here and there. It was quadruple the size of a normal pony, and its right hand held a grey sword half the size of itself with yellow electricity flowing through it. Its arms had four spikes on each of the dark grey shoulders. A cockpit was on the head of it as well, making it look like some sort of suit of armour.

"What a pathetic little village" the suit said with a scratchy male voice that echoed, more than likely due to it being on an intercom "Out of all the places she could hide, she had to choose this waste of my time. No matter, I suppose. This place would've fallen down all the same with the war going on!"

"And just who the fuck are you?!" I shouted at the suit.

"Oh, so one of them talks, eh?" the suit laughed before its head opened up and revealed a light green stallion with a short and messy blonde mane, his voice not echoing anymore now that nothing was in the way of his mouth "Well, sorry to be so rude, little missy. I'm Junction Road, but I'm feeling extra-merciful today, so I'm letting you call me Junks for short."

"You know what?" I questioned him "Suddenly I don't really give a shit anymore! Leave now or I'll have no choice but to fight you!"

"AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!" Junks laughed "You really think that toothpick of a sword can dent this armour? Whatever skills you may have learned won't work either, so you might as well forget about that."

"...Why are you here?" I asked after calming down a bit.

"Didn't expect you to know, but I'm here for her" he used his suit to point right at Quiet "She went missing a few days ago, but we managed to follow her trail and track her down to this dump. Now hand her over or I level this place."

"Now you just wait a second, mister!" Pinkie Pie jumped out of our home with a black box on her back and faced the stallion "You'll have to get through us first if you want to get to her!"

"Is that so?" Junks chuckled as he closed the cockpit hatch, his voice echoing with the intercom again "Well then, looks like things just got a bit more interesting! Let's see what you're made of!"

"Stand back, Dashie, and protect Quiet..." Pinkie smirked as the box opened up and two huge gun barrels came out onto her sides, as well as a mouthpiece appearing before her mouth "...I got this one" she bit down on the mouthpiece, making rapid-fire purple shots of plasma energy fire out at Junks' suit. The firepower created a cloud of dust as well around the armour. Eventually, Pinkie stopped and we waited for the dust to settle. When it did, Quiet, Pinkie and I were very surprised to find that not a scratch had been placed on the suit.

"Is that the best you can do?" Junks laughed once again before raising his sword and aiming it at one of the houses "Now, witness the power of what just one tiny Taint Crystal can do!"

"Taint Crystal?" I wondered to myself. My thoughts were interrupted in the worst way possible when the sword cut right through the house and caused it to explode. I could only watch in horror as the house blew to debris and killed innocent ponies, tiny trickles of blood splattering onto all our faces. Pinkie, still trying to stay calm, looked right at Junks with an intense stare.

"You... You monster..." she shook her head in denial "Why would you do that... to innocent souls, no less?!"

"Souls? You mean you worms still have lives to live?" he scoffed "That's really incredible, truly! You think you actually have lives worth living in this burned world? Don't make me sick! But fine, I'll respect your will to live. Just give me the filly and I'll fall back and never bother you again. Sound like a deal?"

"Why do you even want her anyway?" I asked, grabbing my sword and unsheathing it.

"Might as well tell you, since your lives are worthless to begin with" he insulted us "She's the daughter of our big boss, you see? Boss of what, you may ask? Leader of all the Transientian forces! The head-honcho himself!"

"T-Transientians?!" I gasped "No... It can't be... The war couldn't have gotten this far..."

"Now hand me the girl, or I kill everyone here!"

"Go to hell, you metal asshole!" shouted a male voice from behind us three. We all turned around to see that the remaining sixteen villagers had prepared themselves to attack Junks.

"Yeah, you're not welcome here!" a female villager shouted, picking her pitchfork up with her mouth and crying out "Everyone, for our village of Haven... ATTACK!!!!"

The entire crowd raced forward and began swarming the legs of the mechanical suit. I looked up at the head of the suit and saw that Junks was actually enjoying the show, watching the ponies fruitlessly attack his suit. I saw that he grew tired of watching. Snapping the fingers on his suit, he called two of the other smaller suits in stand-by mode from the sky. As soon as they landed, I immediately took note that they were half the size he was, with machine guns for arms instead of normal fingers. Their armour colour was the same, but their legs were very akin to the back legs of equines.

But the worst part about them, to me at the very least, was the fact there were more of them waiting in the sky. Were these mass-produced? Just how much did they want Quiet back? My thoughts were interrupted when Junks swung his giant sword at the villagers and cleanly cut right through their bodies, spilling blood all across the floor and slicing a few houses at the same time.

"How many, blue one?" he asked me.

"How... What?" I asked, still stricken with fear.

"How many more innocent ponies are gonna be sliced like butter from my sword?" he laughed "Half the village? All of it? You can stop this. All you need to do is give us the brat and we'll be on our merry way."

"Don't give him the kid!" a villager shouted just before being riddled with plasma shots from a smaller suit.

"Run! RUN!!" shouted another as she met her untimely demise to the blade of Junks' armour, thankfully distracting him for a while.

"Pinkie, we gotta go" I said to my wife, backing up a bit "If we don't go, those assholes might take Quiet. Unless..." I looked at the young filly, and knowing exactly what I was about to ask her she shook her head furiously "There you have it. She doesn't want to go home."

"But... The villagers..." Pinkie stared in horror as each pony was getting impaled and mutilated.

"They're giving us a chance to run, Pinkie" I pointed out "I have no idea who Quiet's father is, but if he made her run away from home, I honestly don't want her going back there."

"Dashie, didn't you-"

"I know what I've said about her" I sighed "But something about her makes me happy. I don't know what it is... Besides, would you want to be going back to whatever father she has?"

"I..." my wife thought for a brief second before sighing and looking back at our home "...there's an escape hatch in my room. Opening it will bring us far, far away from here."

"Escape- Wait, WHAT?!" I shouted. I heard metal turning. I had attracted the attention of Junks and his team again.

"No time to explain! Run!" Pinkie shouted as she grabbed my hoof and Quiet's as well and burst through our house's front door. She immediately entered her room and punched her wall, causing a hatch just big enough for us all to climb through. Why she hadn't told me about this before is a mystery to me, but regardless, we all entered the hatch, just escaping the house crumbling down upon us.

(Music Stop)

Junction Road (seconds earlier)

"Don't you think you can get away from me!" I laughed as my troop blasted each and every single villager to bits. I wasn't going to let them live anyway. I positioned my sword over the house which my prey escaped through and was about to strike until someone from my squadron stopped me, landing down and placing a mechanical hand on my suit's back.

"Sir!" a female voice shouted "Surely you don't have to do this!"

"My orders were to bring back the brat" I never looked at her as I spoke "The boss never said she had to be alive!" I brought down my blade onto the house, utterly crushing it and causing an explosion of yellow energy. As soon as the dust cleared, I sheathed my sword and began digging through the rubble.

"C'mon... Where is it?" I looked for the kid's body, but I never found it "Dammit! They couldn't have gotten away! Not when we were so fucking close!"

"Sir!" another trooper had just finished slaughtering all the ponies in the dump of a village "Can't we just track her down like we did previously?"

"You're either new here or just plain stupid" I growled "Taint are easy to track with our detectors, but other beings such as ponies are next to impossible to spot! We only found her by chance... Now what the hell am I supposed to say to the boss?"

"Surely he's not that bad..." the trooper commented. With that, I raised an arm and, with a huge shot of plasma, blasted a hole right through the suit. A decapitated head soon rolled out from the top of the hole, followed by the armour itself falling down onto its back. Slowly, I put my arm back down.

"If only you all knew what he was like when he was angry..." I spoke to my entire squad "While I hate to say it, this was a total waste of our time. At least we did something worth while here... Squadron, fall back to base!"

"Boss, you gotta understand we did our best..." I began explaining to the stallion in front of me, sitting in a black leather chair and looking out into the ruined world, a wooden desk behind him and having all his supplies on it.

The second my squadron got back to our home and exited our suits, an adviser of my boss's had told me to report to him immediately. Reluctantly, I entered the elevator to his office and prayed to god that he was in a good mood today. As soon as I gave my argument, stallion turned around and looked at me with his dead, emotionless eyes. He's seen some shit, lemme tell you. His light blue body had sustained serious scars over the years, yet his brown and red hair was long and admittedly very well kept. His wings were slightly burned from past experiences, but they still worked. For his persistence on life, I respected him. But he scared me.

"Junction..." he called me by my real name; something he did very often "I am less than amused by your recent mission. You have failed to retrieve my child, and for that, I should kill you right now."

"S-Sir, surely you w-wouldn't kill someone who's b-been with you through a-and throught, r-right?" I shuddered. I gulped when he opened his desk drawer and pulled out a small handgun with his front right hoof and aimed it at me.

"What do I care?" he questioned "One less life leads closer to my goal."

"B-But, sir!" I quickly tried to spare my life, closing my eyes and bracing myself for the worst "My team and I totaled a village today! We killed tons of ponies!"

My boss looked at me curiously before slowly dropping his hoof, still holding the gun in his hand.

"How many?" he asked me.

"Wh-What?" I gulped.

"How many did you kill?" he repeated.

"Well, I dunno..." I tried to remember just how many I slaughtered earlier today "Eighteen? Seventeen? It was a pretty small village, but I think that I-"

"Very well" my boss put his gun away "I'll spare you today. At the very least you did something worthwhile. Now leave me and await your next orders. Transientia needs to be governed."

"O-Of course, sir" I bowed and walked away from the stallion, silently sighing in relief as I entered the elevator down to the hanger. That stallion scared me, but what terrified me more was his ambition and goal. My life would come to an end sooner or later, but with him, I just had a clock on my forehead counting down the days I had left before he annihilated every single living thing on this world. I wasn't sure how he would do it, but knowing him, he'd find a way.

I wonder if it has something to do with his daughter?

Author's Note

This was the safe version of this chapter. I actually wrote this one first, then copy/pasted this over to my explicit one, then added both of them to the story at the same time. Genius, if I do say so myself!

Anyways, our villain is sort of revealed. Anyone who's stuck around with me long enough knows exactly who it is. If you know who it is and want to speak about him in the comments, be sure you place a censor bar over your words as to not spoil anything for anyone else. Thank you!

Be sure to Like, Comment, Favourite and Follow, and until then, dream on guys!