Peering into the sports bag I was met with my own reflection, although it was notably distorted by the curvature of the mirror. Using my telekinesis I pulled out the object and turned it around in the silver light afforded by the clouds. I pulled my mind away from the glimmer it gave off in order to inspect it more thoroughly: it was one of the masks used by the Fusiliers, that was plain enough, although it the visor was coated with some substance that gave it the appearance of a quarter dome mirror. Inspecting the reverse side I found that despite the coating I could still see through just fine.

“Hey dick-weed this isn’t nature class, admire trees on your own time!” Cinder shouted from the road. I quickly looked through the other contents of the bag and found some dark grey clothing and… a cape. Really, Archer? Really? I returned the mask to the sports bag, half zipped it up, hung it by its strap around my neck, and galloped back to them. “What’s in the damn bag?” He irritatedly asked as I approached.

“Well you remember how my brother wanted to become a superhero to skirt the ROE-” I began.

“No,” Cinder interjected and rolled his eyes. I guess I only told Shaggy and Bruiser.

“Well anyways he did, but he died before he could test his plan.” I said and opened up the bag to show them its contents. “As you can plainly see, Archer, Celestia preserve him, was every bit as edgy as imagined, and quite a bit more fruity.” With the last part I motioned with my hoof to the colourful cape, and while Bruiser and Shaggy snickered, Cinder however snatched the cape away and shook it out so it blew in the wind.

This was my first time seeing the full cape, and I noticed that it looked rather familiar. It was divided into four rectangles by a white cross. Going clockwise from the top left rectangle the design went: a red field with 23 golden symbols, a blue field with 23 golden symbols, a red field with 23 golden symbols, and a blue field with 23 golden symbols. It was a rather systematic design, and I was willing to bet that Archer didn’t make it himself. “I guess he thought using the flag of the Kingdom of Québuck as a cape would make us think the caped crusader was a surface dweller rather than an AWOL Fusilier.” Cinder said with a good deal of intrigue visible on his face. Come to think of it; the faction that saved us two years ago was carrying this as their battle flag.

After letting them look over the costume I packed it back into the bag, slung the strap over my neck, and hoisted the bag onto my back where it felt rather uncomfortable along side my bag of supplies. “Come on, we apparently have to go somewhere,” I said whilst turning to walk down the road, my ear twitched slightly in minor annoyance.

We continued along the highway, flanked on either side by hilly forests. It quickly dawned on me that this area would be the perfect ambush, so I levitated up my rifle, pulled the bolt back, slid in the five round en bloc clip, then pushed the bolt forwards to chamber one of the large 8x56mm rounds. No quarter twists needed due to the rifle’s unusual design. I looked around and noticed that my companions had the same idea, Cinder was scanning the tree line with his assault rifle shouldered, Shaggy was frantically screwing the choke on to his shotgun, and Bruiser raised his SMG, before deciding it was inadequate and, pulled a fire axe out of his bag instead. “Ok, why do you have that?” I asked with a raised brow, and then returned to watching the woods.

Bruiser opened his mouth to answer when Shaggy cut him off with a snicker, “He’s compensating for a tiny cock.”

A sly half smile cracked across Bruiser’s unamused face, “Of course you would be interested in the size of my cock.”

Cinder grunted and motioned for us to look ahead. The low fog that had accompanied us thus far had thickened dramatically, already the road ahead was every bit as ambiguous as the forests on our flanks. However that wasn’t the only thing he was alerting us to. I could hear… a whooshing, not the kind that wind makes, no this sounded more like that time a water pipe in the shelter had burst and turned a hallway into a river. “There’s a town just on the other side of the bridge we should be approaching, that will be our first stop.” Cinder informed us and then turned back to facing forward.

We continued forward in a diamond formation, Cinder in the lead, Bruiser behind him, Shaggy on the left flank and myself on the right. I made some observations as we went: The highway was exceptionally weathered, to the point where towards the edges the road were little more than dark gravel. The amount of debris strewn across the road confirmed that it had been many years since the last mechanical cart had sped along this route. Finally, guessing from how far to the sides the trees had been cut, there were plans to expand the highway. My final note came from a road sign warning of the bridge ahead, it was in both Equestrian and some other language, between the presence of an organization claiming to be the Kingdom of Québuck and the fact that signs were bilingual I inferred that we were either in or near the Equestrian province of Québuck, a fact that would also explain why there were no earth ponies or pegasi in the shelter.

We heard the bridge before the outline of its hulking truss became visible through the fog, or rather we heard an argument occurring on the bridge. As we came closer it became clear that this was not mere bickering.

“You can have whatever you want! Just please, please, please let me go!” a frantic female accented voice sounded out through the fog.

My heart almost skipped a beat, I knew the outside world was supposed to be cruel, but it hadn’t even been an hour and already we had stumbled upon some form of conflict. “Nothing you have is worth taking!” A stallion’s voice sounded out, and my stomach turned at what I heard next. “Tell you what, let me and my boys get our dicks wet and we’ll let you go.”

I felt something move on my back and I turned my head to see Cinder pulling stuff out of the sports bag. “Keep walking, I should have them dispatched by the time you reach the bridge, if all goes according to plan, then you should be able to find me in the forest to the right of the road on the opposite bank of the river. With that he ran off into the fog with the costume.

As we approached the bridge we heard more. “I’d sooner die!” the mare exclaimed, at least she was brave.

We were now close enough for me to make out the silhouette of a caped figure atop the truss, I could also here the stallion’s comeback “Oh I expected this from one of you Québuck mares, so how about this, spread those legs, or I’ll shoot out the bulge in your stomach and leave you to live with the knowledge that you were almost a mother.” A flash from above, BANG. From above Cinder fired 6 shots, then dropped down from the truss on top of a large transport cart that was stuck on the bridge, from this position he fired a further 7 shots at the enemies who were only now training their rifles on him. He jumped off the cart and on the road, and rushed forward, pushing the last thug off the bridge and into the fast moving river below, before bolting off into the forest to the left of the bridge.

I fixed my bayonet to the lug of my rifle as we stepped onto the bridge. “You two check on the mare, I’ll make sure Cinder didn’t miss any of them.” They nodded and made their way towards her. My area scan amounted to just circling around the other side of the cart. As I approached them I noted that Bruiser was rubbing his cheek, probably got slapped for hitting on the would-be rape victim. I also noted that the mare was so traumatized that the Equestrian language was now lost on her, and that she had begun speaking exclusively in what was presumably Québuckois.

Something caught my eye, some of the bodies were still moving, in his rush to take out the seven thugs and get out of there as soon as possible some of his shots hadn’t been particularly lethal. I was scared for a moment, was this pony still capable of hurting me or my friends? Then an earlier thought came into my mind and I steeled my heart. It had been less than an hour yet we had already come into conflict, I’d have to kill sooner or later if I wanted to make it in this world, can’t be too hard as I’m already a murderer. I raised my rifle, pointed the bayonet down, and thrust it into the pony’s heart. I kept eye contact with the pony the entire time, as that was too gut wrenching for my tastes I closed my eyes before doing in the others.

I noted that they were carrying rifles, they weren’t exactly like mine as they required a quarter twist, but they did take the same ammunition, and I had a good time looting an additional thirty rounds off the corpses. I walked back towards the others with a smile. Then it dawned on me that I had just killed ponies and robbed their corpses. I sat down and sort of just sat there for a bit until Bruiser had to carry me off the bridge. “What the fuck was that?” He demanded and stared at me.

“Celestia’s mane… I -I just killed those ponies!” I stammered out.

“Oh what a shock! Murderer here killed someone!” Bruiser exclaimed to no one in particular. He gave me a hard kick to the stomach, then offered me a hoof up. “Grow up you pussy.” He said in a half friendly tone.

I took his hoof and he roughly pulled me to his feet. “Ok, let’s go find Cinder.” I said and used my hoof to wipe the bile from my mouth.

I lead the way into the forest, the trees were tall, and the ground was littered with such a thick layer of their needles that there was no underbrush. I heard what sounded like a rustling in the trees above and I turned my head to the sky as we continued on. That was apparently a horrible idea, as the fairly rocky terrain meant that the roots were shallow and they often jutted above ground, in short, the terrain was perfect for me to trip on.

My realization of that came too late, “Ow,” I said as I rolled on to my back to rub my bruised chest, As I lay on my back continuing to look up I noticed something up in the tree immediately to my left. Atop it was what appeared to be a wooden platform of some kind. Getting up, I noticed that the branches of the tree started pretty near the ground and used them as an impromptu ladder to climb up towards the platform.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Bruiser asked.

Shaggy snickered, “I’m not sure what drugs he’s doing but but he’s getting higher by the second.”

I heard a smack and gasping as if Bruiser had sucker punched Shaggy, “Puns like that are why parents should beat their children.” Bruiser said.

I reached the top of the tree and found… an Equestrian army uniform? It was very faded, but it was pretty apparent that it had been stripped of its patches and at some point dyed black (a color that was not typical of the Equestrian army). Oddly enough it seemed that the place had yet to be picked over by looters as the pockets and kit packs were still full of stuff, most notably something that I identified as a small radio with a crank charged battery and some compact tapes. That raised an eyebrow, most of Equestria had swapped over to superior forms of audio recording during the war, and I only knew of the things from the time I spent dusting the case of antiques near the cafeteria.

There was some pretty cool stuff on this uniform, I ventured to try to remove the body armour that had been strapped around the uniform as if a pony was wearing it, I met more resistance than expected. Frowning I move around it to look through the neck hole of the uniform. What I saw inside made my stomach turn, pulverized bone and roots that had burrowed through the back of the armour and the uniform into where the body would have been, or rather where the body, sans head, still was. I’m not sure which shocked me more, the fact that what seemed to be an empty uniform was actually a body, or that the pony had apparently been eaten by the tree. I still wanted that armour, so I took the bayonet of my rifle and began hacking at the roots.

As it turns out, carnivorous trees don’t like ponies cutting them, and the branches around the platform swept up and they arced down towards me I felt the roots trying to latch onto my feet and I jumped. Fortunately the trees were pretty dense here so I had plenty of branches to slow my descent.

I lay on the ground for some while. “Can you get up?” I heard a voice ask, and I opened my eyes to see Cinder standing over me. He offered me his hoof, and he helped me up, “Come on let’s go back to the road, the more time I spend in this forest the more I want to burn it to the ground.” He said and gave me the costume to put in my bag.

“Yeah… I think I know the feeling.” I groaned as I dusted myself off and packed up the costume.

Cinder and I walked the short distance to where Shaggy stood, his gun pointed at the still thrashing tree, and Bruiser was hacking off the lower branches with his axe. “There” he said as the last reachable branch fell to the ground, “now no more idiots will try climbing this tree.”

It was not long before we were back on the road, and we continued on our way. I took this time to look over my rifle, thankfully it didn’t break or bend in anyway from the fall, its . Slowly the fog gave way revealing a ceiling of clouds. Feeling the need to pass time quicker I plugged my ear bloom into the radio, and put in the tape labeled “#1”.

“Work you piece of junk!” The voice sounded like that of a young mare, “Wait? Is it recording? –bzt” The tape cut out, then began again. “Ok, so that’s how this thing works… Anyways, if you’re listening to this, then you’re in the future.” No shit. ”I’m Private Pigeon Pie! Yeah I don’t like the name either, take it up with my parents…” Still a better name then murderer. ”Speaking of whom, they want me to make regular audio logs of my time in the service, bu-” I lost interest then and there, and paused it to join in on the conversation Bruiser and Shaggy were having. What can I say? Slice of life isn’t my favourite genre.

Eventually we came to large walled area, and beyond the wall I could make out the peaks of buildings and the smoke of fires. On approach the gate we were stopped by a pony wearing a quilted tunic and steel helmet, who carried a bolt-action rifle of the same type the bandits had been carrying. “Halte! Déclarez vos intentions!" the guard announced from behind the concrete barrier that served as his checkpoint.

“Sorry dude but like can you repeat that in Equestrian?” Shaggy asked and pointed at his ear.

Cinder promptly turned around and smacked Shaggy on the back of the head, “Please don’t antagonize the guard.” Cinder asked.

“Sorry cap. I didn’t know we were in a land of sissies who are offended by words.” Shaggy replied and rubbed the back of his head.

“Ok you may of be enter please!” The guard responded in rather broken Equestrian.

“Why thank you!” Cinder called over as we approached the gate. As we came closer I took in the details, a steep ditch surrounded the wall, the bottom of the ditch was lined with pointy wooden spikes. The walls themselves were made from packed dirt, which was topped by log walls, and there were raised wooden platforms at the corners of the irregularly shaped settlement. We entered through the gateway, a large wooden archway with colossal doors. The gate immediately opened into a guard station, where more unicorns wearing the same type of tunic and carrying the same type of rifle as the guard outside had been, stared us down as we walked though. Beyond there the passage sloped upwards and the ceiling gave way to show the sky above, the combination of the upwards climb and the ability to fire down from the flanks must have made this a strong defensive feature. Upon reaching the end of the slope the passage opened up to the entire town. To my shock the earthen mound wasn’t a part of the wall at all, the town itself had been raised a number of meters, and the reason why I could only see the peaks of buildings was because there were no buildings taller than a single story. This place certainly was a far cry from the skyscrapers of Manehattan that featured so prominently in wartime photos.

A look at the plateau we were upon told me that these were trying times, in the open space in front of the town there was an entire forest of tents and flag poles, from which the most horrible coughing and profanities could be heard. Walking by the tents on our way to the town gave me a chance to observe. There, ponies, in every state of suffering lay upon crudely made beds while the slightly better off companions stood guard with their rifles. Of all the ponies I saw I counted only a mere twelve that were free of injury, and even they had expressions of fear, sadness, and anger upon their face. The size of the encampment made it clear that this was a war party of some kind, and the high ratio of injured to uninjured left strong evidence for a recent defeat. Trying times indeed.

Exiting the sea of tents brought us into the town, an unorganized mess of wooden houses and shops all crowded around a series of dirt roads that were so narrow they might as well have been hallways. As we passed through I noticed that most of the villagers stopped their conversations to look at us, clearly we were outsiders in their land. Cinder cleared his throat, “Keep an eye out for any shop that sells firewood, any shop that sells food, any local willing to provide directions, any shop that sells ammunition, any of the traders who regularly travel to the shelter, or any deals of any kind.” By this point I was so distracted by the strange new world I was in that I had begun to lag behind the others.

As we continued on I noticed a soldier walking in our direction, likely back to the encampment, and hanging their head. Perhaps it was the different coloration of the pony’s uniform, but for some reason I got the idea they were a officer and without thinking much more on the matter I stopped and saluted the pony. Back in the shelter it had always been customary to salute senior Fusiliers, and I saw no reason why the custom shouldn’t apply outside the shelter.

The pony suddenly stopped, and looked up revealing a distinctly feminine face, “Je ne suis pas un soldat.”

I didn’t understand their language but I got the general gist of it, realizing that this was my first chance to converse with a pony from outside the shelter I decided to proceed, “So what are you then?” I asked and tried to give a friendly smile.

The mare returned my smile and responded in fairly clear Equestrian, “I’m a travel security contractor.” When she noticed my bemused expression she groaned and clarified, “Mercenary. I kill things that might threaten my clients on their ventures.”

“Ah yes, that, that seems obvious now that you explain it.” She rolled her eyes and began to walk off. Wait! Travel contractor? Cinder said we needed an advice giver, “Hey do you now the local area?” I asked and she turned back to me.

“Oui, I do jobs up here all the time, heck I was born around here.” She replied. “If you want my help I only charge 10 caps a day, and the right to have first pick of any loot acquired along the way.”

I quickly rooted through my bag of supplies, a large sack full of rations and ammunition we had to carry around when on guard duty in the event of a siege, until I found what I was looking for. My brother had once informed me that outsiders use bottle caps as a currency of sorts, and ever since then I had been collecting the worthless things, as the one who swept the floors every day I had been in a position to amass quite a few. I pulled out my bag of caps and judging by how wide her eyes became I guessed that this was the largest amount of caps she’d ever seen in one place.

I was about to ask her if these would suffice, but then she exclaimed “Sac!” next thing I knew she was kneeling at my feet, “I will follow you the ends of the world and will do my best to protect and guide you! Please hire me!” Looking around revealed that everyone on the street was staring at my bag of caps, I also noticed that my friends were nowhere in sight.

“Shit! Where’d they go?” I said and stuffed my caps back into my bag before running down the street in the direction they had been going. I couldn’t lose them now. Where the fuck could they be? I reached the end of the street and had to frantically stop to avoid running into the walls of a large building.

Unfortunately my sudden stop didn’t give much room for the mare who was running after me, and with a great bang we both slammed into the wall. “Sac…” the mare mumbled as she rubbed her head, then after a glance upwards put a hoof over her mouth. I followed her gaze up and noticed that there was an upwards arrow extending from the peak of the roof.

I offered her a hoof up and was thankful to hear a familiar voice behind me, “Fletcher, please refrain from trying to put your penis in the first mare willing to spread her legs.” Cinder said from the doorway.

“The fuck man?!” I demanded as I rushed over. He may be a fusilier, but nobody talks down to me in public.

“Calm down mate, I’m just messing with you.” He said, but screw him. I was still going to give what for.

The mare abruptly tackled me from behind, “No fighting someone in a mission building.” She said to me then looked up at Cinder, “So would you kindly exit the building so I can kick your ass s’il vous plait?” She growled.

An older stallion dressed all in black pushed Cinder aside and came down to help us up. “My, my, my, miss, that is two expletives uttered in the area of this mission. Die in a duel now and Heaven would not look favorably upon your soul.”

Back on her hooves she dusted herself off, “Merci de m’avoir fait penser à réfréner mon tempérament frère Lumière de Torche.” She responded respectfully.

The older Stallion cleared his throat, “Anyways, as I suggested to Mr. Cinder, hiring a mercenary to act as a guide would be most optimal. It is very good that your friend who got lost happened to befriend Orphan, who is one of our best.” I found the fact that she was one of the best interesting, I always expected a seasoned mercenary to be much more rough around the edges, hell I expect anyone named Orphan to be a hardcore nihilist.

“You can show us how to get where we need to go?” Cinder asked her.

“I can take you any place worth being, and all the places in between.” She replied.

“So, Orphan you can take us to this place here?” Cinder said as he unfolded a map and pointed to a location that had been marked in red.

She burst out laughing, “That’s on the other side of an active war zone.” I jingled my bag of caps and she changed her tune. “I’m charging one hundred and fifty percent.”

“Now before I sign any contract I need a bit of convincing on your quality, I mean you’re not even carrying a weapon right now.” He said, finally stepping out of the doorway.

With a great crash a bag fell from the roof, and after a few moments of rooting through it she was in what I assume to be her battle kit. Same basic padded armour, however she now wore the seemingly standard steel helmet as well, though it sported a large flood light with two bulbs in place of the badge that was fit to the front of the other helmets.

“Why was that on my roof?” the older stallion asked from the doorway of his mission station.

“Because no one’s going to steal from a Mission Building.” She said as she levitated up a compact black polymer pistol and basically rubbed it in Cinder’s face, “Select fire variant of the standard Equestrian 9mm pistol.” She returned it to it’s holster only to whip out another side arm, “For when 9mm won’t cut it, Ironshod Firearm’s .44 magnum autorevolver. Oh but don’t worry I’m more than just side arms!” She returned the revolver to its holster and pulled a rifle of some sort out of the bag. “Québuckois Arms Factory FM, Fusil Militaire, 20. Select fire battle rifle chambered in the proven and readily available 8x56mm Québuckois.” She pulled the sling of the rifle over her head and let it hang, “Any more questions relating to the quality of my kit?” She asked with a smile.

“Yeah.” Cinder replied. “Why do you have a sword?”

She was prevented from answering by Bruiser levitating his axe up for all to see and proclaiming that, “Melee is bad ass!”

It had been an hour since the meeting at the mission building, and I had run into a snag in my supply shopping, “What?! I thought .45 was supposed to be cheap!”

“Told you to go with 9mm, better, smaller and I guess also cheaper.” Orphan said smugly.

The store owner, an older stallion with a faggy toupee, replied in his best attempt at equestrian, “.45 ACP est cheap. .45 Magnum est not.” I pulled out the large full steel pistol I had already bought and looked at it, I just saw .45 stamped on it and assumed it was going to use nice cheap ammo.

“So…” I began, “what’s the return policy?” I asked with a smile.

“For that pistol?” He leaned in, “Never! It has been in my inventory for douze years!”

“The sign behind you says refund if unsatisfactory.” Orphan cut in. I followed her unamused gaze to a sign that was in Québuckois only. Note to self, not being bilingual makes me easy to scam.

“Well I am unsatisfied with the caliber of this pistol.” I began, and already began thinking of what I would get instead.

“Non! I won’t allow it, that said I will give you this box of ammo as… compensation.” The clerk offered.

“We’re travellers, you wouldn’t want us spreading word of your false claims to customer satisfaction.” Orphan shot back. Between the way she casually moved her hoof in circles, tracing a knot in the wooden counter, and the way she didn’t even bother looking at him, I could tell she was enjoying this.

“Gah! Fine, I will also give you a 50% discount on anything else in the store.” He offered.

Orphan was about to open her mouth again when I remembered seeing something I liked near the back, “Deal.” I said and made my way between the rickety old wooden shelves and listened to Orphan and the owner argue in Québuckois. Past the rusty cans of rations, past the pile of books that had given way to mildew, I lay my eyes on it. A camera. Specifically the kind that developed and printed the photo on the spot, I had always wanted one as it was yet another thing I had been forced to dust. I picked it up and inspected it, even opened it up to view the internals, everything seemed fine to my limited knowledge. Now, seeing as how film was sold separately, and the owner had already tried to stiff me I had no problem discretely stuffing a packet of the instant film into the hopper of the camera, closing it up, and walking back to the front and putting it down on the counter. “Yeah this’ll cover the difference.” I said, suppressing a smug smile as I paid up the caps.

We waited atop one of the towers of the north gate, it was past noon now and Orphan had suggested that we should at least enjoy the view.

The view was… breathtaking. The midday sun trickled through the cloud cover, the silver light painting the entire world in washed out colours. North of us lay distant mountains, to the southwest, the mountain range in which my home was located. Between them, numerous small mountains, roads, rivers and a sea of trees. I also noticed small smoke puffs coming from what I assumed to be other villages, not too far to the north a much larger amount of smoke billowed forth from a battered mountain top, and far to the north east I also noticed a large tower, and unless my eyes were tricking me it was visibly swaying it the breeze.

“That’s where it happened.” Orphan said as she leaned on the railing and stared out at the land. I followed her pointing hoof to the smoldering mountain. “That’s where the loyalists were encamped when General Fumer made his attack. Those poor troopies back there were the only survivors.”

“Loyalists?” I asked.

“The good guys.” She replied. She let out a sigh, “General Fumer murdered Lord Cagot of House Vanner-Ankle and aims to carve out his own kingdom in the north.”

“So we’re heading through the land he controls?” I asked.

“Yeah, we’ll even have to pass through Colt-Nord, his capital.” She replied and shifted her position. As she did I took in her body, her fairly loose fitting armour and clothing couldn’t hide that she was a somewhat skinny mare with a large ass.

To ensure she didn’t notice my gaze I pointed towards the distant tower, “What’s that?”

“The Forest Tower?” Orphan asked and I nodded. “It’s something the Northerners built back when they were still civilized enough to build things. I’m not sure how it hasn’t rotted yet given that it's just wood and it’s been standing for nearly a thousand years old now.” She explain as she used her telekinesis to tidy her mane.

I was about to suggest that it might have just always been lucky enough to have good weather, then I remembered that weather patterns tend to be larger than this entire valley, and it had rained plenty of times over the years. “Enchantments?” I asked and watched the tower move with the wind.

“Maybe, but you’ll never see as many unicorns that can’t even do levitation magic as you will in a Northerner Camp.” Orphan added twirled a lock of her mane as to give it a distinct curl.

I paced around the observation platform a bit, and eventually noticed Cinder, Bruiser and Shaggy walking down the lane towards the gate. “Ok Orphan, time to get going.” I said. As she walked to the stairwell I called out her name and when she turn to look at me I snapped a photo of her with the peaks of the town’s houses in the background. “Ok, that’s all.” I said as I waved the film to develop it, and then showed her it.

“I don’t remember you buying film.” She said.

“I don’t recall you thinking 50% off on an additional purchase was adequate.” I replied. She just rolled her eyes and made her way down the stairs.

Having regrouped we exited the town through a gate that was nearly identical to the one we had entered through. With an additional lane in each direction, the road we were on now was much larger than the one we had been on earlier. That said it was not in any better condition, with large cracks breaking up the uneven asphalt.

Initially we found ourselves surrounded by a field, the evidence of the town’s lumber industry. However after a few minutes of walking we reached fresher stumps and soon the massive highway was hemmed in by the familiar thick forest.

Above us the sun weakly shone through the clouds and drifted towards the west. By the time the sun was nearing the tips of the tree line to my left we were passing through a portion of the road that had been cut through a small mountain. I noticed that the signs warning of the dangers of falling rocks were in Equestrian only, with no warning given in Québuckois. As odd as I found that, I decided that I wouldn’t lose sleep over it and didn’t bother asking. As the sun snuck behind the tree line we came to another truss bridge, at the other end of the bridge checkpoint similar to the one outside of the town, only that these soldiers had what looked like orange tape added to their outfits.

Orphan gestured for us to follow her put onto the bridge, then roughly two thirds of the way across turned to us, “Get down, prepare to suppress the forest to the right of the road.” Cinder opened his mouth to protest but she was already cheerfully trotting towards the checkpoint.

“Halte! Déclarez vos intentions!" The guard pony demanded. I guess that’s a stock phrase they taught all soldiers to ask of all approaching ponies.

“Bonne après-midi!” Orphan called over, but didn’t stop walking forwards. Her horn was glowing, but it seemed that she was just curling another lock of her mane.

The guard was in no mood for it, his companies shouldered their rifles and he shouted, “Arrêt!” He and his compatriots immediately reared back and used their hooves to shield their eyes from Orphans retardedly bright helmet light. Fast as lightning Orphan had her 9mm pistol raised and was firing a deadly barrage of bullets as she rushed the concrete barricade. Without even emptying the magazine she had dropped the eight ponies at the barricade. She smoothly vaulted over the barrier, rolled on landing and had her battle rifle shouldered and aimed at the forest to the left of the highway.

I can’t continue to describe her actions as at that time I had my own task to attend to, I raised my long rifle, gazed through its sights and fired at the first movement I noticed. They began to return fire and I worked my bolt as fast as I could, as I had a straight pull rifle I was theoretically faster than the enemies, whose bolts required a quarter twist. With a distinct twang the en bloc clip fell out of my rifle, and after firing another shot I hastily shoved another in. Three round bursts continued to pour out of Cinder’s assault rifle, and both Bruiser’s SMG and Shaggy’s shotgun performed much better than I had expected at the given range. I fired a few more shots and then I noticed three ponies rush out of the woods towards Orphan who was also emerging from the woods.

The first pony was felled when Orphan jabbed them between the eyes with the barrel of her battle rifle. The next pony jabbed forward with the bayonet mounted on her rifle as her companion charged Orphan from the other side. In what seemed almost like one movement Orphan’s sword blocked the jab, the butt of Orphan’s rifle knocked the pony back, and Orphan telekinetically wrenched the bayonet off the attacker’s rifle and jammed it into the throat of the charging pony.

Orphan’s remaining partially disarmed opponent rushed forwards again intent on bludgeoning Orphan to death. Orphan placed her rifle and sword together so that the cross guard was flush with the mag well and the blade extended beyond the barrel like a bayonet. The gold of her telekinetic grip on the sword faded and was replaced by a pair a glowing dots, one at the cross guard the other at the pommel, and she parried each of the attacking ponies strikes. Desperately the attacking mare swung up to hit Orphan with the butt of her rifle, only for Orphan to block again. The fight abruptly ended when Orphan moved her sword forward so that the hilt was at the end of the barrel shroud rather than at the mag well, pushing the sword blade forward into the neck of the now deceased mare.

Orphan looked over at us, and then noticed that the first pony was starting to get back up. The two bright dots were replaced by a single one that connected the tip of the sword to the end of her battle rifle’s barrel. She swung the rifle, and like some kind of flail the hilt, pommel, and crossguard swung quickly towards the pony. There was a loud crack and a terrifying mix of a crack and a squish when it contacted the wounded pony’s ribcage. She started to happily trot over to us, but then her smile melted into a frown.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as I approached.

“I got spatter in my mane…” She said as she frantically tried to clean her mane with a handkerchief. “Anyways, you guys need to go clear the woods.”

“We do?” I asked.

“Yeah, there were eight ponies in those woods, only three emerged, you have to make sure there’s no one waiting to snipe us as soon as our backs are turned.” She replied and made a disgusted face as she looked at the red liquid that had soaked into her handkerchief.

“Eight?” Cinder asked inquisitively.

“Oui! Three fusil sections and an MG team is supposed to be standard for a checkpoint, but even the Royal Army doesn’t have the logistics needed to satisfy the MG requirement most of the time, so I gambled that Fumer’s rebellion wouldn’t be able to spare one for a mere checkpoint like this.” She replied.

“Gambling with your life? How about launching a frontal assault all on your own! Forget that, why even be so hasty to attack first?” Cinder demanded angrily, and I wasn’t particularly sure if he was madder at Orphan’s disregard for proper assault doctrine or the fact the Orphan had just edged him out for the coveted position of our best fighter.

Orphan smirked, “24 starving rebels armed with bolt action rifles and insufficient ammo versus moi, is hardly a gamble. Now you tell me, would you trust the ponies who gunned down their own comrades at Colt-Nord to not shoot us regardless of whether we pay their silly toll?” She replied and returned to casually twirling a lock of her mane.

As we made our way into the woods Bruiser tried asking her to explain how she did what she did, and Orphan had to stop him from attempting the flail move with his axe and smg, and explained to him that, “levitation magic isn’t very strong, bayonet mounts exist for a reason” and that she’d “really rather if her employer didn’t end up hurting himself.”

When he asked about what spell she used to bind her sword to her rifle she simply said “trade secret” and stuck her tongue out.

The bodies of the five other enemies were scattered through the woods, it seems that my first shot had been the only one to hit, as there was only one pony bearing the large entry and exit wounds of my rifle’s bullets, and it was roughly where I had seen the motion I shot at. Two bodies were riddled with the small entry holes of Cinder’s 5.56 assault rifle, and it seems that Bruiser’s smg had managed to score a lucky headshot on one of them. The only noteworthy corpse was one that had it’s guts disgustingly outside of it, a sight and smell that made me want to throw up. “The fuck happened here?” Bruiser asked.

“I think he was hit by the CO2 canister I loaded into one of my shells.” Shaggy said.

“You did what?” Cinder asked dumbfounded.

“Cut open a shell, removed the buckshot, and put in a CO2 canister. It fit in the gun, so I figured why not.” Shaggy replied.

“That’s-!” Cinder began, ready to berate Shaggy on the dangers of tampering with ammo. “Actually… pretty dope.” Cinder finished, clearly we were starting to re-rub off on him.

It seemed too convenient; they had all died to our rather sloppy suppressive fire when they were the ones with acres of forest to spread out in. Cinder vocalized my thoughts, “Why were they all here, so shallow in the woods.”

“Protagonist privilege.” Shaggy replied.

“It’s because the forest is strange, and the deeper you go the stranger it gets.” Orphan corrected him as she dug through the pockets of one of the dead rebels.

“Yeah yeah yeah, carnivorous trees. Nothing an axe can’t deal with.” Bruiser replied.

“Trust me when I say that that’s the least strange thing about the forest.” Orphan replied

Orphan’s words sent a shiver down my spine; I had been nearly killed by one of those trees. I stared longingly back at the road and didn’t look away until something cold touched my neck. I jumped and turned so I’d at least have the satisfaction of seeing what kills me. Instead I found myself face to face with a startled and concerned Orphan levitating a box of 8mm rounds over to me. “You ok? You zoned out on us there.”

I was unable to respond, I opened my mouth but my neither my tongue nor my vocal cords seemed willing to turn my breath into words. “Anyways,” she continued and tucked the box into a pocket of my hoodie, “I guess we had better get back on the road.” She said and began walking out of the forest.

I finally managed to get my voice working again and awkwardly blurted out “Y-yeah thanks for the bullets.” I practically jumped out of my skin again when Shaggy put a foreleg around my shoulder.

“What’s the matter, you have a crush?” He teased and pulled me close.

“Yeah, stop being a little bitch and tap that ass.” Bruiser said as he did the same, effectively making me the filling for a friend sandwich.

“That’s enough of that.” Cinder said and motioned for us to get moving, “Remember we have our home to save.”

I felt incredibly relieved as we left the forest. My legs began to ache as we continued to march on along the paved road, the day dragged on and on and the shadows of the trees left of the road slowly shifted towards us.

The shadows had passed the line dividing what would have been the flow of traffic. We had reached our intended stop for tonight, a modestly sized log cabin by the side of the road. I looked around it and noticed that it had peculiar symbols carved into the wood and filled with a red resin, if I stared closely it almost looked like an arrow pointing upwards with the letters Q, J, S, F, M, S, L. C, D, S, and E jumbled all over it. Orphan was talking with some other ponies in Québuckois, apparently they had been stranded in this shelter for sometime now and were relieved that they would finally be able to continue their journey south now that the blockade was gone. The others were unpacking and preparing to stay the night. It was my responsibility to make sure the marks were undamaged. I didn’t really know what constituted damage but there were no cuts through the mark, the perfect condition of the resin attested to that.

I made my round, each mark seemed ok to the best my knowledge. With one last anxious look at the forest I made my way into the cabin and reported to Orphan, “Well there’s no obvious damage.”

“Good, any damage worth caring about would be pretty obvious.” She replied as she casually curled part of her mane.

I took a seat at the table and asked, “So what are those marks?”

One of the stallions also seated at the table smirked, “Tu es attardé.”

“He says you’re great. Take note of that phrase you’ll need it for when you want to compliment someone.” Orphan said without making eye contact, “Anyways, it’s a monogram for Que justice soit faite, même si le ciel doit s'écroule, which more or less translates to Let justice be done, though the sky may fall. The marks keep the forest out.” She explained while continuing to disinterestedly twirl her hair.

We set up our sleeping bags and had a dinner that consisted of our rations and some of the odd corn filled stew that the other ponies had prepared. With the exception of Orphan and the other Québuckers who casually conversed in their native tongue, the meal was consumed in silence. I believe that with our first meal outside the reality of being away from home began to sink in.

The uncomfortable silence was broken when a terrified young mare rushed into to the cabin crying, and screeching something in Québuckois. I had no clue what was being said, just that the mare seemed extremely distressed, Orphan sprung into action and the next thing I knew she had the mare in a stranglehold. After a few tense moments the mare’s body slackened and fell to the floor when Orphan let go. “The fuck?” Bruiser blurted out, vocalizing what I’m willing to bet would be all of our thoughts.

“She said that the ponies manning a blockade up the road executed her father as a suspected spy.” Orphan replied. “Don’t worry I just knocked her out, I think…” She then lowered her head and put an ear to the mare’s chest, “Yeah, knocked out.”

That explained half of what happened, “Ok, so you knocked her out because?”

“She was hysterical and mentioned wanting to kill herself.” Orphan said, standing up walking back to the table. “I guess I should have mentioned that first.” She added and returned to her seat. The meal didn’t last much longer, it seemed the event had impacted on our appetites.

Once done I set about laying the sleeping bags Cinder had brought for us, the last (and least worn-out one) I choose for myself and began to unzip it, much to my surprise Orphan casually trotted over and, right before my eyes, wormed her way into my sleeping bag, “Oh come on! I know that you have your own sleeping bag!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah, I do, but I gave it to the unconscious mare.” She said then a sly grin crept across her face “There shouldn’t be a problem-” she made a very exaggerated gasping sound, “are you a homosexual?” She asked loudly enough for my friends to hear.

“W-what?!” I stammered as my friends exploded with laughter. “No, I’m not. It’s just-”

“You don’t seem very confident with that answer.” She said, and with one final twist to her main she added, “I always wanted a gay friend, and I guess I won’t have to worry about you taking advantage of me in the night.” She then rolled onto her side and fell asleep. No I kid you not, fast asleep, despite all my poking and prodding it was apparent that she had fallen right into REM sleep, despite being in an unfamiliar sleeping bag, and despite the candles still illuminating the cabin, she was most certainly asleep.

It was rather cramped, but I was indeed able to slip in beside her, and to my pleasure noted that her ass was indeed large. I took one last look over at Bruiser and Shaggy, who were bordering on being green with envy and stuck my tongue out at them. Cinder put out the candle and I was finally able to drift off, thoroughly exhausted by the day’s walk.

Startled I awoke from my sleep; there was something cold under my sweater resting on my chest. I felt it, how it was long, and extended out from the bottom of my sweater and was connected to a larger thing at a ball joint and… I realized it was Orphan’s right fore hoof. So, not only was she a heavy sleeper, but she moved around a lot while asleep. I was awake now and I realized how parched my mouth was. I crawled out of the sleeping bag and dug my canteen out of my bag, while doing so it hit me, or rather a lot of things did.

I wasn’t home, and I wouldn’t be home anytime soon. I hadn’t really thought about it until then, but I no longer was in the comfortable if dreary world I had known all my life. To ease that thought I simply held out hope that I would find a better life that doesn’t involve janitorial duties here.

The second thought was much harder to rationalize away. Why was only Cinder briefed on this mission if we would all be on it? Why were we on it at all? This was clearly as mission for a Fusilier squad. For that matter why would Cinder be leading it when there were still many fusiliers who could be counted as his senior? That was a troubling matter I’d have to eventually ask him about.

The final matter was the matter of the fact that I had taken lives today. Then again I was a convicted murderer and it’s not like I was going to be punished for stabbing some rapists and shooting a rebel fighter. I slapped myself when I realized how cancerously edgy that rationalization sounded.

I finished my canteen and was still thirsty. I remembered there was a pump spout just outside and thought that it can’t be too dangerous if I’m only outside for a moment, I brought my new pistol with me anyways. Outside the air was colder, impossibly so given how poorly insulated the cabin was. Ok, quickly now. I thought to myself as I began to pump the water, much to my delight the canteen overflowed. I stopped pumping and that’s when my ears picked up on the crying coming from the forest.

Fuck that. I’d read this horror story. I was just going to ignore it and return to my sleeping bag, what I don’t know won’t cut me in half and throw my corpse off a bridge. With a smug smile on my face I opened up the door to the cabin, said smile vanished as moonlight illuminated the cabin interior to reveal that the mare’s sleeping bag was empty. I closed the door, set down my canteen, and slowly turned to face the direction of the crying, my spine stiff as a board. If that depressed, unarmed, tiny mare could still be alive in there then it mustn’t be too dangerous. I pulled the slide back on my gun to chamber a round and charged in. The forest was much worse at night. It was a natural pine forest for all of two meters, and then it became a disturbing mix of withering trees of all types, their roots so thick and shallow as to replace the ground itself with their uneven tendrils. My peripheral vision filled with dancing shadows and things that simply should not exist, yet the path ahead remained clear and the crying grew less faint. Without warning I fell down an embankment. A ravine perhaps?

Getting my bearings I realized that I was actually a clearing of sorts surrounded by a steep embankment. The silver light of the moon cascaded down on the clearing and I noticed the mare sitting in the middle, weeping, and… glowing? I got to my feet and took a step forward “Hey, don’t wor-”

She didn’t have time to be worried as some sort of mouth snapped shut from above taking her in one bite. To my immense displeasure, starting with the proboscis, a horrific creature seemingly equal parts butterfly and anglerfish. The glowing pattern on its wings now illuminated the area as the moon suddenly disappeared behind a wall of clouds. This area was neither clearing nor ravine; it was the den of a predator.

I aimed my pistol but my levitation magic was unsteady and my eyes began to water, blurring my vision too much to even make out the notch and post of my weapon. I was crying, I was actually so scared that I was crying. My heart dropped into my stomach as I realized that my life was over, and that I’d be luck if only being cut in half and dumped off a bridge was my fate. The creature took one menacing step towards me-

-and got royally fucked when half its face blew out. A familiar right hoof scooped me up, “Boss you owe me twenty caps for that rifle grenade.” Orphan said as she plopped me onto her back. She climbed the embankment with surprising ease and galloped away. On the return trip the forest oddities did not limit themselves to our peripheral vision, but Orphan’s battle rifle kept the path mostly clear. “Hey boss, you can use that pistol of yours and pitch in!” She added.

“What should I shoot at?” I absentmindedly asked, still trying to comprehend the whole not horrifically murdered thing.

“EVERYTHING!” She shouted back to me, and so I did. Plenty of trees lost their branches and I’m sure I hit at least one of the forest things.

Orphan did not stop sprinting until we were safely back in the cabin, “For… The… Love.. Of all that is… Good, don’t fuck around in the woods past midnight!” She panted out after dropping me in the floor.

“But the filly she…” I then noticed that the filly was still in Orphan’s sleeping bag. “What the fuck?”

“It tricked you, you were the only one who wasn’t safe.” She explained, “Now get back to being my hoof warmer!” She added and marched me back to my sleeping bag.

Still stunned by what had transpired I desperately asked the first thing that came to mind as I crawled in, “Why are your hooves so cold?”

She snuggled in beside me so that her bottom was pressed against my crotch, “Well you see I have circulation problems so blood struggles to reach my hoo-”

“Put it in me! Put it in me! Fucking get a room.” A rather bitter Shaggy interjected before rolling over to face away from us.

As I drifted off to sleep my mind noted one last thing, Orphan’s mane smelt like mom… Fortunately sleep took me before my brain was able to realize it meant mom smelt like a sweaty attractive mare.

Next morning at breakfast my mind made the connection and I almost choked on my ration. I coughed it up, but the saliva-covered mouthful of oat bar ended up in the face of one of the Québuckois stallions, who promptly began shouting angrily at me. I tried to defuse the situation with the only compliment I knew in Québuckois, the feeling of his hooves repeated striking my face told me that “Tu es attardé” didn’t actually translate to “You’re great”. Orphan and the other stallions she had been joking with were able to step in and save me from a fractured skull.

Latter as we were packing up to head out Orphan tossed me the mask. “You dropped this.” She said and started to casually walk away.

“Thanks.” I said, and then I remembered that I hadn’t opened that sports bag the entire time we were in the cabin. Before I could even voice a simple Hey! she spun and launched a powerful kick at Cinder who was barely able to bring up a foreleg to block.

“What the fuck was that for?” He demanded.

“Wow, nice reflexes.” She responded with a clearly forced smile, her hind leg still inches from Cinder’s face.

“Don’t dodge the question.” Cinder said, clearly unimpressed.

She huffed and the smile disappeared, “We I was going to beat you guys up then lecture you guys on how you’re over your head and that being caped heroes is a stupid idea, but I think you blocking took away all the impact of my planned lecture.”

“You were going to attack the ponies who pay you?” Bruiser asked and raised an eyebrow.

“Hey Fletcher I’d give your choice of mares a seven but your choice of bodyguards a two.” Shaggy stated.

Orphan rolled her eyes, “It’s my job to get you where you’re going alive, if that means hitting you until you agree you’re not going to do anything to get yourselves killed then so be it.” She said, then faced Shaggy, “The hell do you mean I’m only a seven?!”

“Anyways, can we please finish up here so that we can hit the road?” Cinder asked, clearly more irritated by the fact that we were now behind schedule than he was by Orphan’s answer.

“y-yeah, what he said.” Shaggy said as he slowly backed away from Orphan who was stalking towards him menacingly.

We managed to get going before Orphan had a chance to thrash Shaggy, the other stallions had already set out for Cruxville, apparently that was the name of the fortified village we had passed through the previous day. As we exited the cabin I made sure to look around for my canteen. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as I read what had been burned into the wood of the cabin where I had set my canteen.

Now it’s lost. Now it’s mine.

For the people of Québuck 72AB was yet another year of the Inonder (Equestrian: Deluge). Having had no king for 15 years, the large armies raised by local lords in order to fight the southern hordes were being put to use for personal gain, an arrangement that not only put many innocent Québuckois in danger but also meant that the routes between settlements were no longer being patrolled for bandits. More and more as the Québuckois suffered from this disastrous mismanagement they began to accept the necessity of vigilantism. When reports of a costumed fusilier who had leaped from the tress of a bridge to save a mare from a gang of bandits first began to circulate no one thought much of it. In hindsight it is reasonable to say that this action was the first by the Coureur des Bois (Equestrian: Runner of the Woods) a figure who seemed to take joy in enforcing their justice on the bandits, monsters, and warlords that plagued the land. Though at this point their actions had merely amounted to leaving behind some bodies to rot on a bridge, many grander things and larger piles of bodies were to come from this initial act of violence.
-History of the Deluge Page 107

Author's Note

A/N: I swear all future chapters will be 4-6k… for my sake *passes out*

Editor’s Notes: I demand that Seal get a new editor, but he won’t do it on his own, so you guys have to nag the shit out of him until he caves. Okay? Okay.