Fallout: Equestria - Red, White and Blue

Chapters

Flesh and Blood
Light Bringer
Grace
Red Like Roses
Downfall
Exodus and Pariah
Omen
Sodom
Genesis 19
The Virgin Feast and the Curious Cuisine of Cannibals.
Lamb
A Shadow Over Merryland.
Bloodstains
Hatred
Hell
Comeback
Faith
Rituals
Save Me

Flesh and Blood

A sharp gasp tore the morning air apart. It was typically gloomy without any cheer or sunshine whatsoever. And the world woke in it's harsh silence. I woke in pain. My biceps ached, my hooves were stinging and puffy and everything between my legs started pulsing. It felt nauseating. I found a mare sleeping next to me, her coat golden and her hair black as night. We were in a dusty old hotel room, a dim edom blanketing everything around me.

Even my own fur looked red. I could only tell the dead mare's coat color due to how vibrant it was. I rubbed the tired from my eyes and stumbled away toward a stray light source. Entering the bathroom made me calm just enough to consider washing my face. The sink had dirty water, but it was more like well water, all sour and laced with mineral scents.

I couldn't see anything but a jumbled blob of my reflection in the broken mirror. So I trotted out with a clean face and eyes barely blurry, while the water dripped down my long eyelashes. I knew they were full because they striped my vision when wet with water.

It made them even more noticable when I slipped a holotope out the corpse's hoof. It was a holotape, a squarish object made of plastics, I wagered. The distinct shape of a bar on each edge matched the bar slot in this... contraption on my left foreleg.

Its cool, black frame conflicted with my white coat. The bloodstains over my left foreleg did match the low edom of it's screen, though. The red luminescence put me at ease as I played the recording. Through it's speakers, which was located on the opposite side of the many dials, I heard her voice. The way she spoke ended every word with a rasp. The raspy, scratchy quality of her pitch made my ears droop. A firm serenity kept me still and I closed my eyes to savor her smokey, motherly alto.

'Child... this sacred ground will never be the same. I'm sorry I didn't save you in time. I'm sorry you don't know who you are or who I am. But I'll never forget you, Whitestar. Ne...ver. I-I'm dying. And I need you to remember this. If you ever get hurt, e-eat... other ponies. Eat them while they're alive. Remember, y-you should look for the black book. Look for a big house in the swamps with a pointy top. I love you, sweetie. I love you s-so... so... much.'

It went on for six and a half minutes without anymore speech. It was just her groaning in pain and muttering 'I'm sorry, Whitestar' till the tape ran dry. Hours escaped me and I listened to the void atop her body, straddling over her chest. Dry blood flaked against me between my legs and against my hindlegs themselves.

She was beautiful and I had nothing to describe her. Nothing in this world could ever describe her. The way her lashes tangled together, I wanted to freeze them forever. It made the pink mush in her sockets look like cherry pie I needed to eat.

Who was she, I wondered, mistaking her for my mother. My mother would never be killed if she were so divine. Instead, I thought she was a god. I knew she was a god. I spent the next five minutes slurping down gore and munching on the goddess's entrails. Her throat was even more delicate and even more flavorful. There was no comparison.

And in the midst of my mealing, I felt a dry, pressing pressure on my stomach. So I kept away from the ambrosia and spotted sleek metal stuck into her. It was a knife. A knife so slender and dull in it's center, I was amazed it had pierced her at all. Twas both heavy and sharp at the tip, smelling of the Mother Goddess.

I trotted out past the hanging, leathery corpses in my room and the many skeletal remains arranged into fetish art. I found a tiny backpack full of strange metal rectangles full of golden bits. And inside were also MRE's. The back had art about cupcakes, pink with rainbow sprinkles atop. I glanced back at the Mother Goddess and her eaten form.

"I'm sorry I'm leaving, madre diosa." I said, completely unfeeling.

I didn't even feel how cold it was outside. It was bone-chillingly frigid. I saw mushy swamp terrain when stepping out for the first time. Yet, thick fog lingered above it. My muzzle felt better breathing the musk of the new air outside my Mother Goddess and her sacred garden.

So I trotted outside, my hooves dirtied with paper clutter and smushing snack cups. The more I moved, the more I saw, the easier it was to understand how small I was. Everything was titanic. Everything was a toy maker's creation and I wandered his crystal ball. Behind me were rabid canine things, leathery in skin and bumpy in odd places. They had mange of sorts. Because they were feral. Snarling and frothing at the mouth, I looked back before one tackled me to the ground. Tiny pieces of rubble and chipped rock stuck into my back and it made me grit my fucking teeth.

It was so annoying. A feral dog was snapping it's gabber at me and getting me dirty. It's drool smelled of decomposed muscular material and fetid innocence. I could see it's gums cluttered with rot. It was dirty. It was so messy and nothing about it made sense.

Why did it attack me.

I held my knife up and struck it deep. The mange hound was red around it's neck. I tossed it off and smashed his skull against a nearby dumpster. Another dog charged straight toward me so I leapt across the trash contaner. I reached the roof. Leaping off landed me right over the beast's back. It snapped quietly while it kept barking. The mutt wouldn't shut up so I slit it's throat. It caught my right forearm and clamped down till I couldn't tell who's blood was on my leg. But I didn't care. I won't lie. It hurt.

It hurt not getting to kill it again.

I slipped past the two canine things and ate my Mother Goddess.

Returning outside, I opened one of the food packages and ate sitting atop the dog bodies. I munched on some of the crackers with eyeball meat and spotted a grand structure across the boglands. It had dark paints and one, sharp roof; the same geometries Madre Diosa specified.

It was my honor to uphold her last request. So I walked away and felt my hooves soiled again. The mud was the most crippling part of that entire experience. My first taste of the wasteland left my teeth stained and bits of tough meat between my teeth. I didn't like it. I wanted to feel clean again. The fog swallowed my hooves hole and everything below my neck. I found it charming and comforting. It was like an old compadre I diverged from long before. It held me close and soothed me along the bogland.

I passed several ponies with strange, inward bending legs and impractically large forelegs, all dressed in overalls and worn farmwork attire. They stalked toward me in a group of three. I waited with the knife in my mouth. Only, the biggest, lumbering mutant reached toward me with calloused hooves.

They were dirty. And so was he. But he spoke to me.

"Gosh, what a purdy little girl. What's yer name, child? You want a lift on Uncle Pepperjack's back?"

I hesitated. I really did feel alone. But I didn't know trust. Or logic. I was just attacked for no reason by rotting dog things and he was covered in mud. So, I stuck my knife in a nearby tree.

"Are you gonna hurt me...?" I rasped, barely audible and below their heavy breaths.

"Huh...? Ain't no swampie ever hurt no child. If they do, they be one mean son of a bitch. Let old Uncle Pepperjack give you a sweep round the swamp. You like candy? We gots candy." He stated, looking back at all his friends, who nodded promptly with purpose.

I wanted to trust him. And I didn't care about killing something else. So I indulged him and took the blade back, doing grabby hooves. Uncle Pepperjack took me up and delivered me from isolation. Coincidentally, he told me how excited he was to show me his library back at home. His favorite tome of eldritch lore and mythos, he stated proudly, was a big, black book bound in skin.

Light Bringer

A mansion lay before me. And I beheld the immense stature it had over the fog and the very mush it lay on. Twas quiet even with chatty uncle Pepperjack in the mix. There were three 'swampfolk', as he called him and his brethren, at our flank and sides. I never knew exactly why he took care of me in the first place. Or why the swampfolk didn't devolve far enough to be mindless brutes. But Uncle Pepperjack always said, along the trail of decrepit marsh terrain and tree husks, that they had a code of honor. Judging from how he and his men were capable of firearm use and complete sentences, I'd have described them as anomalies.

We neared the imposing structure and to the left were skeletal remains skewered on metal and wood. I had no idea why it felt so familiar. But the many charms and fetishes dotting the estate put me at ease. It washed unknown sentiment over my numb conscience. I spotted a hanging doll around the front entrance, hanging by thin twine. I took it myself and slashed the twine away as we passed by. It took two swipes to cut the twine clean in half.

Uncle Pepperjack simply plowed through the doors of the front entrance. Inside the initial room was a room to the right, an open doorway straight ahead, an upturned sofa on it's side and a wardrobe right beside it. We took the straightforward approach and passed a pair of swampfolk discussing what material a banjo's strings needed to be, for the best possible crispness of each note.

We took a right and arrived at the foot of a wide stairway and a pair of chairs to the right. One was a wheeled seat with metal tanks of gaseous substance. I spotted a figure in dark, tattered rags claiming the wheelchair for herself. Though she seemed the stationary type, I saw her kicking her hindlegs back and forth. My party and I passed by without a hint of any contact whatsoever, but I felt the mare's eyes upon me. I confirmed my suspicions by observing her snout inch in my direction.

We narrowly avoided an encounter; instead, Uncle Pepperjack taught me the magic of reading. In studying the enigma pony, I didn't realise how many books were surrounding me. The entire right side of the main room was a cluster of library shelves. It escaped me just moments ago that many of the books weren't even burned. They were really in tact, really functional. Uncle Pepperjack set me down and hoofed me one of the many pristine texts packed along the wall. I could only stare up and ask 'what is this?'

And he could only smile at my childish ignorance. The smile he gave measured ear-to-ear and told me he'd heard it a billion times before. He rest his hooves over my shoulders and made my body limp.

"This here is a book, White Star. It ain't no hollatape or hullagram, but it sure is good for ya. I bet you're so smart you can already read. Just try a little bit and I guarantee you'll be hooked." My uncle clarified, waving his left forehoof in mild, hypnotic gestures.

I did as he commanded and I read.

My eyes comprehended the strange ink art in sounds and images. I saw the curve of a shape and an oval shape attached to a slanted line. At the end of the word was a hook-like letter that I could read with alarming ease. So I said the first word I ever read to Uncle Pepperjack.

"C... Car." I stated softly, flooded with flashes and mental snapshots of numbers and letters flowing in comfortable harmony.

"Very good. Way too good. But, I'm gonna tell you right now there ain't actually anything in Equestria called a 'car.' You see that smudge right there? The whole word is 'carriage.' It's a great old wagon thing you can use to go somewhere without trottin' around. All you need is two ponies, one with wings and you." He stated, pulling up a wheeled, black rectangle and using a snippet of white, solid material to mark it.

"You see, one person needs to pull it so you don't have to do the work. You could try some wheeled, oil-driven carriages but you'll only be hurtin' the air. So instead, we use a safe, alternative steam engine in old Point Lookin. Now, you see, White Star, everybody gots a heart in their chest. And the heart keeps on beatin' so we can do work. That's what an engine is..."

I watched wordlessly as the tower of Fillylon became my archives and my uncle, a great pony if not a god, imparted with me all his supreme knowledge. He was my second encounter with the gods. He told me of the machines outside, each one hostile and running on corrupted targetting perimeters and scrambled pheromone analysis processors. He spoke to me about the pony body and it's many wonders of strength and ability. And most importantly, among the many lectures and presentations he offered, the most important was the process of psychology.

I sat attentive at my study or in the main room at all times, glued to his hooves and craving his vast economy of both allegory and fact, to which I never squandered. Every, single lesson he taught had to be roasted over fine coals or flash-fried to perfection. He did not speak of any of it, trivial or imperitive, as though it were trivial or imperitive. Every factoid about plumbing, to the nature of a pony in impoverished beginnings, would leave his lips like sacred prayers.

Soon, after my book reports on the nature of the author's voice in Neighteen Eighty Four, he spoke to me about the United States of Equestria. That night, the air was chilling, yet humid. The boglands and many methane pools blew in other directions. All I smelt, contrary to countless nights before, were the faint flavors of deep-fried radhogdogs and rice moonshine on Uncle Pepperjack's scribing robes. I held his hoof when he held mine, sniffling and biting his lip beneath drooping eyes.

"White S- Whitestar... you done do me proud, you little rascal. You understand everything I ever done read and heard from everyone in my life that knew it before me. You know Froyd and Hummingway, to Frost and The Art of More. You're all done here. I ain't no teacher for someone as hungry as you..." He said, looking down and shaking.

I closed my eyes and held him close, for the many things he taught me in his garden. And he held my head up in our only classroom, with two windows and four student body desks, all to stand before the greatest seat of all: the teacher's.

Uncle was not a suitable label for my one, true family member.

Instead, he was Father Pepperjack, the only stallion I ever listened to for hours on end just to keep him happy. He taught me the sacred code of hoof and key, so I was his child, enlightened from prior savagery. I spent the last few days of that year shadowing him. I too would learn how to teach... how to light up the world for every sinner and every savage I could lay hands on and heal.

After two years of study and devoting my life to the pursuit of knowledge, Father Pepperjack finally introduced me to the robed mare. We met in the main room just like we did years ago. Except, I took a seat beside her in Father Pepperjack's lap, toying about with Madre Diosa's ritual knife.

She spoke to him in raspy whispers, washing the sin from every nook and cranny of my blessed mind. But when the exchange halted, I only looked up to see her waiting for me. Her muzzle met the air of mine and she spoke.

"Hello, child... Hello, Whitestar. You are quite the specimen Star Spangle told me about." She soothed, handling my hoof in both of hers.

I felt her tracing the rotund, calcium-dense figure of my right hoof.

"Your mother's name was Star Spangle. And she was just like you. Clever. Quiet. And more smarts than smarts could ever say. This is why she picked you to take the black book. We need more ponies like you, leading Equestria out of this misery and ruin... Five days ago, you were Pepperjack's best student. But now, you'll be an educator just like him."

She took to smiling and it barely wrinkled her perfect skin.

"You will bring a nation to it's knees, or bring it forth from the ashes. The choice, as it has been foretold, will always be yours. So come with me, child... come with me and read your destiny."

I followed her into the basement and kept my blade between my teeth. It was my mother's sword and I'd speak it to anypony else singing blade songs. We reached the bottom of Whitehall Mansion and beheld the black book in all it's glory. It lay preserved in one, glass display case, for all the pilgrims to see.

I touched the glass and saw it.

The black book drew me in with it's cover.

A single, golden cross lay down the middle and taught me humility, to show me just how small I'd been all my life.

Grace

From the words of the Celestial Bible itself, I transcribed every tidbit and speck of magic lore I could. From counter-curses to sacred prayers to the Celestial Spirit, even to harnessing the sun's magic to raze my enemies, I was in my eden. My eden was being knowledged. Being aware of the world around me was a natural delight I had no idea anypony else could even sully. But amidst my daly studies, I did find and experience the most wretched soul. Her name was Apple. And with her tagged along another uninspired pony called Cleave. They were both ignorant of the world around them. Often times, they'd waltz into my living quarters and play paintball while staining the wallpaper with ugly chaos. Obtrusive magentas and cyans mixed with violets and dirt browns on walls that weren't even theirs.

I wished them quarter and peace, so their desecration of my Scion wouldn't dasheth them against my stones. Because I was tempted. The first week of rambunctious destruction and what I could only assume was rampant incest on the other side of my wall was tolerable. I was good to them as both neighbor and sister. I did not cast stones and I did not want more than peace and quiet for my scripture.

Oh, but one day, they did it.

I was trotting into the kitchen once and I saw Uncle Pepperjack showering them with adoration. He was teaching them, too, with the same chalkboard and the same chalk. I remembered the stale afterburn of chalk soaked in moonshine. I stayed serene, reminding myself that knowledge was everyone's right. Everyone deserved to see they were naked. But Cleaver carried his big, ugly knife near the entrance and swiped it in practice; I jumped in-place, muzzle-deep in the good book. That was when Cleaver and I finally felt something. My winter coat ran red and I held my eye... afflicted with one, crude laceration. I would never be beautiful again. I was soiled. I was dirty and all he could do was smile like a rank ape in it's own lies.

I narrowed my eyes and I dropped the book on the table. He blinked once and took to screaming when I tore a smile into his lips. He cried for Father Pepperjack and I beat his jaw till it was raw and coatless. Father grappled me and tore me away, only to trap me against the wall and ask what I'd done.

"You hurt Cleaver more than he hurt you! You didn't need to do a god damn thing, you idiot!" He barked frightfully, sobbing and shaking till the fire in my heart died away.

I closed my eyes and begged for forgiveness.

"You're right, father... I should’ve turned the other cheek. I should've trusted you for judgement. And I ain't no angel anymore."

I felt his grip loosen. But something was off about it. He wasn't firm or gradual in releasing me. He was unexpected and let me drop faster than I'd ever felt. I heard him choking on his cries. So I hung my head and bit my tongue. I'd let Father down and lost myself to the taint. My ears drooped and my wings fell heavy beside me. He always said... I looked just like the old paintings of Celestia. Father always carried me like his own, and I'd finally realized why I did it.

I wanted to stay beautiful to Father.

I wanted to be his one-winged princess. Forever. And always. It struck me deep within and I rose to my hooves, limping out from how much it hurt to rip my right wing off. He called after me but I knew the implications of what I'd witnessed. I was no longer his princess and he was no longer my Father. I galloped to my throne room and sat in court alone, atop my wooden seat reciting prayers.

I knew someday, he'd understand. But Celestia would punish me. And that was okay.

How could anyone ever want me home again.

He knocked for half an hour straight. And I studied for half an hour, learning light spells. They were all warm and tender at first. The intial dozen spells were things like flashlight beams and blinding somepony. The other spells caught my attention. A thorough instructional section guided me to hurtful light. I was learning the wraith after the mercy. And it was good. I only needed kindling for the art of pyromancy. I needed kindling and a sparking catalyst... A wide, painful grin twisted me as I packed the bible and all the lantern oil I could. I took medical gloves from my study and a first aid kit, my dollie and my first book.

Madre Diosa's Blade was between my teeth. I glanced back when I heard the door burst apart.

"Whitestar...! Whitestar, I didn't mean it! Come back, it's okay...! It's okay, we-we're family- we forgive...! Don't you hear, I don't want you gone!"

I shed a tear and said through my teeth,

"I'll never forgive me."

I leapt out and caught the nearest tree husk. I slid down and broke branch after branch. I struck them down with my heavy hindlegs and galloped when I struck the earth. The fog shrouded me. I was one with the land again. Time became irrelevant. Time was an illusion the other carbon-based lifeforms depended on. I was too busy running. I ran and ran till I simply collapsed in Pilgrim's Landing and melded with the trash blanketing the ground.

My aching chest was sprained. All those years took a toll on me. A good scribe could only be a good athlete if she worshipped her work and her study. They were never the same thing. I knew that personally because studying a book never struck me like Goliath. I was huffing and panting for the first time in three years. So I lay limp and on my side, wincing and twitching as my raw wing stump tickled with cement chunks stuck to the sinews. My lips moved and my empty heart spoke the pain away.

"And am no more worthy to be called thy daughter: make me as one of thy hired servants..."

I heard a contraption whistling and churning to my right. The sound was alien, almost mechanical but less intrusive and clattering against my ears. My left hindleg convulsed shortly for no reason at all. I kept my knife steady and stumbled to my hooves. A steamboat crossed the mighty waters and left somepony else across the docks. She watched the dock for loose boards and wide, trapping gaps. But she made it, one step at a time. My eyes fixed upon her.

Her bonnet was from somewhere else. And her clothing was neat and uniform, white with many buttons over her ribs. I drew a gasp from her fragile lips and had the luck of watching her brows dip. The mare trembled closer and whispered 'p-please... move aside. I-I don't know what you want but I don't have much.'

I let my mouth gape as I too evaluated our impasse.

"You can take me with you." I said, trotting over and behind her, puzzled at how she hid her backside with her tail.

"Please... this isn't a joke is it? You really won't hurt me?"

I shook my head in disbelief.

"What? What no good brute would do that to such a pretty mare like you. I'm not like that, miss. I'm a Celestian. And I act with purpose. We can work all day. But sinning comes later."

Her cheeks burned cherry, so I asked her her name to keep them clean. It only made it worse. Her lips parted and her cheeks bloomed. A few steps forward and she let me watch her narrow rump. I only grinned once because she caught me, only to start trotting with her shoulders pressed inward.

"My name is... my name's Tequila. Tequila Redshot." I heard her mumble, fixing her glasses and leading us away from Pilgrim's landing.

Author's Note

Level Up! New Perk Gained!

Riu, Riu Chiu:

You're reckless (-3 DR and DT, +6.66% movement speed and combat movement speed).

Red Like Roses

"Is that a pipbuck?" Tequila asked me, browsing it's many dials and screens I'd never even explored.

I pondered for a moment if that name was intentionally nonsensical or if my device was really used for bucking. Did I really know what it was. No. But did I want and/or need to spend a whole chapter of my life discussing it's nuclear wonders...?

No.

"... Yes." I answered, looking far, far away.

I let her fondle my accessory. And then, she thanked with oral
instructions on how to use it.

It was thinner than the others she'd seen. Perfect for a girl like Tequila. She was thick at her curves and nowhere else, not even her neck, which worried me with how brittle it looked. We tread on the marsh and trotted right of Pilgrim's Landing. Abandoned carnival stalls, destroyed or misplaced benches and time-worn posters surrounded us. We kept our eyes peeled trotting side-by-side, watching for swampfolk and savage wildlife. The only other thing neighboring Pilgrim's Landing was the murky shoreline and wide, open swamp terrain.

Within view was another, towering mansion along the coast of Point Lookin. It was called Point Lookin because the place was primarily a tourist attraction. That decision was bitterly made by the old, recently-deceased owner of Whitehall Mansion. I heard his decision was simple business practice, to attract revenue to a dying old landmark. Father Pepperjack told me so. And Father Pepperjack was thorough in his study of the land. I'd even learned how to wash the swamp stink out my coat, thanks to him. The abraxo cleaner and bleach were rather heavy in my pack, swaying lazily and striking my squeak-toy dolly.

Constant 'mama's filled the drab, musty air. Humorous in hindsight, as Tequila still looked nervous about it. But I didn't care at all. It was my dolly. My comfort away from books. Away from home. We passed an unburnt bush and she finally stopped leading. I followed her with empty eyes, confused when my party member took out a pack of smokes. The box was crumpled and veined with white flesh between red skin.

"Why are you smoking...?" I asked, keeping half-crouched for approaching danger.

"I-I need it. I smoke when I'm stressed, okay."

I glanced away and presented my dolly. My companion scrunched her face in confusion. But squeezing my dollie against my chest drew her signature 'mama' from her squeaky torso. We shared a glance and she had one brow higher than the other.

"... You carry a doll around?" She said, stepping back a few measures.

My expression never changed. And, even better, I stared at her while I spoke, nuzzling my friend every few seconds. I rubbed my cheek against her and noticed how small she was in my hooves. My hooves were gargantuan. So full of weight and blunt calcium. I'd grown to the size of a full mare.

"... Nhn. She keeps me warm. And that won't change. Even if I try. Even if I want it to." I stated, pulling one of her smokes away and imagining it were lit.

Surprisingly... it lit.

Tequila dropped her cancer and left her maw agape.

"How... how did you..."

"How did I what?" I asked, watching her with heavy eyelids.

I spent the next twenty minutes or so explaining why I might've been capable of pyromancy. She said it was impossible to do without a horn, but I told her pony anatomy didn't work that way. Magic was a theoretical constant.

It did not disappear because your skull was missing a focal nexus near it's apex. Magic was an everywhere like electromagnetic currents, it was only against insulators and even magic dampening materials that it didn't soak into anypony present. Just because earth ponies couldn't find a way to use their magic didn't mean it was impossible for non-unicorns. I explained that earth ponies were merely resistant to it's effects and thus, they had no way to naturally channel it. The ramble kept her sane and prevented her combat paranoia. She'd been fidgeting. And, from what I'd seen... Tequila was predisposed to irrational anxiety.

We were halfway up the hill to Caviar Mansion. The estate was victorian in architecture. Many pleasant embroideries and symmetrical measurements met my eyes. It was beautiful. Symmetry was beautiful. I marveled at Caviar Mansion, molesting the many pedestals and Puncher fruits growing in oblong pots with my eyes. We met an obscure corner of the estate, a garden, by eyeing a lighthouse along the shoreline.

"... So why do you smoke if smoking is bad for you." I asked, closing my eyes and feeling rain on my coat.

"It... it comforts me. When I was smaller, my dad would hold me in his lap and do paperwork, smoking. He was always working and I was always around him. So. I... smoke because I miss him. He's the reason I'm here, after all."

I heard her with open ears and heavy eyes, tired from my own memories.

"I miss my mother, too. All I remember is I woke up next to her and she was cold. I didn't know it was until one of her friends took me in and raised me. He taught me intelligence and set me right. He took me in and raised me. I miss him for a lot of reasons. But his care was culinary. Whenever I was down or got too skinny, Father Pepperjack cooked me Nom in a skillet and puncher puppies."

We settled for leaving the garden and finally entering the house. Nopony was home, strangely enough. It'd been built differently from Whitehall Mansion, I noticed. The walls weren't made with floral wallpaper and the stairway was made of metal. I knew because the creak it produced was more shrill and grating. It wasn't eerie like a rickety door was; it was just annoying. I had no idea how old world ponies could live in metal ships, like Father Pepperjack used to tell. My eyes went to Tequila as I finally asked her why we were there.

Her whisper delivered me from temptation and I listened with faith.

"This... used to be dad's old research facility. He was here for six years before he and mom had me. I came here to study the Puncher fruit. Puncher fruit is getting it's start in the Canterlot Wasteland, but I'm here to study it in it's natural habitat. And- and if it's not too much, I'd like you to help me. I'm not like you. I can't even t-touch a weapon. So... so will you help me get m-more Puncher fruit?"

Was there ever any doubt. I watched her lips tremble. She was horrified I wasn't giving her a look of sympathy. But I was. I heard her cries and I remembered my Mother Goddess soothing me to blessed purpose. Tequila sounded a lot like my mother. Same raspy quality. Same flip of her 'r's. Everything else fell into place. I knew what had to be done.

"Then this is Celestia's work. I'll find your prodigal seeds. And I'll help you tribute your father. Ask and you shall receive, Tequila. I am your worker."

I don't know what it was, but my response made her red again. What was it about me that turned her cherry. Before I could deduce the reason, she twiddled her hooves and named a faction of tribals nearby. The Dreamers were far northeast of Caviar Mansion. Tequila Redshot explained The Dreamers were a pack of religious horticulture specialists.

Well that was just silly.

I started to turn away and Tequila clung to my right foreleg. I never realized how meager her stature was. Tequila nuzzled the bottom of my sternum and whispered 'wait, stay here...' I didn't know how to feel. What to say. A saint was keeping me close. We stayed together as long as she wanted. So she pulled away and covered her face.

"I-I... I'm sorry. I feel safe around you. Nopony else I've met is even like you. You never asked for caps o-or sex or anything. You're just here. Helping me. Wh-why me though? Why help me and b-be nice to me?" She whispered, peeking between her hooves.

I closed my eyes and thought, but only for a moment.

"I made a mistake I can never fix. I hurt my family. I hurt my tribe. It made me wingless and made me fall. I ran away from home, the only place I could ever call my own. And as I lay dying, I prayed my soul to keep if I'd be put to sleep. I was dying at the docks and you came along."

I took a puff of my cigarette and watched the air dilute with carcinogenic vapors. I saw her waiting. I saw her lips part. Tequila asked 'and what else' with honest eyes. I saw light glimmering off their surface.

"I thought you'd hurt me, but Celestia had other plans. She gave me you. And you gave me purpose. You wouldn't hurt anypony. So I'll do all the hurting for you..." I answered, standing still as she held me tight.

I flinched and held her loosely, unsure of the way my stomach felt. I couldn't feel anything, but I was... lighter. My thoughts were absent. Even my wing injury stopped burning.

I would later learn that we shared a moment in her father's old laboratory. On New Year's, she stated sometime after. We were in the kitchen when she told me. I sat to the left of her and she leaned against me, enjoying my scent and the meal I'd put together. Forest pine, she said I smelled like, like forest pine and musk.

It was Nom and molerat blood morcilla. Well, there were other ingredients, like swamp onion and ground puncher fruit. But Nom was the main flavor. Nom was an amalgamation of various meats, of which not the least, radhog. It came in a squarish tin and broke apart like milk cake. Father Pepperjack taught me how to survive under the safety of his watch. But I was more of a chef than an ungroomed explorer.

Tequila melted and an audible declaration of relief and pleasure slipped her lips. Her cheeks were full of morcilla. And that made me smile. Wasn't she splendid, I wondered silently, entranced by her hunger. She was eating my food. She recieved my flesh. And as far as I could tell, her plate was feeling lonely.

"Have mine." I hushed, sliding my sausage over.

"N-no no no no, you- you need a eat!" She panicked, trying to put it back.

I hushed her by pressing it against her lips. Tequila folded her lips over it and locked eyes with me. She took a flick and accepted my offering. She was hungrier than I thought. Tequila took it deeper and enjoyed my sausage, savoring it every inch of it. I watched her choke when she masticated too quickly and it's juices sprayed, forcing her eyes shut. I made her swallow and keep it down. We finished together and I left her satisfied with her midnight snack.

Tequila fell asleep not five minutes later, unused to fat-rich foods like morcilla.

I scoffed as I realized how overpowering the Nom must've been. Puncher fruit was mashed into it for two reasons: one, it helped the system digest and accept otherwise unhealthy foods. Two: when puncher was actually cooked, the sweetness disappeared and it resembled an unususally large potato. The taste was better suited for a meal, though. It resembled fancy fries mashed together. The sugar converted to salt past it's usual climate temperature of 28° celcius.

I helped her into bed that night and tucked her in nice and tight. And though it kept me up all night making sure she slept alright, I didn't mind at all. The windows by poured in with light, with milk over her honey sheets. So I stood by her bedside and prayed her soul to keep. My hooves clicked together and I spoke below the low buzz of firebug lamplight. They flew around me, seeping in from a broken window not meters away.

"Now I lay her down to sleep, I pray Celestia, her soul to keep; Guide us through the starry night, and wake us with the morning's light. I ask not for her alone, but for thy children -- every one."

I opened my eyes when my ears perked up. Downstairs, I heard a door slam open.

I took Madre Diosa betwixt my teeth and shooed the bugs away. I shuffled far away from eden to cleanse the gentiles and blasphemers. This was her temple. Her sanctuary to her own father. I would creep out low to the ground, perpetually crouched. I heard voices in the main room and boots dirtying her carpet. As far as I could tell, there were four pairs of hooves and two voices. One was colt with a shrill tenor and his marefriend spoke in a low soprano.

"Looks like someone's been here. We should probably go, Violet. I don't like this. What if it's one of those swampfolks." He cautioned, echoing throughout the empty mansion.

"I dunno... I don't think swampfolks carry around prewar books. Look at this one, it's got gold on the cover."

I froze. And then I thawed. I was burning. My heart was cold and it kept me from lighting ablaze. I slid downstairs and landed with a loud thump. They started towards me from a blind corner. I waited by the right of the doorway, tense and loose all at once. I found them. Or, rather, they found me, all four of them in leather armor fitted with scraps of motorcycle metal. One of the smugglers, as my pipbuck stated, spoke to me with a barrel to my snout.

"Who the hell are you...?"

I looked upon him from down below and answered.

"I am your perdition." I hushed, setting his mane aflame.

He and his malcontent brothers started firing. They witnessed pale death as I rushed toward them dotted with red. I slashed the leader with Madre Diosa. He reeled over and snarled in pain. I shoved him forward and knocked him down, stomping his skull in. The others spat lead at me. But all I felt were minuscule stings. It must've been the adrenaline. I could barely feel it.

I pounced forward and took the other two down, tackling them to the stairs. They were out of shells, I could tell. I saw fear in them. And, maybe, just maybe, I had mercy on them. I slit their throats and set them free. The last darted past me and up the stairs. His steps were short and stomping. He'd wake her up. He'd hurt Tequila.

"Are you a Fillystine or a deserter! Come back and fight!" I barked, only to watch him find her room.

He slipped inside and clicked the door close. I stormed forward and burst through it.

"D-don't come any closer. Don't come closer o-or I'll shoot." He shook, holding Tequila at gunpoint.

I felt nothing as I looked down on him. And it lit ablaze as I lit him. First, he was too tired to notice his tail burning. But then he did and he leapt away in panic, flopping on the floor. He started rolling back and forth, akin to some child enjoying life. So I took it away from him. I took his discarded lever action and filled him with 10mm's. Fine, rich edom stained my chest and I felt it over my hooves. He was gone. His skull was sunken within itself riddled with hot metal. I dropped it over his corpse and carried him away to the bathroom. I doused his body in lamp oil and shut the door behind me.

"Dear Celestia... I now know what I'll be facing. I know now the purpose you've given me. I'll keep her safe. I'll keep all your angels safe. I beg you to give me strength. So I can fall them like collumns and do so in your name. You are my shepard and I ask naught else. Amare."

I felt Tequila wrap her legs around me.

I knew it wasn't so. But I closed my eyes and imagined it was Her.

That it was mother.

Author's Note

Level Up! New Perk Gained!

Filly at Heart:

Interactions with children will provide extra dialogue. Your childish nature also influences others around you, but mostly, the like-minded.

Downfall

I was bedridden for... three days straight. I felt nothing after the initial crippling dislocations and femur fractures. I would always be scarred and my muscles were tender. I walked with a limp. And everything hurt. I was just ignored it. My resolve was stronger than smugglers and gentiles.

Oddly enough, I discovered something extra along my flank. I found it on the third day, risen from the coffin Tequila lay me in. She thought I'd died because my hearts gave out. She described to me her crippling grief and showed me tallies along her forelegs. They were carved. I kissed her coat and brushed our muzzles together. I held her close for an hour. But, eventually, she left to break the fast.

How did I get out, you may ask. I'd heard before that coffin lids were impossible to break from the inside. But I burned through it. And the rest followed. I found the nearest mirror. I needed to see if I was dirty. I felt clean but I never eliminated the possibility of residual bloodstains.

I was blessed with hair white as snow. My bangs were ruffled and grouped together in pleasing manners. They fell over my eyes. My eyes were red. Red and milky, like young pinoit noir. And I checked my ass for wounds because why wouldn't I. And there it was, the image of a cross on fire. Why was it on fire, I asked myself; why was it on fire, I asked Celestia, trotting over to my pack and searching for clues.

Nothing. I found nothing. The Celestian Bible didn't include anything on burning crosses or why I happened to be albino. All I found were ritual preparations for divination and channeling spirits. Nothing at all about burning crosses.

I flopped backwards and into bed. I skulked, biting my lip. I held my neck up to see if my stomach was injured. No stains. And no wounds. But something else was off. My crotch was still numb. I hadn't noticed before but there were two sheathes between my thighs. I splayed my legs to study my parts in the mirror, holding my legs in-place to keep them wide.

Tequila peaked in through the doorway and scrambled out just as quickly. I stayed there wondering if I should be embarrassed or flattered. I saw her cheeks flush right before her exit. It was puzzling, to say the least, to wonder if she'd been blushing about my marginal blessings, or the way I enthralled her. She was still a child, I assumed. I trotted after her and brought my newest lever-action. It was the same 10mm rifle I shot the blashphemer yesterday with. And it was good. I sought the fowl of the air to practice my marksmareship when I realized Point Lookin was devoid of much avian life. There were crows and ravens. But all of them were perched on Caviar Mansion.

I tracked her down the stairs and into the kitchen. Because Tequila had a prevailing, pungent scent about her. The best comparison I had for it was cigarettes and cherries. We met in the kitchen, locking eyes for a moment's notice. She covered her eyes and told me 'good morning.' I said it back with my tilted grin, trotting in to show my sin, just for tonight till morning light said goodnight.

"Will you be okay. Or should I bring you with? You're my mission just as much as I am yours."

I heard her throat clench. She gulped thrice to try and swallow her thoughts. I wanted to hear her. But she had other plans, and I'd never doubt one of Celestia's angels. So I watched her set the table and serve us cinnamon-spiced oatmeal with peanut butter jelly sandwiches. We sat together throughout breakfast. And we never broke away.

"I'm afraid to let go of you. What if you never come back...?" Tequila hushed, nuzzling close against my shoulder.

"Why wouldn't I come back. I'm hard to kill." I hushed as well, resting against her.

"Because you're strong and gorgeous and everyone would try to take you away." I heard her mumble, sniffling into my coat.

I heard her rasp and I perked my ears up. I could hear everything. The scratching in her throat. The whispered doubts cluttering Tequila's mind. She was wondering if I'd reject her. If I'd squander her affections because I meant that much to her. But I knew deep down, I'd never hurt her that way. So I lit a cigarette for two and shared it between us.

I took the first puff.

"I don't know what you see in me. But I'm yours. I'm here to keep you safe. And that means... I feel something for you. So don't worry. Celestia forbid, I'll get hurt. And when I'm done hurting, I'll come back to see you... don't worry about me."

She took the second puff.

"I know you're strong... but Im just- just worried about you. What if you disappear just like Him. Just like my d-daddy."

I had a feeling I reminded her of Mr. Caviar. Her father was bound to show in who I was. In who I happened to be, someone to keep her safe and scare her all at once. It was primitive psychology, even down to Apple and Cleave, who only loved the strongest. I closed my eyes and told her she'd done alright. And I kissed her till the dead of night. We locked lips missing gods and goddesses. In a sick way, we wanted. In an empty way, we found what we could never have: someone to take care of us. We were children in a world of darkness. And so I left my eden with my rifle and I never looked back.

I promised I'd be back. But the worst was yet to come.

I'd wander the emptiness till I could find her fruit. She told me, before I left, puncher fruit had the potential to cure radiation across Equestria. Things like hostile swampfolk and feral ghouls, or swamplurks would never happen again. And I'd find that cure. Just for her.

Just for her, my sweetest downfall.

Exodus and Pariah

It was 20:30 military time and I was trodding through murky swamp gunk. And it felt like the muggiest, naggingest slop I'd ever had to kick through. The world was a Zion razed to the ground and no Celestia was here to carry my sorry ass out the methane-heavy swamp slush. But I had faith because you always had to have faith. Even Father Pepperjack told me that was the case. And he wasn't a soldier or a mercenary, he was an educator, a light bringer. And somewhere along the line, among the Fillystines rushing into Caviar Mansion, I forgot that. Beneath the sheets of paper and bottlecaps, I forgot who I was.

I was Tequila's. I was Celestia's. I was their last hope. And I had a nation to speak to.

The murky stain of rain weighed my coat everywhere. I wasn't safe outside. Not even from dirt. I waltzed along an unknown tree cluster only to find droves and droves of feral swamp ghouls. Some were rotting and missing limbs. Others were still in-tact and, at most, like leathery cosplayers searching for free pizza. But they were present in the vast Edom and Sodom of Point Lookin's swamps. I couldn't step past them. So I crouched, my belly to the grass in prayer.

I heard them snarling and sniffing, frothing at the mouth to lick their chops. I closed my eyes and put my hooves together. Because why not. Celestia was my shepard. And I was safe.

"Madré nuestro que estás en los cielos, santificado sea tu nombre,
venga tu reyno, hagase tu voluntad," I recited, only to feel my hindlegs twitching.

I realized why and leapt up, keeping my forelegs off the ground. A ghoul clawed my scar open. He touched my face. He made me ugly. He made me dirty. I stomped him down by the shoulder blades and rushed him into a tree. He groaned and hissed, flailing his limbs about. But I saw him. And he was filthy. I bucked him stomach-first into a branch. And it impaled him, affixing him to the tree husk.

The others swarmed me. I dodged them through the forest. There were easily more then twenty, I knew. Our hooves were loud, comical sloshes through the marsh. And each of us knew someone was dying tonight.

I fought them as they gained on me. Only then, when one would bite at me or chomp at my flank, did I stop to buck them. Bucking a moving target, especially in a tangent toward you, was called a counterbuck. Counterbucking was using the enemy's momentum against them by meeting with force from the opposite direction. Less work from you and more impact on their end.

They were gaining. What I could only describe as a hive-like swarm of uniform malice was chasing me. They snapped their sharp, gator-like teeth in synchronized noise and panted against me. Those horrid filfth were galloping harder and harder just to taste me. They were animals hunting the civlized and I was a numberless supper.

So I repeated my hit and run for countless measures of time. Every moment was a struggle. Combat, done right, was a constant game of luck and muscle memory. I strained to breathe and I found a campfire... inhabited by gun-toting swampfolk. I rolled my eyes and started my prayers again.

"Asi en la tierra como en el cielo. Danos hoy nuestro pan cotidiano,
Y perdónanos nuestras deudas,"

There were four... oddly happy, dancing swampfolk doing the hoedown. Because they didn't stop dancing till I was loud enough to hear over the snarling and decrepit ghoul gabbers, apparently. I couldn't, for a moment in time, believe my steps were audibly more prominent than a pack of ghouls. It got worse when I grazed a tree with my pipbuck and it turned one of the dials.

Mezzopiano banjo music spewed forth from my foreleg. I managed to chuckle with a straight face. I struck a flame on the most impressive ghoul specimen: a young feral ghoul reaver. At least, that's what the pipbuck told me. I never got the hang of AIM, as all it did was highlight anatomical regions, and I had to focus on the screen instead of the people in front of me. So it was totally useless because it did absolutely nothing. I didn't need to look at a giant smartphone. All I did was put my belly to the grass, turn the banjo music off and watch them war.

The swampfolk were far more intelligent. They flanked an circled their enemies when all the ghouls did was charge forward. It was near-suicide really. I wondered how they did it, those mutated swamp ponies. How did they, of seemingly lower intelligence, handle such a tasking numerical setback. They were four to one, minus a well-done leader. Once the leader cooked alive, his subordinates became disjointed and hectic. They had no order. I snuck about by one of the corpses and looted it.

It was a... tracker swampony? I found one, double barrel shotgun and six shotgun shells. They were buckshot, by the sound of the shaking. One thing I learned better than hoof-fighting and knife combat, was shotguns. I was supposed to get one eventually. But those pricks- no, those sodomites Apple and Cleave turned father away from me. It set a spark inside just thinking about them. How could they. I was there for three years and I was his only student.

I was his and he selled me short, the bastard; wasn't he supposed to be my God. Instead of soothing me, prayer started to burn. It wasn't working. I lost everyone close to me. My mother. My father. My angel. My Tequila was sitting right at home. Someone was taking her. I just knew it.

They were taking her the Roming way and I was out here, I was out here shooting at swampfolk and stepping on their chests as they begged for mercy. But I knew they were liars. They shot me first. I felt it on my chest. Fifty scars wide open with red and red stripes bleeding down. I stuck it against his muzzle and I asked him if he was proud of me.

"Yes! Yes I'm done proud, I'm done proud, lady! Please, lemme go!"

"Are you proud of me, daddy?!" I screamed, firing round after round of buckshot.

"Are you proud that I'm jealous!?" Are you proud of me for tearing my wing off?! Are you- proud!?"

I stepped away shaking. I was bloody. Father's blood was on my hooves and so were Cleave's. I was unworthy. Celestia witnessed and I fell to my stomach exhausted, laying on sixteen corpses, three shotguns and eight shells out their boxes. Out their homes.

"C-Celestia forgive me..."

I stumbled away and felt the sky rumble.

"Celestia, I'm sorry...!"

A vein of white pierced the sky. And it struck all around me. Nearby tree husks split in half. The earth burned gold and the swamp lit the night up. I screamed back at Celestia, aching as my missing wing burned and bled. I was bleeding everywhere. I was ugly. And I... was dirty.

"I'm sorry-! I don't know how to handle this torture...! Everyone I love is- is gone. Everyone..."

I saw the error of my ways. I saw it in the puddle right in front of me. I was burning. There was fire behind me and the puddle said I would burn for all the sin I carried.

"And the child said unto her, Mother, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy daughter." I sobbed, laying in the mud, shaking with my hooves stuck together.

"And the child said unto her, Mother, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy daughter-" I gasped, coughing on warm, flowing crimson.

My blood touched the flames not inches away. And I froze, I closed my eyes and accepted my fate. It lit my wine effluvium and bathed me in flame. I felt it. Every burn. Every scar. Every ember flaking off my skin. I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I didn't deserve to.

How could I love Tequila when I hurt my own Father.

I opened my eyes... and my coat was fine.

My hair was long. And I sobbed in awe. In awe of Celestia's forgiveness. I would do everything just to see her smile again. I choked my sobs back and ran. I sprinted and sprinted till I saw it. The belltower was lit with Sodom's smoke. The immense stature it boasted was a symbol of her glory. A temple to the one, true creator. It was tarnished by time, but never in beauty. There were many floraes withered away over it's vast structure. And the walled barrier surrounding it boasted stone angels. I approached the gates and prayed...

"Asì como nosotros perdonamos á nuestros deudores. Y no nos metas en tentación, mas líbranos de mal..."

I crossed my chest and crouched low, to investigate a glint between the grass. I found a Celestian cross with the figure herself crucified to the symbol. It attached to many, minuscule spheres of gold. I hesitated, but, as I held it... I felt the many contours of the beads and realized they were wood hued like gold. They were sacred like nature itself. It smelled like roses. Fresh roses and cherries. I kept it close and realized... I was there.

I finally reached the Ark and Dove Cathedral.

Author's Note

Level Up! New Perk Gained!

Raze it:

Your pyrokinesis is oddly practiced.

You can now start fire with your blood and do an additional 6% damage while set aflame. You are also resistant to crippling from fire damage, but the damage still applies. It is only halved.

Practiced hands make for short work. Razing another Sodom or, Celestia forbid, Zion, is a chore like any other when done righteously.

Omen

I barely felt comfortable in my new jewelery. It was... oddly warm against my skin. I wasn't used to lukewarm sensations. It was bone-chilling or simply scathing. It was never in-between. I felt off. I felt unclean wearing it. In fact, I felt... I felt like crushing the cross into millions of microscopic pieces. It slid off and I could've sworn it didn't look injured or broken. Nothing was wrong with the crucifix.

Was I cursed...? Did I blaspheme?

I jumped in place, barely moving, but shaken.

"Who goes there?! You don't look like one of us, civilfolk...! Come to cathedral if you want to help! Stay outside for business! You kill metal ponies! No kill tribe! Understand!?"

Tribals? There were actually tribals with poor English? I thought english was an easy language. Or, at least proper syntax was easy. I stepped away from the gate and near the speaker system. It told me to push the button with a chalk arrow sign, so I did.

"Yes, I'll help. Tell me who to cleanse and it shall be done."

A lone buzz ended my sentence. So it seemed the tribals were desperate. And so was I. I felt the urge to burn something so I did, aiming my malice toward some vines. So it was that more of the Ark and Dove Cathedral was bathed in flame. It was bathed in luminescence. I couldn't look away, not even close to the entrance. I kicked the doors open and entered, absent-minded.

Supposedly, churches and cathedrals were the undeniable homes of Celestia and her holy trinity. But why did no one keep it clean of vice and conflict. Even the yew benches weren't safe from rambunctious rough-housing. There were bullets and hatchets, to spears and lasers disrupting the peace so wrongly desecrated.

I browsed about, yawning and groggy, spotting the tribals and their synthetic enemies. Their enemies, I could only assume, resembled robots in the likeness of a pony. Same tail design, though most were missing it, and same hair fibers blanketing their heads. Just, most of them were bald from presumed warfare. The synths, I would later know them as, were marblish in skin-tone beneath the artificial layers.

That's how I knew. I knew who to shoot, who to burn. The color of their skin said so.

I worked shortly and burned them. And when any of their polymer flesh caught fire, it was surprisingly effective. The plastic composite flesh would melt away and the metal would warp at the joints. Because that's where I targetted, the joints. They'd go up in flames, check their superficial injury and fall to shotgun and sledgehammer tribals. I was wondering, however, as I lay back and picked them off with gunfire, why my fire was reddish in hue. It was never so ominous before. So why would I, a messenger of Celestia, carry a wicked flame?

There were dozens of synth husks layering the floor. And most tribal corpses, in total estimation, were turned to ash. The purity of the ash before me, on my hooves and in my hair, felt marvellous. It felt familiar. Who else but Celestia could design such fine textures. It was heaven on the hooves and rubbed in like talcum powder. My trance broke hearing the speaker voice right beside me.

"Ah, civilfolk. My name is Mango Summer. Come. You do good. You do magic without horn and burn synth back. You must be Celestia pony. We see Celestia pony two days ago right here, too."

I felt my stomach ache. Twas pulsing and stinging. Twas eating me alive. So I spoke to quell it.

"What... other Celestia ponies. Who? And what did they look like." I inquired, starting notes on my pipbuck.

He spoke slowly. I thought he was lying, but the way his words streamed... I figured it was language trouble. He didn't show any signs of ambush, either. The other ponies were amassed elsewhere, so the Ark and Dove was eerily vast and lifeless.

If it weren't for the many floodlights and lanterns, I'd think twice about staying longer. I found comfort in Summer, though. He was an honest pony with an honest heart. He made eye-contact and never broke it. His hooves were also making gestures. They went forgotten by lying storytellers.

"There were two. One red coat like strawberry and cherry. He eyes white, milk color. And his friend blue fur. She have blue eyes, too. Ice blue. We talk and buy. They give us... what name be again. They give us books and labratori. Blue say we use it make Med-X and Saiko. And then they give us machine make good puncher fruit."

Sons of bitches. Sons of Roam. They were cultivating the locals to line their pockets with caps. I wondered how far they'd get if I paid a visit myself. I dropped the idea when I thought... maybe they were just like me. Maybe the other Celestians were just as hard to throttle. The thought scared me. What could a nation of us do. We could forge Hel, or build Eden. I understood now.

"What if I bought some puncher fruit for now, just to research it, and told you I had a mansion you could grow more in? All the yard. All the basement. Even the rooms. Just two rooms... saved for me and my mare. The rest, for your tribe..."

His mouth was wide open. He could scarcely follow, much less believe. But I told him one, simple thing.

"All you have to do for sunlight... is listen to me. I have a book just for you. And it covers everything about sunlight. All about heat. Does that sound good?"

I sealed the deal with a smile. A Celestian one a Celestian cult leader might wear.

And so, I took him by his hooves and shook his hand. I felt a strange urge to make bets with him. To gamble. But i decided against it, for discipline's sake. We took to bartering not minutes after. And he was a guillable colt. But I never took advantage of him. He'd need all the caps he could steal. Ponies these days were sickly horses on other sickly horses' backs.

'A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.'

That was today's wasteland economy.

We settled for two of my double barrels, three teddy bears, one pack of cigarettes and forty caps for two puncher fruit. He asked immediately why I didn't just take some, but I told him my neighbor was my neighbor, and I wouldn't take and I wouldn't want. Yes, I took some refined puncher straight from the soil trough, but I never took more. That was unfair. And that was predation, the Roaming way.

I also... happened to scrounge some internal systems parts and hectaterrabyte chips here and there from the synth corpses. I found some heavy duty microprocessors and even a whole head, too. I took a leg back for a souvenir, in-case anypony else from the Commonwealth paid me a visit.

The weapons were not so salvageable. All of their laser pistols and pulse pistols were broken. And, in some cases, they were melted to scrap thanks to some genius and their rampant pyromania. Not three hours after the Ark and Dove conflict did I leave perfectly unscathed. And I was off to find a Mother Puncher, or whatnot. The Mother Puncher was a special, giganticus strain of normal puncher fruit. It was so vast and timeless that it's sole purpose was to spew puncher pollen and drop puncher seeds.

He warned me of a mad stallion stalking it's home, the Sacred Bog. Apparently, the old tribe used to require lobotomy for recruitment. Mango Summers took over once the past leader, Fat Sun, was decapitated by a lone wanderer. I wondered... just how skilled you had to be to decapitate someone mid-combat with a dull splinting weapon. Maybe Tequila could learn to use one. I ignored the twitching in my face, sure it'd pass.

As I opened the doors, I heard it, the sound of breaking stone. I stayed inside.

A stone cross fell from the cathedral's bell tower and fell in front of me.

It landed right where I would've been if I never stopped to think.

I crossed my chest and feared the omen.

Sodom

Two hours ago, I'd rubbed myself with puncher fruit flowers. And then I stocked them in my pack for later use. A scent, above all other biological perceptions, was the most powerful impression in any circumstance. I was fearful the swamp might ruin my smell and charm, if they happened to be of any mention. It was hard to take that my hooves were always dirty. That they were always soiled and always caked in something, be it blood or dirt or bog slush, it haunted me. So I smelled roses on the path before me, it set by my pipbuck when I set my destination. That device, in all it's strange wonder, was the perfect companion on low travel.

It might've been frowned upon, but I was headed for Caviar Mansion. I had to check on her. Because that was right. And that was my desire. I trusted her but not with violence or any confrontation in general. If I seemed imposing the day we met, what would some wasteland miscreant look like. What would they do. I tread heavily and sped home, passing several locations along the way. I found a simple merchant home named 'Scaley's Hardware', amongst other things, not a soul to stir the peace.

There was a cave not far from that very establishment, but I skipped exploration to avoid unnecessary conflict. Tequila was waiting for me. We were both heartsick. I knew it in the pressure about my chest, straining my normally insensate heart muscle. The bog was colder than usual that arid evening. It felt off in a way, from the creak of unstable tree husks to the unmistakable gaze of Caviar Mansion beckoning an ominous reunion. We were all children in her eyes. Celestia had plans for all of us, I recited, tense in my gut.

Before I set hoof anywhere near Caviar Mansion, my legs took to shaking. They were all brittled by an unexpected apprehension. I felt uneasy going in. I approached the double doors of Caviar Mansion and pushed the entry plate slowly. It gave an innocent click and let me in, unlocked like it should've been.

I stepped in expecting the worst. There was no doubt a lingering dread festered deep inside, filling me with pseudo-memories and half-theories on Tequila's fate. The horror I found stepping into the kitchen stopped my heart. The table was a mess of jossled clutter and destruction. Plates were smashed about in shards and messy piles. And in the center of our table was a perfect clearing for one equine body on it's back. She was there, naked and crying in one corner of it. To the far right of the stoves, she curled up and sat against the corner, shadowed and kissed with shivers down every part of her. I raced over and met her. I heard her sob. I heard her cry. She held me far from the crime scene and wished me ignorant of it.

"Whitestar... Whitestar... I-I couldn't shoot them. I couldn't hurt them- I...." Tequila sobbed, gritting her teeth against me.

"They were too st-strong- please don't hate me- I can't be alone- I can't hurt anyone-!" She screamed, jumping and siezing with bone-breaking spasms.

I held her close and shed a tear for her. There was anger. But I'd save it for the othere. For the Sodomites and their wicked hearts. I wanted to see them first. So I could wipe the fire from me. So she could see me shine, not kindle. I held firmly and pressed my pelvis into her. I heard her gasp and cling tighter. I felt her legs wrap around me.

"You didn't fight back?" I hushed, nipping her neck.

"N-no- I can't- I can't hurt anyone-" She trembled, quivering against me.

"You knew they'd be hurting you. You got raped, didn't you. You were touched and taken."

I licked her cheeks in warm, circling swiped and felt her tense. I found it horrid. I found it wrong. But she was stolen from me. And I was there, to lick her wounds and keep her dry. We swapped spit and licked our mouths thick with drool. I trailed our tongues with saliva and broke away to breathe.

"You have to hurt them. You have to tell them no. People like that only take advantage of ponies that can't fight back- fight back- don't let them step on you because if you do, you'll be an easy target. Lock yourself in a room. Shoot around them. Anything. Don't be weak. Don't let them use you unless that's what you want-"

I ended it by pushing my hips up. She groaned and licked my lips. I rubbed and rubbed till both my pricks were out. She went wide-eyed with how distended I was. Tequila bit her lip and whispered 'I'm scared. What if it hurts.' And I hooked my hooves around her hips

"It won't." I hushed, poking in with only my crown.

It pushed her lips in and I licked away at her with precum. I drooled in four places, three between my legs and out my mouth. I lapped her cheeks away in feral flicks and swathes. Tequila wrapped around my back and barely touched her hooves together. I thrust patiently. Her body drooled and drooled till half of me packed inside her. It felt good to squish inside her, stuffing her red and sweaty.

"Wh-whitestar- fuck- I... I can't talk-" She squeaked, trembling and bucking.

I asked what was wrong and felt my brows dip. My angel held me close and I felt her squeeze down there. I saw her strain and grunt with how tight she must've felt. How hard it must've been to ignore how she felt. We were still missing. But we were happy.

I stung her insides with slow, hard claps. The claps struck my ring and kept her grunting in pain and pleasure. She was melting. I felt it, in how she squealed, how every ounce of girldew splashed around me. I closed my eyes and bit my lip. They raped her, didn't they. They took her first.

"You didn't like it, did you?" I cursed, flipping her over and fucking from behind.

"N-no, I didn't- I-I swear-!" She panicked, trembling against the wall.

Tequila bit her lip. I bit mine, too. I bit her shoulder and leaned against her. I rocked her forward by pounding into her. She could feel me throbbing, because I reached the bottom and left it in. I pulled her down by the hips. It felt natural. I pelted her thick, jiggling waist and locked her still. Tequila arched her back, screaming. I didn't know why. I loved the sound, though. It was harps and wind against me.

"Yes-! Yes-! I-I did-! I liked it!" She shrieked, siezing hard and twitching everywhere.

I held her down and creamed her button. Tequila groaned and squeaked shortly everytime I bucked her forward. I flooded her narrows and rubbed it in just to feel her. I loved her shivers and hard, grating moans. I bit her shoulder and clamped down, emptying myself one pump at a time. She finished whenever I did. My milk made her tender and left her sloppy against the wall. My flared, heavy hips thumped against her and I spoke through lust.

"You better fight next time... You have to stand up for yourself when someone's out to hurt you. Even Celestia knows a mare needs to look after herself. If you don't, those Roamings might force someone else. And then someone else will have to hurt just like you. The pain of being- nnnh- forced never goes away."

I heard her half-sob, but for an esoteric reason. She finished one more time and held me in. I couldn't break away or deny my body lease. We were both frustrated and shaken up inside. We were both dealing with revelations. I held her down again and fed her cervix. I heard a warm, sickening crunch as I filled her girlpocket. We fell forward and I instantly regretted everything.

Especially forgetting a condom.

We spent the next day gently rutting our brains out. I didn't have to do much. She was supremely sensitive. I had no doubt anypony else would take her the Roaming way and make her a slave to their dominance. That was something I couldn't do. It was not my nature to control the disadvantaged. It was my nature to keep natural order.

I learned that recounting my urges to set the sheets right before sex or set her tail on just the right spot. I didn't enjoy tail bristles against my meat. Or, really, at all. And sometimes she'd awkwardly pose for me during her facials but I tended toward natural beauty. If she had too much makeup on or an uncharacteristically clean or dirt-caked coat, I could scarcely ignore it.

It was two days and three hours before I quelled the heat between us.

I took her for three hours straight till she fell asleep on me and begged me to stop, as it was starting to injure and tear her. So I prayed her soul to keep and lay her down to sleep, brushing lips with my blessed sheep. I watched her doze and slip away, only to work in bed arranging business transactions with The Dreamers.

The Sacred Bog was still an eight hour's jog away. So I stayed in bed and listened to Point Looking Radio. It was low and steady with many static crackles. The audio was horrid, but, something soothed me in how the host bantered and raved to his theoretical audience. His voice was low and grainy, rumbling in my chest.

"Hello everypony and this here station is Point Lookin Radio. You ever seen a brothel before, folks. No, better yet, have y'all ever seen a city of brothels before? Because that ain't no pipe dream I'm talkin' bout. This here's the real deal in Point Lookin. You know that place called Scaley's Hardware? That's right, you low-down dogs, that's where Boredom is...!"

I lit a cigarette to calm my body.

"You lookin' for love in all the wrong places? Lookin for someone to get drunk with, bust up for an hour and leave at home to brag to your friends about? Well, if you are, I don't know why, but Boredom's got ya covered, kiddos. A self-respecting, hard-working colt like me would never even think about that ugly truth, but hey, I know you would."

A city... of sin. Point Lookin was home to Sodom. It felt dirty, to be honest, to think about it, to ponder it's disgusting expanse. Someponies were there by choice. And that idea alone flipped my stomach ten times over. I couldn't fathom anyone being so hungry for empty one-sided sex highs... For mindless, primitive sex and money, they'd spend a night with anyone and do anything they wanted.

No love.

No intimacy.

I stared off into oblivion, frozen in the abstract horror that loomed over me.

Genesis 19

We left Caviar Mansion, I with my double barrel shotgun and Tequila with Madre Diosa. At least then, she could invoke some primal fear in the hearts of her assailants. It was three hours in that we were halfway to Scaley's Hardware, agitated by the constant slush and slop of marsh beneath us. Marshlands were harder to traverse outside solid grass and long grass briars.

The ground had little to no traction, especially if the traveler in question was heavier in step. Like I was. Though nobody could tell at first glance, I was heavier set than a lot of ponies my size. I blamed it on being a freak of nature, like a Sandson or some other, similarly unbelievable bible figure.

Tequila had no trouble whatsoever. My angel was light as a feather. She didn't set off traps or mines and she definitely wasn't heavy. I recalled her small frame during our rut sessions the night before. Because she was so indescribably petite it was almost comical. I never did ask why or how she kept so dwarfish but the stunt of her anatomy did her no disservice. We were all children as was. It didn't hurt to look the part.

I watched her eyes light as we neared Scaley's Hardware and visibly recognized it. The indominable perception it cast was a shining beacon of rest and general relief. I found it scarcely believable that Scaley's Hardware was home to the fabled Boredom the radio host described. But soon, I'd find it was actually an underground complex, not a typical makeshift settlement above the marshlands. Scaley's Hardware had the vast fortune of being constructed on mostly dry and mostly stable land.

The proprietor of that squarish and nondrscript establishment was a mare with three grooves at the sides of her neck and bulging, uncanny eyes that never seemed to blink. I noted the indescribable swamp musk was absent from her. Instead, I smelt the rich, prevailing scent of salt and sea water. It was vastly better. It was vastly improved and even reminded me of Tequila's nethers for some reason.

Her awkward and somewhat dorky disposition took me away from the constant danger that surrounded us. And, instead, I found peace in interaction. We spoke for an hour at most and traded simple things like microprocessors and hectaterrabyte processors. They were all worth a hefty price because, as Scaley put it, 'Synthetics are a load of trouble and a mess of ash waiting to happen.' And she was right. Because why would anypony engage one willingly.

I told her I and my significant other, in many different ways and countless other ways, were there to enjoy Boredom. She gave me a puzzled look and tilted her brow asymmetrically. But when the realization of that specific namesake hit her, she nodded shortly. We were shown her back door and she held it open for us intrepid explorers. Scaley revealed the ruse when brushing away some shrub imitation. Beneath that was the real entrance.

I went first and entered her hidden sanctuary. Twas cool and damp below, where I never struggled to fit but found trouble squeezing through the first few inches. We were on a ladder and stepped cautiously in descent. I heard voices in the underground cavern complex and stayed alert for any ambushes or highwaymares. We seemed alone. But the further we traversed, the walls of Scaley's Caverns so narrow and dark, I scarcely believed us safe.

It seemed like a trap. An end to I and my angel. We crept and crept till a glimpse of light broke the narrow subterranean. I rejoiced seeing we weren't dead or stretched like noodly horrors from fissures warping our bodies in deep, pony-shaped gaps in the earth. But one thing did seem off. I knew that light anywhere. Something was burning.

I told Tequila to get ready to lay prone and cover her head. I told her it was essential for survival, especially if there were flammable substances nearby. I couldn't smell methane but I did smell burning once close enough to comprehend the nature of Boredom's flickering and snaking pyrelight.

"Why are we here again...?" Tequila whined, afraid to reach the city itself.

"I heard it spoken to me. Beneath my mind, Celestia told me to come here." I stated, unsure myself in the grand scheme of things.

We left the narrows and pressing cave gaps to find it. No one in Boredom could afford to bring a weapon, it seemed. But I brought my double barrel on a bit of twine tied to my waist. And Tequila's had Madré Diosa at her belt

It slowly dawned on me that the inferno before us was strangely comfortable. I wanted to watch it burn. To see the misery it brought. For all the Sodomites to roast and baste in their own, sinful ways. But out of the city came two angels. They both had books of black tied to their waists. They were books with crosses just like mine, but smaller and more decrepit...

I saw them, both Apple and Cleave, and they walked away from the justice they'd delivered. They trotted towards me bored and uninspired, above the very chaos they so dutifully provided. They were different than I remembered.

Apple was still red-coated and her eyes were still a consecrated white. Cleave was still a thin and feminine colt, but he lacked the ugly stupidity I'd suffered our last encounter. His eyes were still ice cold. But they weren't dead anymore. They were naggingly apathetic. If he found a child mutilated and bleeding out, he'd sooner walk away than lay hooves on it.

They were different Celestians, I could tell. They were militant. Unfeeling. I knew it in their gaze and how tall the flames seemed behind them. Apple spoke first, slinging a combat shotgun over her shoulder.

"Whitestar. Good to meet you. Have you come to torch Sodom, too or are you just here to enjoy yourself."

Cleave snickered behind her and stressed his glascow smile. It was still there. And though he found it humorous, I found nothing polite or correct about lighting a city of sinners ablaze. They were whores, not serial-killers. At least the wasteland had a use for prostitutes and prostitutes didn't murder people. He seemed to read me, and so Cleave himself grinned wickedly with countless rows of gator teeth. He was more monster than equine, I knew now.

"I was told to come here and investigate, Apple. The good book gave me a few things to think about after leaving that sanctuary I was so hurtfully pampered by. Now I'm here for you." I stated, watching the barest hint of curl on Apple's lips.

"Don't be mistaken. This city was more corrupt than you'd admit. It was taking slaves to serve the sons of James and Solomare. You'd have torched it too. Now step aside. We'd love to show you just how far savage faith can get you, but we're Luna Day Saints. The moon demands we gather the good and lead them out of this cursed place..."

I saw her light a cigar, fat and thick with death and blow the smoke at me. Before she started again, I found a stallion, his two presumed daughters and blurring, other shapes racing past us from the city. They were spared, but other residents were slain by Cleave and his transformed, incestuous monster of a sister.

"For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Moon; and the Moon hath sent us to destroy it." Apple recited, burning my ears with her backwards religion.

"They tried to rape us, Whitestar. For principality. And fear. They feared us and our good graces, so we slaughtered those who pushed to 'know' us. Go home, Whitestar. Breathe in that sweet Merryland air. Soon, we'll raze it to the ground. And now you know to leave this place. And before I go...? My name's not Apple. That was just a nickname. My name is Redstar. And his is Bluestar."

She and her malicious ponything of a brother paced away behind us. And I loosed my fires to judge them as they'd judged the people of Boredom, Sodom's child.

"You were not worthy to judge...! So be it you judged the sinners but you are not Luna! You are not Celestia or Faust or any of the Holy Trinity! You are not angels...! If you wished to raze Sodom, fine then, but you were never supposed to murder everyone- you... cannot judge when forgiveness is the ultimate war to end all wars..."

I died down. And I realized my own anger set them into motion. If I'd never left Bluestar scarred and ugly, he'd have stayed blind to the dark ways. I picked my head up when Tequila called me over, a mare's leg over her shoulder. It was somepony young and barely aged. They couldn't be older than twenty by aesthetic estimate.

The sodomite was blonde and scrawny, filled right in every way and clothed in mixed fabrics. She wore a tunic of a labcoat with fishnet stockings and golden hoof bracelets. I helped my angel raise her up and we left the city bearing lessons. Bearing witness to Genesis 19.

I climbed first with the mare hanging by rope, the bracing end over my hips. I never noticed before but my back was dense enough to resist exhaustion. I had a makeshift rope from collecting stray twine over the course of my travels. And it was good. We left Boredom and it's narrow, cavernous entrances to breach the surface. I breathed the air and heard our guest cough her lungs away. I cut the rope loose and kept her in Scaley's Hardware.

She'd be nursed by Tequila, who'd done more than enough anatomical study and veterinarian work to qualify. I myself was more of a surgical presence than a physician by practice. There were scarce moments between where I did not check on Tequila and stay with her. Twas a Sodomite after all. And I wasn't inclined to see her 'known' again.

I even presented my barrels to her face the moment she rose.

"Okay... okay, can we not shoot me. I was just getting fucked up the ass when a fire started and I got knocked out by... whatever that was. Just back up and let me breathe, okay. My head hurts, my ass is empty and I'm pretty sure everyone I loved just died in a fire."

I watched her groan and shift in-place. I witnessed nothing wrong about her. She may have been a Sodomite, but she was in pain, too. And a mare in pain was a mare to heal. I offered a stimpak, one of the many things that everypony else fought and warred for. I kept it for Tequila. The blonde Sodomite stared up at me with her lips pursed. She closed her eyes and bit her lip, administering a necessary evil: drugs.

"Okay... what's the catch. Do I have to suck your dick or something everytime you buy me stuff? Or, are you one of those weirdos with a slavery fetish. Come on. This... this isn't free."

I fixed an agitating curl stuck to her cheek. That was driving me crazy. But that made her flinch and open one eye to see me.

"It isn't free. But nothing is free. I'm happily bonded with my half-wife here and I want nothing to do with another mare. I want you to travel with us from now on. You're a sodomite, I gather. So maybe you can help me reach these gentiles."

I heard a chuckle and she crossed her forelegs.

"You think I'm gonna help you preach about a cuckoo god in the sky or something...? Really? After all I've been through, you think that's what I'm doin for the rest of my life?"

"No. I don't think so. But I do have faith that Boredom's burning gave you wiser thoughts. It's not the others' faults that they're depraved and selfish jackasses. But it is yours if you haven't realized there's more to life than sitting around waiting for a cock in your ass. Stop selling yourself; try to marry.

Make someone happy. Make yourself happy and just live a good life. None of this harlequin nonsense about knocking your own door down for six caps at a time because you're jaded from all the horrible people in your life and all you can do is turn to empty sex to fill the irreplaceable void in your life... I get it, believe me. I get that lust is a wretched sin and it burns you every, waking moment. But lust exists for a reason. It's there to bring us together and make families... not broken condoms and a day's wages for one hour."

I saw her maw drop wide open and in it was a tongue piercing I felt unfamiliar with. She kept silent for many, nameless measures and when and only when I started walking away, did she respond.

"Okay...! Okay... I'll do it."

Even Tequila choked on her puncher cola.

"You will...?" I asked skeptically.

"Yeah... Yeah, no- you're right. You're right, who needs sex and parties and drugs. That's not helping anyone. I'll do it and I-I'll try to change, okay. I will." She whimpered, looking down and rubbing her eyes dry.

All I could do was raise her head up and take her hoof to walk with me.

"You're helping yourself, too. Don't let people take advantage of you. They'll never leave you alone if you do."

The Virgin Feast and the Curious Cuisine of Cannibals.

The day was September 12th, 2290. And we were feasting that day. It wasn't time to weep or sorrow, no, that was tomorrow. But we would honor the likely innocent ponies and populace that Redstar torched hours ago. We were still rather shaken from our endeavor and our sodomite guest was worse for wear.

She chanced a glance over her shoulder every few minutes. Every few moments, I had to remind her how safe we were. I told her Celestia would never punish her for reform and that she was good and forgiving. I sawnher skepticism more than once.

But once we cooked, her heart opened and we were situated in Her graces. She'd never enjoyed a charitable meal before, she confessed to me. I asked her why and she simply said 'because nopony else treated me like a person.'

I stayed wordless and inefficiently lost in half-thoughts and countless pictoral theories of her life before. And I prayed for her. Because I was lucky. I was pampered. I felt my shame and thought it queer to be so numb to the troubles of the wastes.

Pain was learned. And though I felt it losing them, my tribe and loved ones, I felt godly pain. Mortal pain was for savages. I didn't cry for caps. I didn't cry for knowing. I cried for the others without and their godless lives, squandered by parents and business that sold them to slavery and Sodom.

I felt my hooves shaking just pondering it. I made the meals and I did it with them, the lost just like me. We were all children in her eyes. She had a plan for all of us, I rationalized, unabated in deep, existential fear of the unforgiving comsos.

I knew Celestia was good and great. But there were forces at work that weren't Celestian at all. I dropped a ladle I'd have used to scoop the stew with. I caught the pot from tilting and my left hoof was scorched in turn. It cursed and bit at me. But I stayed distant. It was only seconds before the pain set in but nothing felt vivid. Nothing felt natural. Tequila took a cleaning rag and stayed it for me, bracing the pot back in place.

I heard her weeping. I heard her sniffle and ache below speaking tone. She strangled the air from me and I held her loosely against the counter. We kissed and one more time, I was feeling again. I felt equine thanks to her. I told her I was sorry, to forgive me and my careless ways. She brushed my cheek and told me that I'd done alright.

Tequila and Carbon Copy took over the manual labor. I felt ashamed with idle hooves, but I directed them all the same. We were composing a traditional Roaming dish, as ironic as that was. But the Mother Goddess was good and she demanded tribute, if only by inequine grace and altruism. The Book of Luna said otherwise, but the Celestian Bible said she was a saint among saints. Her kindness was legendary and she begat the prodigal princess by virgin birth.

It was a fairytale, yes. But the more I reflected upon the grace of the mother godess, the more I saw... it was simply hope. It was simply faith that Equestria could learn once in blue moon, to host strangers properly and show them the good way.

I told Carbon Copy to shorten the balsamic vinegar and stir the honey in when it was. We grilled the porkchops shortly after and glazed them with honey vinegar sauce. I brushed them down myself with a sprig of rosemary from the botanical basement. I couldn't deny the unique and irresistable blend of oils hissing away on our scavenged grill. Twas foreign to my close-minded tastes and purely uniform pallete. I was used to clear-cut tastes and citrus flavors with overwhelming spice. I was never introduced to the concept of smokey, sweet and sour meat like pork loin agrodolce.

We topped the agrodolce pork chops with a traditional morcilla and a side of laverbread. The laverbread was an important meal not only to the rich seafarer population of Point Lookin, but the many parables and chapters of Twilight Sparkle, the prodigal scholar. It was fine and gelatinous with a hint of crumbly, crispy goodness from the associated bread fiber. I ate voraciously, thankfully. Tequila later noted I forgot to say grace but I hushed her lips and told her grace was in our meal.

Sadly, Celestia had other plans for me.

The others were eating in the relative comfort of their dining area and I was urged to inspect the entrance. I rose up and trotted over. And there, from the intellectually advantageous angle of the kitchen corner, I heard it. Somepony was bashing the front door down. I'd locked it countless times but somepony else dared to enter our temple to She. And I felt it deep inside, the innocuous urge to open it. What was more than two or three guests at the dinner table.

I did as I wished and presented myself.

Twas a man, his two daughters and a new daughter. He told me his name was Lots, short for Lots of Money. And he'd come to seek refuge from the outside storms of marsh-ridden Merryland. I hadn't noticed, none of us did, but the outside world was pouring down on us. He spoke to me with glistening tears and sobs of inexpected awe. He said 'bless you' and he said 'bless you all.' I held him loosely and told him to come inside. He'd break bread with us, I instructed, cautioning him to avoid loose floorboards and strange rubble.

One of his daughters wandered by the library and I deeply urged her to turn back. I even scooted her away from what was possibly the biggest miracle of her life. The tomes and texts of Caviar Mansion were not for the faint of heart. They jaded the ignorant to principles of numbers and geometries, frequent ribosome and chromosome shifts in the equine code. It was, for the lack of a better term, a place for scientists and skeptics. Though I advocated the joy of learning, growing up on facts and figures starved one of their childhood. It made one... eerily mature by the end of their studies.

We'd gathered round till I heard yet another knock at the entrance. I scoffed hard and lit a cigarette for my compense. Yet another guest. Why did everypony arrive on sacred holidays. I wanted tribe. Not gentiles and blasphemers. So I greeted. And there, beneath my gaze, were smugglers. One was scarred in many places. And he spoke by six men. He was armed with one lever action and one lumber axe. His associates were armed the same, but most were muscular and much more imposing than I'd ever seen.

"Is that tight bitch here?" He asked, leaning lazily against my doorframe.

"Describe to me this 'tight bitch.'" I answered, crossing my chest.

He chuckled and turned his head to the others. We were engaged at last. The greasy, sleazy villain before me had an evil look about him. His smile was wretched and aggravated me in countless summaries. In every orifice, in every meaning of the word 'disgust', I was plagued with judgement. It was him. It was Tequila's rapist.

"Short. Likes to scream. And tight as fuck. She took all of us and came every time, isn't that right boys...?"

I furrowed my brow. And I became ugly. I grit my teeth and crouched to pounce. His eyes grew wide and he stared me down with fear and shock. I would raze him. I would burn him like Sodom.

"Wh-whoa wh-what is it man, take it easy- I-I was just jokin'...!" He pleaded, shoving backwards into his men.

"You took my woman. You took my wife." I grained, low and furtive.

"Now I take you to Hel."

He fired. They all did. But I screamed and lit ablaze. The flame of gunfire struck me alight and I rushed them like great waters over ancient stones. I tackled him first and struck him blind. His eyes were mush and I bludgeoned his skull in till his cheeks were swollen. Till the bones so carefully shaped in Celestia's image were fragments of calcium, I struck him down. My head swirled. I was hot. I was so fucking hot and I raged my breath away in loud barks of unrefined hate.

"Veniat-!" I spoke in my trance.

"-sol et aestu!"

My voice rang deep and burned the ears of the Sodomites. They lit aflame and charred in mere moments. But the flames died down once the sixth was stricken. He and his wicked brothers had no breath to scream. Instead, they writhed on the grass of Eden and coward inside it like dumb animals.

They writhed like snakes and I too joined them with my belly low. But I did so to see them, to magnify my view of sweet, sweet vengeance. I was nearly collapsed from the spell I tongued. But I was almost alive. I was almost awake. I shambled over to the dead ones and ate their flesh. I ate them to fuel my resolve just as Mother said. And I took to heart the words she spoke that first day...

'I'm sorry you don't know who you are or who I am.'

I wretched in eating them. I barely had the resolve to eat them as was. But they were ponies. I was a pony, too. It felt innately disgusting and weird to consume my own. I binged bites and full-body tears through sick visions of mothers eating their young. I was being led astray. Mother knew best. Mother was caring for me when she died for her own flesh and blood. A soft crunch left my mouth and I ate the skin of Sodomites. They roasted shortly but I drooled, too. The fruit of bloodshed was the enemy. The enemy was my spoil.

I wiped my mouth and licked my chops. Because I was full. I wanted but I did not sin. Gluttony lay with Tequila. I craved her more than else. She was my fruit and my feast. The storm grew still and drizzled over them, they like ants on a sidewalk stepped on by indifferent titans and Chronos spawn. My insides were full and tight. And I retired to Caviar Mansion with the unconscious leader in my care. And I threw him down to the lowest levels. He would stay in Mr. Caviar's botanical basement.

And I... would join the others and say grace, for the bounty provided before me.

Celestia was good. And I was her child. I feasted just for her in the comfort of my tribe, us misguided and strange chileren. We ate till all was scraps and the porcelain we ate on grew streaked with grease and fork marks. I wished Tequila goodnight and Carbon Copy to stay out of the botanical basement. Because, I told her very well and clear, I had a slave down there.

The truth, her ignorant mind would never know, was much more severe than that.

Author's Note

Vengeance is the bane of mankind and peace. But is it so bad when vengeance is lit by careless fire and careless sparks.

What is best in life, eating to survive, or eating to taste?

Lamb

I was off to the Sacred Bog. And so was Carbon Copy. The man and his family were at the mansion with Tequila. And I knew him queerly dependable because he would box a smuggler to save his children. And he, in turn, thought of Tequila as a daughter he never had. It was early in the morning when we first started and I happened upon Lots of Money brawling with a feral ghoul. He struck it down with his right leg up and his lefg leg down; it was curious because his back curved curiously to lower him and he resembled a crescent with his forelegs.

I was so utterly stunned that I froze in place and saw him strike it with blunt power. He was older than thirty and balding at his apex, but he was capable. I knew him and all his passion. I shed a tear, remembering my own father. He was brave. He was strong and kind. He was what any father should've been.

He turned back and stomped the head in. I hid myself behind the kitchen doorway and heard him with his daughters.

"Daddy, are you okay? You got cut!" The youngest shouted.

And all he did was laugh about it. He waved it off and said 'don't worry. Daddy is the strongest man in the world.'

So I muffled my lips and darted away. I couldn't shake it. I couldn't keep my eyes dry.

I galloped lap after lap around the mansion. And around the estate, I ran from my memories. I picked it up by doing slope pushups in Merryland's mud. I'd keep my form and stay my hooves or dirty my muzzle. I worked my body for an hour straight. An hour and six minutes, according to my glorified smartphone.

That's when Tequila found me. And that's when I pressed her against the wall of the mansion and had my way with her. She held my hooves throughout. I made love as hard and deep as she could handle and I barely kept her alive indulging myself. She buckled countless times and barely made it inside. She fell asleep halfway back and tumbled into me. I should've been more careful, I reckoned. She was still inexperienced. I was still far too flavorful for her small and tender body.

Carbon Copy helped me carry her. I spoke to her about the Sacred Bog and she instantly agreed to reach it. She didn't know before, but after time with Tequila and reunion with Caviar Mansion, she told me her original agenda. She was, for the better of two years, to return to Caviar mansion. But she was stolen one night from a makeshift bed in a makeshift shack not far from Pilgrim's Landing. And that was how she, a once proud scientist and believer in the obscure Yawje, became a Sodomite.

We spoke for many hours about the nature of Sodom and it's eerie parallel to the sexual philosophy of most ponies to date. And in betwixt our parallels, we spoke of genealogy and the impossible hybridism of fishponies, a common cryptid of legend and yore in deep Merryland. We waited patiently for Tequila, who woke the instant we locked eyes. I tried explaining to her that we were just looking. And she pushed me away claiming I'd use her and drop her for Carbon Copy.

"That's horse shit and you know it." I answered.

And that's when me and Tequila had our first fight. The first fight hurt the worst. And the first fight hit the hardest. What could I say. All I did was scrunch my muzzle and cover my face. How was anypony supposed to feel when their lover asked who they loved more, a stranger or an angel. I broke down crying and choked on all the hurt she gave me. I bit my lip and shutdown. My angel hurt me. I would only cry. It was all I could do.

I heard her sob and she scrambled over with wordless fright. Tequila kissed my muzzle and begged me to see her.

"I'm sorry- I-I didn't mean it- I was being stupid, please Whitestar, I-I'll never say it again-"

"How could you say that to me." Was all I could choke out of me.

And all she could do was let go of me and tell me that she loved me. There was something empty about the house that morning. And I left it behind, after telling Tequila I loved her too.

The Sacred Bog was a dense, fog-drowned region of insect uttering and swampfolk charms. But no comfort kept me hopeful. It was half-past noon at that time. I pondered the state of my pack and presented a well-needed double barrel shotgun. I loaded it with eight rounds, six buckshot, the last two being slugs. Scaley was sure there'd be little to no resistance in the deep recess of Sacred Bog. And so said Carbon Copy, who rubbed her horn right by the trenched, stone entrance.

"What's wrong...?" I inquired, my wing stinging and fluttering once in place.

"I... I don't know. It feels bad here. And not like the usual way. When we got here, my horn started hurting. It's so bad right now I can't even think straight."

That was a bad, bad omen. We couldn't afford to get captured by Celestia knew what and I couldn't afford to see my Tequila raped again. I asked her to hold my double barrel. She had some trouble at first because it was so thick and heavy, but she took it better than I expected and nursed it against her. My double barrel was against her chest, loaded with ammo. We agreed wholly that I would brave the bog and she would guarding my six.

I sloshed about, haunted by vivid predictions of ghosts and phantom monsters ambushing me from every corner and crevice. I once mistook the hanging algae and swamp moss for hiding tendrils. Something horrid lurked inside and I knew not it's form or shapeless dread, but I knew it, no, I felt it over me. The inescapable psychic fear I felt breathing down on me never relented. I trotted deeper and paid no heed to the sloshes of my own hooves. Instead, I watched for drop-offs and pits along the marsh.

I reached a clearing in the many twists and circles of Sacred Bog. It's Mother Puncher was immense and fruitful as it was unimaginable. It stood before me taller than four stories indefinitely. The seeds were clustered beneath a hoof-sized hole in the center of the mother fruit. I surveyed the many roots and flowered vine snakes. It's roots were curled and strong like petrified snakes doomed to guard it. Most of the bogland was assimilated by the mighty puncher fruit. It's spawn were many and streaked the cavernous sides of the mother puncher's lair.

So that was it, then. I stuck my hoof in and reached the seeds. When I touched them, however, I fell backward and lost my footing. The world was blurry. And I was rather intoxicated. Either Mango Summers needed to die, or I needed to build an immunity to hallucinogenics.

The bog was a bitch to wade through. It got my coat dirty and it got me dirty and it was really horrible because I wanted to smell nice. Could a girl smell nice for one day. I stopped with my makeup when I realized Whitestar was tumbling around and mumbling to herself. She was narrating everything she did. Wasn't that just silly, I thought, my hooves on my hips.

Then it happened. Then this ugly, sweaty ponything came out of the water. He had this fishy odor about him that reminded me of my periods. His face was pointy and his nose was two, thin slits for breathing. At the sides were deep gills and weirdo amphibian crests. I would've studied him more but he walked toward us with a hulking, heavy body.His musculature was crazy. He was built like a shark and uglier than anything I'd ever seen. And I'd fucked ghouls before.

I stumbled backwards and fumbled my shotgun away. Fuck, I cursed, fuck you, I cursed again, slapping the gun around in slippery mud.

"N'gha na hlirgh! N'gha!"

I almost screamed because I felt like it touched me. My ears were itching and all over I could feel it growling and grainy all over my insides. What the fuck was happening. I took the double barrel and sprayed it over and over. I shot him till the bullets were done and when the shells were done I found a big fucking log and slammed it into him.

Fishman opened his mouth and coughed worms at me. I swallowed one by accident and I reeled over in disgust. He pinned me down and I could barely breathe from surmounting stress and the fact that we was fucking pinning me. I didn't wanna feel him pump me full of gross fish eggs.

"No! Get away!" I grunted, bucking him off of me and gagging on the nightcrawler taste.

"Get away from me...!" I shrieked, wobbling and falling to my side.

I finally did it. I copied myself. The shine of newly-disposed magic dust sprinkled the air and I lay flat on my ribs. I watched my clone, sticky and icky with fresh blood, slip and weave him. Fish monster man swiped away in feral slashes and haymakers but Clone Carbon stuck him with big straights. She kept her hooves up so all he saw were her eyes and the top of her head.

I couldn't believe it, haha. All those lessons Mr. Money taught me were going somewhere. I could never do it because I was clumsy and bad at paying attention. But my clone sure could. Mr. Money called it the 'peak-a-boo' style, I remembered.

She swung around in pendulum movements and closed in on him. Fish thing monster McGee was too tired from all the muscles he had. And his last swing was horrible. Like his swing was so bad he almost fell over from the half-assed body mechanics. And that's when Clone Carbon struck him right under the chin.

His skull cracked against the cave stones behind him. Clone Carbon turned around and bucked his skull in over and over. I fainted and I saw my clone melt, too. It was only six or seven minutes. That's all the time I had, I panted, saying goodbye to my clone. What was it about cellular degredation that melted a clone. Was it the advanced growth inertia finally slamming into her, or the unstable structure it brought constantly sustaining a state of cellular macrotrophy.

I collapsed and felt like someone was carrying me.

I closed my eyes and thanked her.

Whitestar was carrying me home.

A Shadow Over Merryland.

Whitestar.

That's what everyone else called me. I didn't have a name for myself, though. I always found that strange because everyone else did. Tequila was my angel. Lots of Money was Mr. Money. And Carbon Copy was Ms. Copy. I was at the Ark and Dove Cathedral before I presented the Mother Puncher Seeds. Their eyes went wide and I asked them why. It was awe, he explained. I was the first of thirty in ten years to ever come back from that cursed place sane and intact. I wept for Carbon Copy, though, because I was largely unsure of her own sanity. I asked him what that... fish thing was in the bog.

And Mango Summers went entirely pale. He looked pale, but, not as pale as me, sadly. I tilted my head in total curiosity. Why was he so pale. Why was he so frozen.

"Fishpony... fishpony from Road Island. They come to Merryland. You must kill. All fishpony. All monster. They eat tribal when old times. Used to have peaceful sacred bog. Now fishpony come to sacred swamp. Leave with me, Celestia pony. Take me to mansion and tell me where we grow puncher. We need work... now."

His ominous words and grave statement kept me cold inside. We were all children in her eyes. Celestia had plans for all of us, I recited, never falling, but wavering. If tribals feared the fishmares of Rhode Island, who else would fear them. I relayed to him how difficult it was to slay the Sharkpony.

He told me it was swamp magic, plain and simple. It was corruption from a local magical source not entirely in Merrlyand, but over it's fringes. The fringes of that boggy county and murky coastline were full of what Summers called 'taint.' Taint was a relatively universal term for corrupted magic, or black magic left from megaspell fallout and all the other useless wartime destructions. I rather scoffed at their racist conflicts and selfish agendas, because that was a prosperous time.

We did not live in a prosperous time. And we did not have the comfort and security to not be judgemental and prejudiced monsters. I helped Summers pack his puncher supply. We stayed on the roaded path and never strayed. Because that was just right. That was just safe. I never doubted Summers because he was the only savage I ever had the pleasure of understanding.

He was a farmer. He was a tribseman. And that was honest. He wasn't a liar or a backstabber, a serial-killer or an arsonist like Redstar and Bluestar. Mango Summers stayed to the right of me. I noticed then when he opened the doors to Caviar Mansion, that he was like my father. The same, blunt hooves and the same, goofy smile when he showed me... how happy he was to be alive.

He was afraid of them, the monstrous folk. And he feared because of the Sodom fire. We were both home, I knew. Tequila greeted us. We never kept secrets, so it wasn't any surprise to my half-wife. It was no surprise at all so we all readied for the coming storm. Tequila was studying her puncher fruit specimens. And I joined her amidst the strong-backed tribalmares unloading their cargo.

"So what have you found so far." I inquired, crossing my forelegs one over the other.

"I'm looking at the acid structure right now. There's citrus, amino, citrus protiens and a lot of other vegan junk. But something else is in here. I'm pretty sure meat protien is present, too. The atomic structure arranges the same way a mushroom's does. So... these things are related to fungus and homosapien strains."

"... Homosapiens?"

"Let's just say it's an advanced relative of the chimpanzee or something. And that puncher fruit should be a lot easier to grow than it has been in the last few years. All we need is to grow it in the botanical gardens. But that also means I have more research to do. Maybe fungi is part of the answer to cleansing Equestria. So... I guess this is it. This is all I need. I'll ask the tribals for a better irrigation system in the backyard area. You can do whatever you like from now on."

Tequila closed her eyes and shot me a grin.

"Even me. Especially me." My angel teased.

I slipped away from Tequila's lab after half an hour or so of knowing her. And I knew her so well, I considered another session. But time was short and we were still busier than anypony else in Merryland. I stayed wordless and crept to the basement. I never met a soul.

Downstairs was Sodomite. And that was all he was to me. I tied some hemp to my waist and tied him to the other end. I dragged him out and trotted away from Caviar Mansion. My next endeavor was finding another fishpony. So I made my way to Scaley's Hardware and kept to the clear ways. No methane swamps, no tree husk brooks and no shrubbery.

Twas chillingly noiseless by the old and rickety shop. And nothing seemed comforting. The only pleasantry I had was seeing Scaley again. She was just a shopkeep. She wasn't some blood-crazed killing machine out to hurt anyone.

We stood by her counter and I greeted her with a traditional hooves-together bow. She said her usual 'ni hao' and I returned it. Her grace, the queen of that fine and civil place, with fine oil paintings and water color illustrations of old communist peoples, poured me her own blend of hooflong tea. It was hard to get hooflong tea, she stated, because all the ingredients were scarce. She'd only received them from an old friend down in The Canterlot Wasteland. That very same friend had investigated an old factory of sorts only to find hostile asiatic ponies. He found a crate of it lying right outside the escape route.

We sat comfortably and I enjoyed the tastes and scents of somepony else's homeland.

"And you come to me... asking about fish people?" I heard her ask, sipping her tea again.

"Yes. Fishponies, to be exact. There was one peculiar specimen in Sacred Bog yesterday. He was hard to kill and he tried to... mate with one of my companions. But what I find most curious is the fear one of my tribe felt talking about them. Do you have any idea why he'd be frightened?"

A curious glaze took her eyes and she took minutes to respond at all. I helped her cup up and took it myself when the tea spilled. I set it down and my cup too, because that was the right thing to do. Scaley returned with one, silent nodding. The constant bobbing motion worried me. What exactly was it that disturbed her so deeply. It stuck inside her and brought a rattle to her irises. I tapped her shoulder and whispered 'Scaley. Scaley? You're here now. It's okay.'

And she was back, visibly brittled and jittering in both her hooves.

"I... I'm sorry. I'm not sure it's good to talk about that. A-all I can say is there used to be a lot more fishponies here. But they were pushed away, back to Road Island. We only had Star Spangle and her sister Independence... They were mages, big, big mages with how many spells they were slinging that night. Star Spangle was at the shore when she held the sea up. And Independence drove them back with her fire. Fire is the only thing that can hurt them."

Scaley managed to force herself still for a sip of tea. Then, she marched onward, detailing the account she witnessed not too long ago. And I knew she'd seen that evil affair with unspeakable devils and monster mares. Her eyes were never alive. They glazed over in degrees of hopelessness not even Celestia could mend.

"It doesn't b-burn the skin but it cooks them alive inside. They're used to being cold so the fire scares them, too. That was five years ago. There was another pony here called the Lone Wanderer. She had this big old telekinesis spell that shot them right across the ocean... That's the only way anypony's ever beaten them back. You can't really kill them with anything but magic fire and big round ammunition. The only thing here in Point Lookin strong enough to pierce a fishpony is a lumber axe or a double barrel. And we-we're understocked on anypony good enough to handle either in wartime."

I knew it. That was Celestias plan. There was a danger. There was a clear, unmistakable threat facing the boglands of old Merrlyand and it could only be stopped by Celestia's children. I felt it, a pyre deep inside, churning and stoking on how hard I'd fight for all of them, the sinners, the saints, the bitches and the lovers. I sipped carefully and emptied my fine china cup.

"Scaley. I know exactly what to do. And I need you to help me reach the locals."

Her eyes grew low and she inquired the question 'what did you have in mind?'

"I need you to gather the good of your kind and speak to the swampfolk. I'm going on a journey. I'm travelling Point Lookin for followers. Somepony has to believe in hope. It's the only way we'll survive this incident and burn them all to perdition. I need your charm. And your good will. Spread the word of the bible. And I'll build a nation for us." I hushed, hoofing her the black book and drawing tears from her eyes.

"Do you really think this will work...?"

"Celestia works in mysterious ways. It's my job to make it happen. Twilight Sparkle fought with friendship. I fight with faith."

Bloodstains

I've never told anyone before, but I'm scared of the ocean. I was always scared of it. The deep was vast and dark. That was why I never mentioned it, or described it or came anywhere close to doing either. There were no lights or lamps or flourescent lights down there. It was all darkness. There wasn't just darkness, no, it was full of gravity.

The sea would crush you and tenderize your limbs as you battered them on black water in pure, inescapable certainty that something brushed your leg and you just couldn't see it. I was unstable just thinking about it. How much of Merrlyand was left above sea.

I was smoking again, brooding in isolation.

The shorelines seemed thinner and sickly, cluttered with rotten fish remains and miscellanic stones. I noticed that one mellow morning as I stopped to watch them. I counted the tides and waves rolling in, only to see the outline of a faint sea beast wrestle about the waters. I couldn't describe the scope of it. Even I seemed tiny among the dock and all its decrepit woodwork. And I was somewhat taller than most; not by much, but higher nonetheless.

I'd attempt to describe it vividly but nothing in my immediate dictionary can. Something that alien and that traumatizing leaves scars on someone. All I can manage is the scope of it. The scope was something to pale over.

It's outline, the very basic blur of its shape, followed inklings of spacial sense and logic. If you could picture a whale pressed through narrow crevasses till all the bone and flesh became one in some jagged mess of ribs and hanging sinews, you'd only comprehend the barest margin of it.

I slipped away from the shoreline and steadied my hooves on solid grassland. I swayed about in curious emptiness, predominant with gaping nothing in swollen synapses. My mind was empty. I didn't know what to do or think really, except wonder how the old masters and their cults did it. How exactly did the grand Celestians of the old world assimilate non-believers and skeptics?

I hadn't the slightest idea. Twas then I beat the shoreline entirely back to Scaley's. And Scaley, as I found trotting by, was holding a meeting of sorts with other non-hostile fishfolk.

I knew then that each and every one of them understood me. It wasn't about blood. Or racism. It was about survival. It was about our children. They knew, like everyone else would know in due time, we would all have to transcend our own xenophobia.

I listened in against one of her shop's many windows. I pressed my ear against the screen netting and kept my double-barrel on-hand at all times. There I learned why the swampfolk trusted her. Scaley was relatable to them. She wasn't a supermodel or a great soldier, she was just an outcast just like them. Father Pepperjack had a name for that popularity tactic. He called it 'double identity' or the like, an old political maneuver to gain popularity with the everypony of your vote roster.

What did I have that attracted everypony else. It wasn't looks or charm or anything like that. It wasn't superficial. It was different than simple, I gathered, having no success at all at identifying it. What exactly did everypony like about me. But there... even there, in the midst of my lone intel mission, I realized I could reach the people. All I needed was a voice, a great orchestra of words and strings like unsung melodies of Celestia's love.

I'd reach Point Lookin Station... somehow. I would do my best and find the engima running it. I asked Haley where it might be in the undeniably obscure thickets of deep Merryland. And she told me Radio Free was in a clearing by the Sacred Bog. His radio tower was safe because of the bog's rock formations and high elevation. I myself noted the power of it's mist, as that was the prevailing handicap I faced trotting through it. I asked where his tower lay, specifically in that odd vicinity. And she told me it was actually somewhere east, speaking strictly of the tower itself.

But the host and his housing structure was nestled deep within the Sacred Cave. The Sacred Cave was a perils journey full of untouched wildlife native to Point Lookin and rusted jailing cells. It was, in all sense of the word and the many senses it lacked, a complete and utter deathtrap, an oubliette for only the worst of the sodomites. And she told me specifically that the private contract prison complex known as La Obscura was run by a shady family back in the old world era.

Their ancient surname, as powerful as it may have been, was one ridiculous 'Dank.'

Oh yes. In less than two hours, I'd be traveling to the Dank Family Penitentiary. I couldn't wait. Reaching Caviar Mansion did give me an idea, though. Since Tequila broke it off with me not one day ago, I'd take my frustration out on her. It was standard exchange for ponies like us. We were troubled and disturbed. We were sinners to ourselves and saints to each other. It was, for the lack of a better term, mutual chemistry. We weren't Twilight Sparkle and her Trixie Magicson, but it would be our last supper in a while.

I waited in measures of anxiety for Tequila to prepare her best friends with benefits attire and smoked a cancer myself. I trotted over to the washroom and checked myself for unexpected ugliness. I already knew I was ugly for a pure pony but I never did really see myself. Not with humbled eyes.

The first thing I noted was the milkiness of my eyes. And then I observed my lack of blink reflex during long periods of elementary staring. Was I always that unshakably creepy. What did Tequila see in me. I stayed away from the mirror so I'd keep from fixing my coat. It seemed thin lately, My first look, in the mirror upstairs, was never toward my chest or legs. It was toward my features. So this time, I noticed the fluffy, yet shallow quality of my snow white coat.

Tequila called and I stepped out to answer her prayers. She assed and she'd receive, hn.

"I'm ready. What should I do...?" Tequila whisperered.

My angel looked away. She was hugging herself. I wondered whether or not she was more cold or anxious. Exposure was a common fetish for shy mares. I wasn't surprised she was tempting me by covering everything. Her legs snaked over her chest, down to her pubic mound. I bit my lip. I was swollen just by watching her, just by seeing her all timid and clandestine.

"Why are you covering yourself? I've already seen all it." I hushed, trotting over, pushing her down and pressing our lips together.

I felt her legs clench around me. I could tell she wanted to feel my bones on her loins, it was only natural. So I pressed myself against her and lapped away at her rosey, burning cheeks. I felt feral. My cocks were throbbing. I felt my cocks drool her neck fur damp. It was my fault for being so excited. Tequila seemed bored or at least somewhat insensate against my advances. I watched her lashes flicker in odd spasms and measures. I thought she was playing hard-to-get, since her eyes were closed and her legs went completely limp. I heard her whisper something without intelligible speech.

I shrugged and figured she wanted something new or something to scream about.

I lifted my upper prick over her tiny, puckered rectum. My tip fit perfectly, but all my snake oil made her twitch and tighten. I bit my lip and leaned forward. Her body shuddered and I forced her waist higher. Her legs were dangling at my ribs in that one, lazy curling typical of late night missionary. My forehooves were pressed against her and her head hung over the edge of our bed.

Tequila's hindlegs bucked when I speared her pucker. I was barely in and her ass was crushing me. All I could do was pound her slowly. Her legs constricted me and that was always a good sign, so, naturally, I held her down and had my way with her. We bit our lips in unison. I stuffed my angel with thick, thumping claps and she was quiet. She was squeaking, but... different. It was almost inaudible and I couldn't help but wonder why she was muffling herself.

I thought I was boring her. I closed my eyes and flipped her over. It forced a gasp out and she started scrambling away. I was too quick for her; I caught her waist and squeezed in again. All she did was loose a squeal of sorts. It was raspy and cracked her voice at different decibels. Sometimes, throughout my clapping, I heard it. Other times, leaning my mound in and keeping my torso up, I heard her grunting. I slapped her cavern apart and twisted my hips in winding motions. She felt me, I knew, from how tight her trap stayed.

"Nnnh..." I murmured, low and grainy.

I kneaded her with my hooves and clapped my ring on her. The impact squished her juices away and splashed my crotch wet.

"Whitestar- no-! What are you doing?!" Tequila panicked, struggling against me.

"Making you feel good...?"

I didn't understand mares. One minute they said they wanted sex, the other minute, they were drooling and squirting, but telling you 'no.' I surmised it was foreplay. We'd done roleplay of the nature before so it wasn't that outlandish to hear her 'panic.' This time, though, it wasn't the idea of being forced; Tequila was creaming herself for me. And I loved that. It made me special. It made me her's.

"Whitestar- Mhhh-! Please- I-I don't- I don't feel right about this...!" Tequila uttered, gasping and whining while I clapped her lungs away.

My eyes were still closed. But, maybe that's what bothered her. It must've been her ass, maybe her ass was too tender, too receptive for my meat. I pulled out of her other hole and stuck her cervix instead. Abrupt entry made her collapse. Her rump was skyward and I was halfway in. If I fit my ring in, I could cum her womb full.

"Better? I'm gonna cum in your womb..." I promised, gripping her shoulders.

"Whitestar, please... Doesn't this feel wrong to you?" She panted, sopping and tight around me.

I ground it in and soaked her cervix with all my precum. I was grinning absent-mindedly, kissing her where no one else could reach. I kissed her pussy over and over till my ephemeral ring slipped inside and I opened her womb. A sharp half-sob stung my ears and Tequila squeezed around me. I yanked her down and lolled my tongue around. Her body was choking me. Tequila was whimpering. I bit my lip and bludgeoned her insides till both of us were breathless and panting, breeding like wolves.

"Whitestar-! Dios, fuck-! I can't control it...!"

I held her down and rippled her with thick, sloppy punctures. Tequila cursed and shut her eyes. I looked down on her, wanting, but satisfied. I felt my lips curl. She gazed at me over her shoulder. Everything about her drew me in. I loved her red muzzle bridge, her downward snout and her roasting cheeks. Orgasm left tiny pleasure tears in her. I held her cheeks and finished her off the right way.

I took her patiently. Tequila's body fell forward and left her rump high. I took to pelting them with loud, dragging slaps. I left her hooves curling. It was soothing to hear her rasp. To hear her curse and hiss. I loved it. I needed it. I warned her to pull her ass apart or else I'd stop. My mate complied. She splayed her cheeks apart and shut her eyes.

"Good girl... Daddy has a present for you." I murmured, in her ear and leaning over her.

I raised my posture and bent her over the bed. I let my forelegs rest and plowed her another way. I used my hips and only my hips to batter her insides. The effect was explosive. Her mane was raggled by that time. I watched her bounce. Her waist beckoned me to grip and I resisted. There was nothing better than hearing a mare gush from hooves-free sensations. My monotonous, thumping impacts coiled her into herself till she was nothing but sex and noise. I yanked Tequila's tail and suspended her by it.

"Haaa- haaaa- aaah~ Haaayeah, just-! Just like that...!" Tequila whimpered.

My angel was singing. Her noise was mesmerizing and I couldn't help but clap her harder just to savor it, just to hear her. I felt her hindlegs bucking. I watched her hooves curl as she squeaked 'sh-shit...!' and... pissed all over me. I gazed upon her, my nephilim, studying her cherubphim features. It was then I noticed just how gorgeous she was. Her eyes were fixed to mine; Tequila avoided me at first, but all she did was glance away. She could never stare away or look away. She was bound to me.

"Did Tequila like it?" I panted, nipping her ears.

"You... you were better than your father. You made me sing for you. You made mommy melt." Tequila confessed, anchoring her brow.

I froze. Was she playing tricks on me. Did Tequila say that to entice me or stab me. I was wounded. Jealous. I was avaricious for her and she knew it. I scowled beneath the moonlight and raised her hindlegs. They were splayed outward and mine to handle. Tequila was still flat on her stomach. So I bit her pucker with wide, swollen meat. Not Tequila shut her eyes again. And I drummed her from behind. We were both still hungry, I could tell. Her body was too sensitive and too well-used to ignore it's appetite and I was too gluttonous.

"Whitestar, wh-why are you doing this...?!" She groaned, almost dying from how pained she sounded.

"What do you mean 'better than my father'?"

I sunk my fangs in. I clamped down and had her shoulder, and she was squirming around with boarish tenacity. We wrestled gently, I on top and her barely able. We were full of half-regrets and earthly pleasures.

My mate was drooling as was. Her mane was frazzled and sticky from all our knowing. So was her coat beneath her tail and everywhere else atop, at her neck, on her sternum and over her narrow slopes for shoulders. I took her tail hostage and pulled her toward me, into me. My nephilim muffled her lips; she bit her hooves and panted. I was still erect. Whoever it supposedly was in Tequila's body, their slit was sopping and I was seething. Her whisper was sultry. I polluted her response with hip percussions and stole the air from her.

"Aaaaaah- aaaah~ Please, don't be so rough with me- I-It's me, Star Spangle...!"

Her stabbing words struck me silent. I went limp and dug inside her, stuck in deep recesses of her and my trauma-bruised psyche. I feared nothing but something so... dirty on my conscience. Something so taboo it would disgust a sodomite. I closed my eyes and lit a cigarette for both of us. She was weakened and tender so she couldn't leave or excuse herself.

"You took over Tequila's body? How?" I hushed... using her narrows to empty myself.

I must've shocked her a great deal because Star Spangle did nothing but gaze at the ceiling. I used her shoulders to guide her into me. We were both degenerates. But I didn't care. What better way to know my line than figurative bloodstains. I watched my flesh and blood buck around me and bite the sheets. We were both close. Her, closest and I, closer. I bit my lip and percussed her entrances with both my portrusive spears. I heard her half-sob and whimper when her rectum tightened.

"Y-you used a sun spell a-and I found her body by default. I-I was supposed to be in yours but you were in mine... Mmmha... You had my body instead of Independence's-"

I was... using my mother's body. Pleasing her with it. That was pretty amusing, actually; so amusing I actually chuckled and took to grinning. Mother glanced over and locked eyes with me. I yanked her down and creamed her button. A wash of tension squirted out of me. Load upon load filled her up and I leaned into her just to feel her insides rejecting me. My 'mother' couldn't make anymore noise.

I knew now why all of their similarities were naggingly present. They were related. I later read the Celestian Bible to see the Bloodstain Transfer spell, which relied on similar genetics to the transit soul in question. We were actually related. Had Tequila not said I resembled her father. And that her very father was just as caring or forced her into extra food portions and perhaps the darkest of equine urges with the presumed passing of her mother. Yes. It was all clear on that incestuous monster of a night.

Did that mean I didn't enjoy it, though?

No.

I just had work to do. I could worry about the implications later. I found a tie in Tequila's father's room, fixed it on and cleaned my Mother up.

Author's Note

Level Up! New Perk Gained!

Cane and Able:

You do more damage to your own kind (+20% damage to Fishponies, Swampfolk and Religious ponies).

Hatred

I trotted there with anxious company. We were amassed at the Dank Family Penitentiary. Carbon took a sigh of deep, wavering intensity. I stayed wordless listening to her complaints. And so did Tequila, or, whoever had the body at that time. Because I knew how Tequila felt. I knew how my nephilim felt after the whole depressing abandonment affair.

We were both hollowed by it and Star Spangled was the last thing I had left in Equestria to call my own. Prognosis: we were all hurting somewhere, somehow.

I lit a cigarette to steel my nerves. Because I couldn't feel them, not at all.

"Like are we actually going in here because we'll probably die from an ambush. Aren't you afraid ot that. Aren't you afraid monsters lurking caverns." Said Ms. Copy, taking the flank this time around.

My party was fully-armed. Well, except for myself because I ran out of shells and so did my fences. Mother had the lever action and Carbon had her spiked horseshoes. I had Mr. Money to thank for that contribution. He and the tribals had fashioned it for her without finance. But I did my best to accommodate them with caps and recycled scrap metal or the like from a nearby Trash Heap. That place was rather unexpected because it was my first exposure to mundane wasteland radiation.

When my geiger counter started, Mother told me it was a dangerous substance. I asked why and used my natural toughness to discuss counter arguments.

Just like Mother told me, I found deep in the tetanus-laden mouth of the penitentiary, radiation and taint didn't work like bullets. Just the barest hint of taint and radiation was difficult to cope with. The equine anatomy did not evolve to deal with gamma radiation or theta waves or pulse shockwaves like it did with pure kinetic energy. How did I know, you might ask.

I entered the cavern, opened the gated entrance and came crashing to the floor as a carriage engine slammed into me. Some uncultured brat had stuck a trap at the very entrance.

Who. Why. I forced a grunt away coming up, unsure of how seriously my sternum hurt. I wasn't a soft pony. I wasn't delicate at all. It became a detriment, though, when I went trotting about with a crippled chest to the dismay of my colleagues.

Mother kissed my chest fur and administered stimpak where it hurt.

It wouldn't take effect immediately. For some reason, medication liked to do that with me. I knew so braving the depths of the old penitentiary. It was fine at first, roaming the halls past the eerily unscathed visiting block and the initial hallways lined with abandoned cells. But the further in we went, the more decrepit it turned.

There were two flourescent light fixtures per square yard. It must've been an architectural regulation. I trotted as the lead pony scouting for alien noises or sudden motions in the darkness. We passed another corner filled with open cells. The most puzzling thing, aside from how pitch black the insides were, was how completely empty they were. It was only a tiny cluster, too. There were four containment cells with a single noose decorating the far left room. I noted the lack of a skeleton or time-worn corpse within the vicinity.

A soft clicking noise echoed throughout the darkness. I perked my ears up. The noise bounced out from behind us. All the lights were dying. A wave of obscura crashed toward us; the fixtures themselves never broke, but the dark grew wild and bloated as the black avalanche chased us forward. I switched my pipbuck light on and I urged them to run.

Carbon Copy took off first. Mother stayed behind her, hurriedly watching me in momentary and choppy glances. I lagged the most. And I was also the only one capable of blocking out my fear. I erected a ring of fire around me and spotted an elevator not five minutes away.

"Take the hallway to the left! Come back and take the elevator!"

"Doesn't that go down!?" Tequial called, shaking and wracked with fatigue.

I pulled Carbon away by the hem of her dress. My teeth were clamped firmly around her as Mother gained with fleet pacing. We struck a few cans and papers that made us stumble. All the clattering and scrunching noise burned my nerves away. A sharp, violent clang struck the ground beneath us and I hadn't noticed, but it was grated unlike all the other hallways. I tripped over a loose tin and it cost me precious seconds and seconds drilling into me, forcing my coat soaked with sweat.

I scurried toward the rusted and rickety, metal elevator doors. They were grated links and tetanus-bitten by time and neglect. I slammed my hoof down to press whatever button I could. The noises waxed. I heard Carbon shriek as all my balance went dead. Her panic left my ears shot and left me cope with constant beeps and rings, audible annoyances trying deeply every part of me. So I shoved them in and pressed my back against the entrance.

I wouldn't let anyone hurt them. I would let anyone take them away.

I saw it. A hulking, violent figure with many, prominent veins and swollen arms lumbered toward me. It's height was comparable to two ponies on their hindlegs erected toward the sky. It's limbs were lankier than expected but somehow rippling with dense strength. It even had wings of a sickly and leathery sort marked by jagged bits of protective metal, and that metal too became tetanus-eaten like the many far walls and cells of the penitentiary. It's piecemeal wing armor resembled the metal on it's weapon. Twas a javelin of archaic, yet simply ingenious design. The spear shaft was layered in worn linen and the wings beneath the spear showed scientific understanding, it showed ingelligent malcontent.

My enemy kept it pointed at my muzzle at all times, barely a yard away.

The beast had a skull for a facial structure of sorts and boasted jagged teeth every which way, with an elongated avian snout that held a winding, slithering mouth muscle. I watched it stalk toward me with talons for fingers and toes despite the humanoid shape it crouched about so eerily on. The unknown devil had a head prone to convulsing and jerking in mad rhythms. There were gaping, sunken pits were mother nature place the eyes. And it lurched forward, stained with white paste from some horrid encounter.

It's pelvic region was endowed to painful measures. The brutal, primeval beast crept over and I struggled to stay my ground if only from one, incedinary stench dissecting my innards. It's equivalence was dry milk and salted tin. I would've wretched if I felt typical equine weakness, if I felt fear.

I only felt hatred. Because what was this thing, this taker of souls and bodies and first times; twas a beast and little more than that. Animals deserved to be sacrificed when abusing their station among mares. Among Celestia's children.

And though I felt fine facing one of the beasts, four more appeared from the indecent shadows and impregnable penitentiary cells. Long, snaking arms tore cell doors from inside out and behind them were more Furies. I named them Furies because they reminded me of simple vengeance, simple recompense for somepony like me commiting my atrocities day in and day out. They shambled forward on stilt-high legs and pointed winged spears, sometimes using their polearms as canes.

We met five to one as the rattling elevator noise deafened me to Carbon's screams of begging me to run. But I knew all too well I couldn't run. They would chase her. They would chase her and Star Spangle. I slipped through them with a leap forward and a gallop far down the narrow corridors of their hellish lair. Four were upon me. But where was the fifth. I struggled to keep my footing since most of the floor had flooded with... brown, rusty liquid.

Wild sloshes and harsh, booming clatters erupted behind me. I wouldn't escape running forever. Winged spear beasts were rushing towards me. I was only glad their wings were far too wide and immense to serve function in those damp and rotting corridors. I smelled familiar eureka when I darted past a previously unseen block. The maintenance block was my next marathon setting. Because I was tired and sweaty, but the many Furies were still upon me. I wondered just how conditioned they must have been to sustain chase for over an estimated half hour.

I splashed over to an obscure corner of the maintenance block and found a small, crudely-drawn map. It'd been managed with red sharpie that magically disappeared when applied to another part of it's laminated surface. My hooves were shaking from adrenaline overload and sloppy, primal mindsets. I stayed quiet amidst echoing horror gaining behind me.

There were five blocks on the first floor. The visitors block was the entrance, cell block A-1 was the entire block preceding, the maintenance block was my current location and the... culinary block was to my right. I had it. I would gallop over to the culinary block. I didn't even ponder as I splashed forward to my next destination. I didn't have time to think. I winced, stabbed below my temples from wretched shrieks and squawks not meters behind me. They were closing in and I could only force myself forward by bludgeoning myself on stray foodcarts and glass embedding deep within my chest.

Scrambling out of the penitentiary deathtrap narrows, I entered the main mess hall. Or, probably, the only mess hall. It's spacious perimeter was packed with tables. It gave me a strategy. Hit and run tactics would preserve me. I finally darted into the kitchen and rummaged about for secret ingredients. Between my scouring, I peaked over the open counter to find the Furies crawling on all fours and sniffing the environment.

I waited for the first one to approach the door.

I dumped a vat of grease over him. He lunged forward, but I ducked low and set him ablaze. His flaming form was manic and thrashing. He flailed his spear around and grazed me in different places despite my dodging, despite my experience slipping out of strikes and clawing haymakers. This beast was much more intelligent. It tried to douse the flames with the brown substance beneath us. It lit a low, glowing pyre over the surface of the rustbrown effluvium.

I intercepted his spear thrusts with stray serving trays and shattering plates. He attempted to circle around but I leapt onto the counter to my right and bucked him off-balance. The volume of his tumbling crash bludgeoned my ears and the surrounding silverware. I found a knife, a kitchen knife, so I bit down on it and slashed his neck red. Twas a high neck, a stretched and scrawny neck apparently unprotected unlike their wings or scrap-armored chests. I finally figured out one of their weaknesses when the others beated their wings to extinguish the dim oil fire.

Shit.

"Can't you all be brainless brutes like the rest of the monsters?" I asked, fixing my tie and noting... just how heavy it was.

It felt like metal lined the insides, a trick of assassination success. I knew it. Tequila's father wasn't just a scientist. He must've been some sort of... spy or secret agent. Furies, furious and frantic with fruitful and free steps, lunged lazily over with legs lankier by the step. It was most perfectly described as a cartoon character tiptoing in loose, long strides.

Crouching low, my belly to the water, I knew the tie sunk in, growing heavier and soaking with metallic waste liquids. He thrust his spear at me and I jerked downward. I kept him at bay with a flowing, bobbing motion. I indicated myself toward the right by twisting my body. He fell for my feint. I dashed forward and assumed a bipedal stance. The raw shock of being accosted in such a manner paralyzed him. My right forehoof slammed forward and rippled his entire torso. My compact uppercut floored him instantly and left the others, before preoccupied with the corpse of their fallen, swarming me from the flank.

Cold, merciless metal tore my coat apart. One had stuck my ribs. And the other punctured my sternum open. I grunted and lit the spears alight. Immediately, I knew from their primal cowardice and abrupt, jerky response, that they were afraid of light, afraid of Celestia's cinder. So I brought it to them. I lit myself ablaze and flung toward them in great strides. I herded them in the kitchen quarters with a spear between my teeth.

As hard as they'd flap their wings, as many gusts as they'd flood me with, the wildfires couldn't be suffocated; I couldn't be stomped out. How many lives had they taken, I fumed, rattling in my shrunken pupils. I fell upon them. I rode one of the Furies' backs and brittled him with hooks to the temple. Before his brother got the best of me, I bucked them away mid-ambush. I went limp in my hindlegs and cranked his neck up. The flailing Fury monster clawed me from all angles, staining my coat with heavy lacerations.

Before he knew it, I lay prone and dropped us both face-first. I was okay. I tilted my head up as safely as possible. He was not so fortunate. An elongated avian skull and a sharp, pointed beak were great intimidation factors. But they did not prevent jaw fractures. His beak ran red, snapped clean in half from impacting the grated, metal mesh down below. His wounds were oozing and crippled him greatly; all he could manage was screaming and siezing from how tortorous it all was. His talons were trembling in alien fists and claws interchangeably.

I took the spear, which I'd dropped absent-mindedly, and pierced his neck till all the muscle left my forelegs and they stayed rigid beneath me.

The one I never killed wrapped his talons around my neck. I did my best to struggle and he'd stretched me open someplace pristine. I was dirty. The unintended consequence of losing my anal virginity paralyzed me. He wasn't gentle. It hurt. I spent the better of him banging me against a table coiling my hindlegs. It fucking hurt and I bucked hard behind me. It flung him toward the exit. The bastard tried to run.

I bull rushed and pinned him against the wall. His efforts to control and deter me only stoked the wildfires deep inside. A world of flowers and pines roasted to ash as I bit his prick from the side and tore it off myself. Familiar shrieking shrouded the noise his gaping wound made when I shoved his limb deeper than it ever belonged. It cloaked the simple pleasure of that sound spurting wounds made when you dug inside them, when something that didn't belong was crammed up the open gash and squirting flesh geyser.

The Fury broke and his threshold waned. He slid backwards against the wall so I lunged forward and launched my forehoof into his jawline. It spun his head about and retarded him to limp, momentary spasms.

"An end is come, the end is come:" I panted, speaking from my diaphragm and exhausted as was, buckling in my knees.

"It watcheth for thee; behold, it is come.." I finished, glaring up from behind my shoulder.

I spun a roundhouse kick deep from the waters of hatred and struck him dead, struck him down in that hellish prison complex. There I stumbled away and, eventually, I tumbled down and fell to sleep, not even prayed my soul to keep. I'd been shown true violence, true animal brutality; it was rape, and rape showed me unknown fires in the pure manifestation of hatred.

Hell

It was Hell in that penitentiary. I hated it. Everything was dark. Everything was cramped. How could I even start... adjusting. Whitestar's mom was holding me. I fell asleep crying on her. Shit. I wiped my eyes and gave that cough that magically erased what I did, the kind of cough I used when I didn't wanna admit I was involved, that I didn't care. Who had time for tears.

I stayed there in the arms of someone... capable, somepony that'd stay with me and take care of me. I wantes to call her 'mom.' Scratch that, I-I wanted to call her 'Mama.' I wanted to say she was mine and pretend like I wasn't just a third wheel acquaintance. But I was. I knew I was because she wasn't holding tightly.

Star Spangle always looked... aloof. I couldn't put it down but she looked cold. Just like Whitestar. I didn't like it. It didn't make me feel safe or paired, it felt like I was walking with a robot. I wished the elevator worked. But trying to ride it back up was useless. We needed to find a transformer or something to restart the electricity in general.

I trotted away, not glancing back because I knew she was there. I knew Star Spangled was still in Tequila's body, following my every move and keeping that one, neutral grimace over her face. She was just that silent. Just that similar to something I'd see out of a laboratory or The Commonwealth. We moved in an almost uniform fashion between empty, rusted walls and water-bit metal chainlinks. This area of the penitentiary was different.

It felt like I was on display. The only thing I had for comfort was the fact that Star Spangled had light spells. Her light spells worked in a cone of light, like a flashlight. It was better than a big ball of light, she said, as it made the caster vulnerable and visible.

The tight squeeze we managed inching forward was like being a circus act. I was on the tightrope and the endless darkness beneath me and, for some fucking reason, over the chainlink bridge section and even past the walls, were members of the crowd telling me to fall. The dark, so vast and empty, was tipping me over. Every step echoed into a deeper echo the more I stepped forward. And the more I stepped forward, the more I looked down. It was so far down.

I took another step forward. And then the bridge metal creaked against me. I wanted to step off but I couldn't. I didn't want to move. I was stuck and Star Spangle knew it, too. We stayed still... meeting eyes and too scared to shake.

"Carbon... Carbon, it's okay. I promise. We're gonna fall. And you need to relax... Lay flat against the floor when you do. Pray."

I choked a sob back as the grating came loose and the bridge collapsed in two. I closed my eyes and clutched the old metal before we fell. I felt the darkness moving in on me. And I made the mistake of opening my eyes. The way down was full of corpses on sharp, jagged stakes sticking right out the walls. I fainted when I realized Star Spangled wasn't with me anymore. She was falling on her own... off the bridge. I collapsed in one, abrupt motion... and the rest was darkness.

I woke up surrounded by a cage of metal. The bridge section thinned out and turned into a rolling cage for me. I had no idea what to do. My forelegs were crippled and my chest was throbbing in agony. Something wasoff. A giant mess of metal swallowed me whole and I was just an ant inside an empty colony. I found one of the torn chainlink sections and slipped away from there. I felt sticky. Icky. I was layered in geoss slime. It smelled like blood and shit, honestly. I mean, it was worse than hour-long sex.

I crawled out of there with my handpurse stuck against my back and a big, huge wound on my stomach tore against the floor. It was all concrete. I would've been dead without the bridge metal. There were two ways to go between these walls full of jerky corpses and skeletons. One way, to the right, was a normal hallway. And the other place, to the right, was a hole the size of a dragon's ass after mating season.

I didn't know where to go, honestly. Sure, the hole seemed like a horrible place to go, but I'd rather go into a hole and fight a radroach than a red spear monster. So I observed the two directions carefully. The hallway had... obvious bloodstains striping into it. And the hole had some sort of occult symbol. The rune itself I liked. It made me feel comfortable, like nothing could hurt me. All the blood did was make me woozy, weak and helpless.

So I got on my hooves and elbows and crawled over. I went inside and I felt the damp presence of cold, chilling liquid on me. But that didn't matter. It was better than feeling like jellied eels. Going through it was a great choice. It felt clean, looked clean and there were no monsters on the other side. I say monsters because I didn't exactly get my hopes up for equine contact. Surprisingly, I crawled out and found a fully-lit hallway on the other side.

It wasn't nasty or crawling with tetanus like the other side. Instead, I was treated to din flourescent lights along the ceiling. It felt like a train station. The layout resembled one, down to the railroad tracks themselves. I could've even said... it really was a train station, only, less like the ruined ones and more a makeshift subway system. The rails weren't made with great material. Whoever constructed them, the old lines were coated in red, corrosive rust.

I trotted about toward the nearest pillar, along the run-down catwalks made of scrap and old parts from somewhere else. It looked sturdy enough, to be honest. But I never did feel right looking at them. It felt like monsters would pop out of the walls. It felt like I was in danger if I went anywhere near the catwalks and stairways.

I felt like an ant in the underground area. It wasn't dark and cramped, but it was wide and open with lots of blind corners. I didn't know which was worse. I started glancing behind me. Something was wrong with that place. It was too light. Too safe. I trotted farther to find a bathroom. I made my way between rows of thick, square collumns.

Turning the corner, I found the restroom area. It was a dead end with an overfilled trash can and two restrooms. But in the corner of said dead end, to the right... I saw a zebra. Her movement was slow and dragging. Her first instinct was to turn around and widen her eyes in pure, unfettered astonishment. I turned my eyes and kicked my forehoof about. She talked first. There was nothing distinguishing about her besides that golden tail ring she wore.

"You... you're real? How did- is this a dream...? It has to be. Look I don't know who you are, but can you come with me? It's cold, dark and fucked down here. There are monsters walking around and- I-I need to find Radio Free."

I couldn't help but want to hear her. She had this voice... soothing angels to sleep. It was raspy to a fault and she lazed about letters like we were laying in bed. I couldn't help it, but she was hot. I snapped out of it when she tilted her head in puzzled patience, waiting for me.

"Of course I will. But you need a weapon, don't you? I got my horseshoes. Take my purse."

I saw her eyebrows furrow and crease in confusion.

"But... what's a purse gonna do? Is it full of bricks?" She gasped, nearly dropping it as I passed it on.

The answer was yes, obviously. I used three bricks. It was an old trick Mr. Money taught me. We gathered our nerves in tiny bundles of brittle feelings. She took the lead, because I wasn't going first. I had no idea where we were and nothing felt right. How long had she been down there... hopeless and down staring at the wall. I held my breath as we passed another section of square collumns. And in our hopes of finding Radio Free, we were treated to something else...

I saw something... twitching and wiggling by the escalators. It's body was hard to talk about. There were lots of thin, black stripes over it's skin and the legs were stubs. It could've been a zebra that fell into a meat grinder and magically got reassembled. But it looked worse than that. The bones were all wrong. It's ribs were jutting out and lots of squirming tongues were coming out it's stomach. The head was like... someone blew the jaw off and the lower jaw started moving like mandibles. It's eyes were gone. It didn't look like someone tore them out, though. It looked like it was born with holes for eyes.

I froze. Was it a person. A dog. The chest was too thin and long and the legs were short, but... why was the fail an arm with fingers?

My friend started shaking. Her breaths were shivers and shallow sobs. I held her hoof to calm her down and whispered 'look, it's eating... it's eating something. let's slip past it, okay?' I couldn't understand most of her response, but she took to trembling. I heard her whisper 'kill it... kill it, please just do it-' I nodded slowly, unsure of the tightness in my gut. Killing a pony was a necessity. Killing an animal, one that could clearly hear us and yet wasn't attacking. I didn't know what to say.

Sure it was a monster. Sure it looked like something from my nightmares. But it wasn't attacking us. I even tested that theory by departing from my friend and approaching it. The split-mouthed dog just glanced up at me and barked happily, waving his tail. He even tried to lick my coat as gross as that was. But he saw her. He saw her and he that was when he sprang over.

"No!" She screeched, galloping for her life.

They almost collided, running toward the same point. But the split-mouthed dog missed her by a few inches when she slipped away, swerving as she fled. I later learned that was how somepony confused a dog chasing after them; it gave their legs trouble so balancing took more effort than running forward. I grit my teeth and I nucked the dog with my hindlegs.

I heard his neck snap. He stayed seizing on the floor, bleeding out his muzzle. He didn't have any eyes but I saw him bleeding away from his sockets. I heard him whining. Scuttling around on his legs as he twitched in place. I held my hooves over my mouth and I tried... to tell myself it was okay. They tried to kill my friend. I didn't need to cry.

"H-hey... Hey i-it's okay. It's okay." She whispered, taking me in against her chest.

I didn't like being held. But I needed it. My body needed to hold something because I killed him. I killed my only friend all over again.

"I... I killed hi- I-I killed Max-! I killed him...!"

Images of... flashing sequence rained down on me. I saw father handling Max and barking away, ordering me yo shoot. And I did. I shot him right in the temple. I collapsed, falling into my griend. I couldn't feel my legs. I was light-headed. Swirling voices stung my temples apart. It hurt. It fucking hurt. I grit my teeth as tears slipped away from me. I tried to choke my cries back. I really did. But I saw mama pulling the trigger for me, holding the gun in place and telling me to shoot.

'Shoot, god damn it! The raiders will get us...!'

It was a suppressed. 22lr rifle... subsonic rounds. Four rounds in his temple. And three minutes of whimperinh. Sobbing against him and being hit because I... made too much noise. I stumbled to my feet and forced myself up the broken escalator. I tried to stop myself from thinking about how many times I've heard the words 'bitch' and 'shut up' and who said it. I did my best to trot away without limping or tripping over my own, lazy stride.

"Lady... lady what's wrong? What's wrong?"

"I just killed something...! That's what's wrong...!" I screamed at her, striking my chest in emphasis.

I covered my mouth again. And I tried to apologize. She shook her head and kept her eyes on the nearedt exit. It was behind her. I twiddled with my forehooves and she kept her head down. We talked without eye-contact. That was fine. I felt naked under prying eyes, under being stared at like I was under a spotlight. We mumbled our next words out. How couldn't we.

"Now what... should we do. I just burst out, even at you. My patience fell through."

"You were just dealing with growing mad and more, you were just getting stressed. When you yelled at me it made me feel unsure, but I'm spineless..."

We shared a hug. And we shared names. I stayed beside her, walking up the subway steps toward the final entrance and exit. Nearby, I found a handgun in the directive office, or closest guide office. I handed it to my friend and that's when she told me.

"Here- wait, I never got your name. I... I'm Carbon. Carbon Copy Carpenter."

"I'm glad you're here. You can call me Cake. Zebra Cake. But all my friends call me Cakie..."

Comeback

When we left the subway section, I could see her smiling. Cake wasn't paranoid or shivering; she was just alive at that point. How long was she stuck in that subway, I wondered. It could've been days. Weeks, even.

We stayed against the walls before wandering about an old... museum section of the underground. I was starting to think the Dank Family Penitentiary was only a tiny portion of a larger underground system. If it really was, I hypothesized, there'd be more than a few of those dog creatures.

We ended up exploring some sort of exhibit on necromancy. The first clue to the exhibit's dark nature were a few, stale and musty tomes piling on podiums and pedestals. Most were locked behind bulletproof glass and electronic locks. The few books I'd seen locked away were thick grimoires and bloated compendiums. Something was wrong, but I couldn't put my hoof on it.

All those books and scrolls, some haphazardly stacked about on carts, were organized by madness. Among the dusty floor tiles, which were white marble, lay silent and dotted with white, crumbling objects. They left an ashen substance on my hooves. I thought it smelled like spoiled milk or some sort of weird baby powder.

I turned back to watch Cake. Yet, all she did was freeze. Motionless and pale as moonlight, she stepped backwards till we were close. Every step ended tensely. The impact of her hooves against the floor tile was non-existent.

"Carbon..."

"Yes...?" I whispered, not oblivious to her body language.

"This stuff on the floor- we need to get away from here. It's- Oh Luna-"

"Cake. Cake, what is it? Why are you panicking...?" I scoffed, levitating my switchblade just inches from my horn.

"Bones. The stuff on the floor is bones. I-I saw a pelvis. It was broken, Carbon. Broken...!"

I could only stare back in horror at what she said. All the fur on the back of my neck had risen. Nothing was right. Those books weren't disheveled from laziness. The person organizing them had been murdered. We took off to the right of it, blinded by panic. If whatever killed that pony could kill a necromancer, one who studied, even, what chance did we stand.

The corridor we galloped through was lit with incense. I couldn't decide what was worse: the smell of the candles or the feeling of chase. Every corner we took thinned the hallway. It got to the point where we had to squeeze away from the thing behind us. All that time, I knew it was moving. I couldn't hear it, but some, invisible touch was always threatning me. When I closed my eyes, I saw claws looming over my shoulder, barely distanced and waiting. Waiting to catch me.

I scrambled over to a thin, metallic door at the end of the narrows. Cake followed, but I made her wait before I pulled the handle. Sure enough, there were booby traps in place. Some sick fuck had put them there to entertain themselves, I rationalized. I screamed. We didn't have time to disarm them. So we scurried and jerked away from each set of teeth as frantically as possible. The steely jaws of each demise nearly caught us at the second door. Cake was almost caught from tripping over a wand. But, in my eureka, I caught her chest just inches over the pressure plate and took her behind me.

I finally had a fine-tuned magical focal nexus; not my horn, but a wand: a great fine-tipped gauss rifle for magic. Whatever it was stalking us, the thing snapped the door down right when I readied. His coat was many pony furs sewn together. He had two heads, one snarling and frothing at the mouth with alligator teeth, the other with sickly, red eyes and fanged teeth. He was a mixture of... human, pony and dragon, his lower body filled with reptilian arms and hooved hindlegs coated with... knives and scalpels.

His rotting skin was a pale yellow. And he crept toward us fully erect, fully excited to have us. I heard Zebra Cake slide the door open and slip away.

'Great...' I thought, kissing my sorry ass goodbye.

She was abandoning me when I needed her. It was my parents all over again, only, one was still wasting his caps and pre-war bills somewhere in Maryland. At least, I hoped so, so I could one day toss them into Dank Family Penitentiary.

I implemented my plan by setting the wand into action. I tossed the bear traps near it's hooves first. When it whinnied and brayed, I stepped back and centered my wand. Out came a shower of sparks and smoke, then a spray of perfume. All those years turning tricks had actually paid off. I gripped the door, slammed it in front of me and turned to run. Only, Cake was galloping back from where she came.

Apparently... after I flicked the light switch, I learned we were in the security guard armory. Cake had a great, honking flamethrower on her person. She'd found the pest control and manual cooking stash, as evidenced by a sign somewhere with a missing flamethrower, outlined by dust and emptiness. Most of the weapons were intact from how harshly the narrow tunnels must've been. That and the monster outside would chase away anypony, especially scavengers and lone merchants.

Beside the light switch was actually a panel that said 'broaden hallway.' I lit up in scientific splendor. So the museum owners and curators weren't brainless assholes. They actually had a way to leave without risking their lives. We had to do it, we agreed, nodding silently with our pact.

"Zebra. Tell me we're going to make it out alive." I murmured, injecting an early stimpak and slowly turning the knob.

"We're gonna burn this bitch extra crispy." She hushed, clicking her burner on.

As soon as I flung that door open, it charged me head-on. A winding marathon started and I was caught in it's eerily distended and lanky human arms. It galloped around and crashed me into the walls. Rifles and sidearms all included were littering the ground with every strike. It thundered in harsh, violent swings that busted my skeleton all over. I hit the shotguns. I hit the wand racks. I even shut my eyes and broke my ribs on a rack of fireaxes. When time came to fight back, I was fractured in places I didn't know were capable of fracture.

It held me high and lifted me like a child in daddy's arms. I knew it would slam me down, head-first and all. I was exposed with my hindlegs bucking wildly in empty air. His eyes were the worst part of him. He kept staring down and drooling. When he started setting me down and trying to mount me, I finally had an opening. And not that way, you torture porn fetishist.

I kicked up at his chest, giving me seconds to act.

I took him by the throat with telekinesis, cranked his head up and stabbed the wand into his heart. That's when Zebra bucked him forward and drew a howl of agonizing volume. It was entirely submerged into his lungs. She set her flamer for 'high' and roasted him alive. The sweet light of day, even if through bloodshed, saw us through. Star Spangle was right. We had to push through.

He broke free of my chokehold and started thrashing about. His arms were the most charred region on him. But keeping us away wasn't his goal. Instead, he ripped away firearms from the armory stock and catapulted them forward. We were stuck leaping and jerking away from every, single missile. My hooves were aching by that point. My legs weren't sore or filling with acid, no. It was my brachial triceps. Those were burning and I could swear that thing had torn them open.

I did my best to limp forward. I really did. It went after Zebra Cake and kept me at bay with it's bucking, powerful hindlegs. There were nails and jagged bits of metal and glass embedded inside it's hooves. I wanted to scream it was so helpless. That thing was inching towards her. And I couldn't even act.

"Hey! Hey! You piece of chimera shit! Stop being a pussy and come after me!"

I caught it's attention. But I noticed... it covered it's ears. My eyes lit the room open. And I screamed at Cake to cover her ears. I charged my spell and weaved a microphone, linking my construct to the wand. The wand deep within it's chest slid out and hovered above me.

"Hey, shithead?!" I barked, tense all over, ready to shout my voice away.

It bellowed and roared from both, misshapen heads. And it stomped forward to try and trample me. I built layer after layer of cover from various guns around the room. Every time I built a layer, it pressed forward to swipe it away. We confronted each other muzzle-to-muzzle. It took a swipe at my right flank and clawed my cutiemark to pieces.

I bit down on my pack and glared it down.

A smile took me over and I assaulted my magic microphone to shriek my pain away. I'd already jammed the wand into it's left eardrum. I watched it die. And panic. I watched it squirm and writhe till it collapsed entirely and bled out in front of me.

We only needed to clap each other's hooves and leave that room... fully-stocked on flamer fuel and ript shotgun ammo. What we couldn't carry, I dragged behind in a fishnet we scavenged from an old exhibit on capturing fillies for necromancy. We were so riddled with adrenaline that when we reached the exit of that musty and antiquated place, we collapsed for hours... frozen in time.

When both of us came to, I decided on a smoke break. Just me, since Cake didn't like the idea of crippling cancer and slow, miserable death. I seated myself just over the entrance steps. I gazed away into the dark, the place we'd trot after all was said and done. She stood beside me, tinkering with that flamer better than I ever could. I was the first to talk.

"Do you think... We saved someone's life back there. By getting rid of it."

"Whaddyou mean? We took out that monster. So, probably."

I nodded in agreement... unsure of myself.

"I just- Sometimes I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I'm useless. I can barely fight. And I was almost raped back there because I didn't have good enough reflexes. I never thought about it now, but I've never done anything nice without trying to feel better about myself..."

I took a drag of my smoke and blew it away.

"But back there... that was the first time I'd ever done it because- I was... I was scared of seeing you hurt."

I closed my eyes and tried to comprehend what just happened. Following Whitestar and leaving that shithole Boredom did more than set me free. It was just my setting. I could change. And I could leave the penitentiary happy with who I was... happy with all the shit I could never deal with alone.

I looked down and realized I didn't need to smoke anymore. I wasn't worried. I wasn't scared. I was more scared for Zebra Cake and Star Spangle and Whitestar.

I took one, last glance at Cake and put my cigarette out, never looking back.

Faith

Whitestar. That's what everyone called me. Only my closest loved ones called me anything different. My name, if pondered ages ago. But no more would I ever question it. I woke in the arms of my mother, who'd hung me over her back hours before. We were alone in that place, in wretched prison walls and sickly tetanus. And though we stayed far, far away from the prison cells, they were always on either side. The center of an endless hallway, we tread on, subject to swarms of whispers from every direction.

Star Spangled was starting to wobble. I noticed moreso just by watching her, afraid of losing her, the only one I had left. Generous nicks and lacerations layered her coat with fat patches of sanguine liqueur. I could tell from the lax texture of her thoracic trapezius muscle that most of her musculature had torn. She turned back to face me, a curious furrow in her brow. She read me better than anyone, psychic-like, even.

"Don't think... I'm done supporting you. Don't think I'm done... being a good mother."

A harsh, elongated exhale forced her lips apart. She went wide-eyed and dropped us both, buckling in her forelegs. We were crawling about like children, followed by the whispered malice all around.

'Give up.'

'There's nowhere to run now.'

'Leave your friends.'

'You'll never make it.'

I clutched the metallic flooring over and over in long, stretching strokes of my forelegs. They were still functional. My hindlegs weren't responding, I noted. I was wondering why they never kicked awake. They were numb. Almost... non-existent. I settled my eyes just on Mother, dazed and sloppy from all my bloodloss. Outrageous fortune struck my heart. I nearly froze from how corrosive the pain was. It ate away at my chest with chatting, gnawing canines and vampiric siphon, never satisfied and never sated.

"And I...!" I managed to pant, barely able to breathe.

"Better be a damn good daughter to you...!"

I struck my sternum to override the pain, did the same to my flanks and finally managed to stand. I took her over my shoulders and galloped drunkenly forward. Constant trips and swerves crashed us about but all it did was make me stronger. I grit my teeth and told myself the truth.

Did I know why I was never happy.

I heard her breath come to a halt. And behind me, I saw in the reglection of an old, undelivered mirror, was an abomination. The terror itself was various foals stitched together, along with stuffed animals and books brimming and sprawling with fleshy pages. The pages flew about in wild, accordion-folded limbs tipped with endless bone shards jutting at every corner. Star Spangled had shut her mouth by pressing her hooves against her lips. I knew the sound of it: tiny whines crammed backwards against the throat.

I was never happy because I was born to suffer.

I felt my irises widen as I saw light at the end of that tunnel. At the end, the alluring illumination, I aimed my heart. We stormed forward with all we had. I did all the galloping, but Mother gave me hope. She cheered me on in clinging to me, in showing me my purpose.

I suffered because that was what it took to do good.

I sacrificed for the good of the many.

Not the few. Or the one.

We reached the one meter mark. I did my best to harnest all my momentum and toss Mother inside first. The light poured in from a verical, folding door made of many metallic parts. It worked like a garage door, only, it rusted immobile from time and wear. Mother tumbled in and clutched her chest from sudden shock. I felt my eyes hang heavy as I realized I might not make it. I might've become second-billing to my own destiny. I might've been a martyr instead of the leader Celestia raised me to be.

From the sound of the rolling and crashing of the infinite nightmare creature, it was far too close. We were almost in the same meter of space. Only darkness separated us, kept us from facing each other down.

"Whitestar...! Whitestar...! Please, don't fight! Run! Slip through to the other side!"

"Whitestar-! Oh Celestia, Whitestar don't leave me...! I can't lose you again!"

I tried not to cry. I did. But before I knew it, I was sobbing too. I was sniffing too, just silently. I could barely breathe, much less wail. I lit a smoke to calm my nerves, awaiting the crawling chaos careening toward me, violent and invisible.

"It's no use, hn... my hindlegs won't bend down any further. If they do, I won't be able to stand and they'll give out for good. Be good. If I don't make it, I love you. I promise."

My only option was to rely on my abilities. My abilities and myself... not my legs, not my muscles, but my force of will. I spotted it turn the corner. And I stared it down every step of the way. It jabbered away in cacophonous filly and colt voices. It told me I should offer myself. That I was better off it's mate slave than opposing it. I took a moment or so to regain my breath and stamp my hoof against the ground.

"Celestia... if you can hear me, keep my mother safe. Keep Carbon Safe. Keep everyone safe. And if I must suffer... then take me to Hell!"

I burned with flame and, for the first time ever, the pyre was white... a supernova shade of sunlight I hadn't imagined, no, comprehended real. The black book itself established itself around me, coming apart in pages of wild, flocking noise and flapping motion. The pages unravelled and wrapped about me in constricting layers of thin, fleshy armor. The gilded cross took to my chest. And I heard a voice above the commotion say:

"Carry on, burning star: your light is your way."

It couldn't have been anyone else. It was Her, Celestia herself. It had to be.

I beheld the beast and the darkness give way. The path was clear and the prison came undone when I, bathed in flame, charged the wicked mass and engulfed it's pages in flame. The many necromantic pages of the amalgamation blinded me with radiant agony. I felt my cheeks sopping with tears. And I knew deep down why my name was Whitestar.

I took hold of the spherical shape of the beast, dirty with orphan blood.

A mare wasn't chosen for how special she was. She was chosen for all the right choices she'd made herself. Celestia did not choose me for my purity. For my muscles. I was chosen for my willpower, my conviction.

In a sky of black, a star so dim as me stood out among the rest. No matter how dark the road grew, I would always find my way. I would always guide the blind. I would always do my best to heal. So I healed the monster by tearing it clean in two, headbutting the core spirit item and smashing it to pieces. No more was the vile hell all those foals had suffered. No more were they trapped. I laid them to rest by shattering the crystal ball that held their teeth and blood and hair.

All around me, the mess expanded. Rotting flesh and putrid, innocent blood burned my coat and eyes and lungs. I dropped down and slammed into the gore muzzle-first. As soon as battle came to a close, I felt the armor slide away, barely unscsthed as some pages were eviscerated from the battle damage I hadn't even noticed. Along my chest were various, breaching gashes that would've ended me if it weren't for Celestia's answer to my prayer.

I stumbled backwards and scurried away to check on my mother, banging into the door from sheer exhaustion.

"Mother- Celestia damn it are- are you still there...?" I huffed, barely conscious as it were, leaning deeply against the door.

"Wh-whitestar? I-I found the switch to the door. I'm going to raise it- so stand back."

I did my best to balance. Soon enough, she kept her word and the door slid up and into place. Only when I limped inside did Star Spangle close and lock the folding door mechanism. That's when we embraced each oyher. And kissed each other.

Hey. I fucking earned it. Spare me the topic of incest being wrong.

"Twilight's light, I- I... thought I lost you." I cursed, trembling against her, needing her, dying without her.

I let my eyes hang heavy. And I let my tears stream down, finally safe. Finally safe enough to show my feelings. I ached deep within, bitter from what she had to experience. I knew Celestia had saved me entirely from fate worse than death, but how and why, for sure, I still didn't know.

"I love you too, Whitestar... if that ever happens again, do me a favor and let me do the fighting... I've lived a good life. Let mother handle the monsters. I can't lose you, too. Not like your father."

We shared our tears and pin-cushion hearts. We shared a moment in time where everything was right, just the two of us in serene harmony. I promised her to be careful. But only if she let me carry her the rest of the way. I grinned widely at her frustration, but we both agreed: she was in no condition to walk. I stumbled forward in metallic clicks and clangs, leaving one pair of hoofprints in the... cement?

The walls weren't grated metal anymore. They were greyed stone similar to the stone composite of a sidewalk. She was so particularly dazed and blurry that it'd only occured when she reached a normal, non-metallic corridor. Instead, it was full of cheap floral paint and lackluster flourescent lights. The light fixtures themselves barely flickered in the wrong rhythm. She stumbled onward, half-paranoid and shifting her gaze about in self-imposed emergency.

"Whitestar... Do you hear that?" Hushed Star Spangle, immediately snapping her out of it.

A faint melody skirted along the walls. A sweet echo embraced her ears and kept the nightmares at bay. Quite literally, the corridor, distended and wide as it was, had no monsters whatsoever. She couldn't help but recall the equestrian fairy tells Father Pepperjack used to tell. The voice itself had a low, groggy feel to it. The very gravitas of it made her chest rumble with proximity. She recognized that voice anywhere.

We found a single, wooden door at the end of the hallway. I pressed the pressure plate mechanism and opened it halfway open. I could see another pressure plate on the other side. Like most equestrian doors, it opened both ways and relied on a dual-lock system that relied on two locks and latches. I stayed silent clicking it open and peeking in.

"Hay and welcome to Point Lookin Radio, children. This song is dedicated to all the foals out there missing someone important. And I mean important. He's watching over you, kiddies. Trust me. And he's ready to smile because he's so proud you're still here. This is 'Daddy's Girl'."

I felt water creeping against my eyelids. And I didn't know why, but it leaked forward and spilled over my cheeks. I stepped forward to see somepony's silhouette highlighted by various computer screens and glowing radio technology. From something containing a record player, to some sort of recording studio to their left, the room was vast, comparable to an atrium.

Only closer could I see what or who the pony was. And, ironically, it was a... young, girly mare with canary yellow fur. Over her face was a doe skull spray-painted tie-dye. At first, I had no idea what to think. Her body was unmistakably effeminate, down to the hips and muzzle geometries. I heard her yelp at first, then draw a peculiar, foreign pistol: a revolver. Her revolver was silver with an ivory handle. The scope was missing, however and the barrel was the lengthier than I'd ever seen.

I took a double-take when I realized she was mid-bubble bath when I'd found her. Literally, her entire, enticing figure was soaped with children's bubblesoap. It made her slick and damp, especially about her pubic region, which she immediately covered with a giant loofah.

And when she spoke, her voice was... normal again.

"Wh-who are you?! How did you make it past the traps...?" Asked Radio Free, boring into me with her round, emerald eyes.

She wore a particular scowl that grit her teeth just the right way. The best way I can describe it is a compact, upside-down grin, akin to a cute, fluffy animal's. I couldn't help but grin back at her, amused, charmed and relieved to find another face within La Obscura.

"My name," I stated, finally free to smoke.

'Is Whitestar. And I need your help, miss."

Rituals

Had I ever been afraid of sigils and runes, I never would've snooped around as much as I did. Radio Free had offered up the lore of this place. The Dank Family Penitentiary, or La Obscura by name of ancient ownership, was a sort of magical ground zero. I'd noted all the monsters prior and came to the conclusion that they were nonsensical.

When Star Spangle and Radio Free started mundane and incessant chatter, I slipped away to investigate the ruins of the Necrotic Museum.

We'd cleared it of residents when Mother and I barely survived the book amalgamation.

I stopped by to study the flesh school of necromancy. I'd scrounged a few half-ruined texts and ignored the pages that simply wouldn't open. I then realized that most of the spells or incantations matched my Celestian Bible by format. They needed some measure of organic magic, a cerebral catalyst and direct understanding of what the caster wanted to happen. Except, those spells needed equine meat.

Some called for skeletal remains of some kind. Others depicted vastly complicated rituals with sacraments and mind-numbing chants. One of the grimoires I studied was named 'Der Weg des Fleisches.'

I read it as an ensemble of various physical necromancy procedures. But among the various incantations and rituals, I found one in particular named the 'manifestation inculta.'

'In particular, the most elaborate emotion you can muster will yield stronger results. This is because Manifestation Inculta relies on the vividness of the caster's emotions. It is best to use this spell as a means of catharsis from hate or similarly malicious emotions.

This spell requires the caster's innate agenda at the time of enactment. Not preparing the right amount of malice will defocus the spell and dilute it.'

I read on, rushing for the actual effects of the spell.

'Yes, this is a potent curse. It will target someone of interest and manifest their darkness, or manifest thoughts that make them squirm. Repressed memories. Depressing flaws. It will do it's best to create something real from dormant nightmares.

The corpse meat and plant matter will serve as the biomass required for summoning. These creatures are extremely one-track minded and will only focus on their predetermined goals. Avoid contact with them at all costs, as they need to be destroyed or tamed by extreme measures.

Only the tormented can truly banish them. This done by confronting and accepting their own darkness. This is an unintended side-effect from the main magical composition, which is harmful emotional magic, or more commonly known as: taint.'

I felt my heart skip a beat. They were monsters made from the spell. No wonder they'd tried to rape me. No wonder they were so imposing and immense. Every, single one I'd met journeying with Tequila's body. They all fit her subconscious fears and philosophies. All except one. That book monster, I didn't have a diagnosis for. Was it my demon, or my mother's. I had to know.

Mother finished her talk with Radio Free. I sat with my back against the wall, their light farewells bouncing off the walls. I'dbarely noticed, but the paranoia I'd adopted made everything feel so vivid. I could hear the creaks of individual vents grating against me. And the very breath of Mother against my coat. She caressed my back and rubbed her chest on it. She held my waist and kissed me form over the shoulder.

"Whitestar. She'll do it. Now all we have to do is get out of this hell hole and find the others."

I returned her kiss and presented Der Weg des Fleisches. We read that specific portion and soon after, spent countless hours scouring the museum archives for more. I managed to identify several other magical tomes with mind spells like the manifestation inculta. After finding a certain text by the name of 'Salient Supernatural Solutions', I came to a conundrum.

Perchance to find a decent bit of white magic, I believed it just that: chance.

I found one detailing some odd spells dealing with divination, normally done through interaction with the dead, or, in the case of one specific spell, the physically dying. Had I never mustered the intent to burn the books, I never would've returned to my roots. I once thought of knowledge as Celestia's gift. After the outside world, after Red and Blue, I lost my way.

If Celestia was so great and good, why did she create both evil and good?

The answer was in books that stained her name. Necrotic magic, I found, was a horrific thing. It was monstrous in any way. But I'd never be caught saying such things. Twas an insult to monsters, to describe that ancient evil as anything but that: evil. And yet, the book 'Winter Ritter Compendium' had painless euthanasia spells and blissful illusory states for the dying.

I didn't know why, but after reading it, I felt a piece of me missing when I burned the others.

Mother had caught me. So she gave a long, healthy stretch and trotted over half tired, half awake.

"Whitestar? What's wrong...? Did one of the books draw blood?"

I shook my head slowly, barely there. I was... entranced by my logic. I stared down at the book with snowy cover pigments and grains that elevated slightly so the naked hoof could fondle it yearningly. Even with all the grace of the Celestian Bible, I felt safer with the Winter Ritter Compendium. It possessed a comely draw: an ascending feeling with every word, which swept me along in soft, undersized letters and subdued author's notes. They instructed the reader how to handle physical medical procedure.

"No. I'm just... feeling wrong about this. What are we doing destroying all these books. What are we doing denying anyone all this information. The wasteland is so stupid as is. This place is stupid. Merryland is stupid. And now I feel stupid. If I knew some of these books had white magic, I- never would've burned them."

For once in her life, she couldn't say anything back. Her jaw dropped and she tried to recollect herself by fixing my tie.

"I just... realize how Celestia must've felt creating Equestria. She didn't intend for all these horrible things to happen. But she knew deep down that the good and bad belonged together. She knew her creations would grow bored without pain. And no pain meant no pleasure. No happiness. No innate enjoyment of anything. Celestia knew we'd all turn into psychopaths if we didn't understand pain so she gave it to Equestria, so we wouldn't grow evil. But even after all her work... even after all her plans, we were ungrateful."

I looked up and left my seat, heading for the door.

"I've burnt thirty books so far. Twenty without reading them. Imagine how much good the other nine could've done. I could've saved lives. But I got rid of them without even checking what they were really about. Imagine how many people are living that way right now... shooting others that don't deserve it just because. And all this time, I could've been spreading good. But all I've done was spread fire... All I've done is burn. I've been a fool, mother. A right fool."

I took one last glance at the Celestian Bible, which I'd left on a ruined bench.

I told Star Spangled that I would come back after a smoke break.

We took a well-deserved rest and set out for the heart of the void. I didn't know how, but I'd recieved visions of some whispered chamber deep in the lowest levels. And though I walked through the valley of shadow, I did not fear death. For once, perhaps for good, I only feared what would happen to the others if I failed.

Save Me

I prayed before her, my sleeping mother goddess. And I situated my forehooves beneath my jawline. What else had I missed. Where else had I been blindex. The nervous mess I'd become was deconstructing me. My faith was all aflame.

I had to drown out yesterday from breeding in my heart, cawing like a raven squawking 'nevermore' and 'dead.' Cleaning little trails of blood, forgetting Mother stayed home, stained with cruor that made a bloodbath look like home, a burning in my coat I scrubbed with hot disdain. A trounce of hate is all I held for me, a nervous tension in my brain.

And would she never say that she loved me just to keep me in good grace.

And would she never wake to tell me it is she that wanted space.

She'd hate me that day. She'd leave me tomorrow, leave me so she could finally see the beast I was.

I was spell-less then for once in life, one addendum that she'd helped me reach. The one thing that cut us apart was one thing I wouldn't dive within. In my sick way I wanted to kiss her for holding my heart close late last night.

I was waging wars myself when she was holding me tight all night. She never doubted my horrid relations with sex and love and mates. She made me complement my flesh when it was far too hard to think. So I'd cried my fucking hate away so she'd never see it bloom and do whatever it took inside to leave me aloof.

"Hate me, madre... Hate me in sorrow. Hate me for all the things I couldn't be for you."

I watched her then wake, her tears loose, not burrowed. My mother said 'not today, no not even tomorrow.'

"Hate is a feeling I could never have for you."

And with a warm heart she said 'my star' and gave me an embrace to absolve my sins, all the mistakes that I had made.

And like a foalish colt I never was a man. So I saw her blue eyes cry and I held her hooves as my own.

And I fell down sobbing 'never go away, just run miles with me to shine like you deserve to see.'

So she whimpered 'how could you do this to me?'

"Save me today. Save me tomorrow... Save me for all the things I couldn't do alone. Hold me in rays, your rays made to hallow; raze me so you can finally mold me out of clay."