Twilight took a calming breath as she stepped out of the suffocating darkness of the metro tunnel and into the firelit embrace of Metro Central station. Her courage rose now that she had more light than the meager candle of a spell her injured horn had conjured. And after hours with the radio as her only company in the labyrinthine dark corridors, she was thankful to see actual living people.

Even if those people were scarred, over-muscled thugs who thought the answer to every question was violence. Curiously, Twilight could only see around two-dozen of them—she had expected far more. They were in the middle of last-minute party preparations as they shuffled picnic tables into position or pushed large training dummies to the edges of the cavernous arched room. None of the raiders were Deathclaw Joe.

A rust-colored metal timberwolf caught her attention. The large hound was smaller than Glenn’s direwolf, but still tall enough to nudge the small of the raider’s back with its nose as it padded behind the raider like a loyal hound. After a few more nudges, the raider visibly sighed and dug around into their pocket. The raider came out with a strip of dried meat that they wagged teasingly in the air as far as they could reach up.

The timberwolf easily cleared the distance with a leap to snatch the meat from the raider before it scampered away. Its claws sparked on the tile floor as it bounded into the trunk of a car lined with rugs and animal hide. It was only the trunk—the rest of the vehicle was missing.

“Fascinating creatures, aren’t they?” a woman asked from beside her. Hot breath tickled Twilight’s neck, and she was halfway to the ceiling by the time her heart stopped racing long enough to look down.

The black-haired swordswoman slapped a knee as she doubled over with laughter. She only wore a black bra and half-skirt like last time, with her massive slab of a sword sheathed across her back.

Seeing that it had only been a prank, Twilight landed and forced a smile.

“Good one, um… you?” Twilight cringed as her awkwardness echoed louder than a gunshot. She hadn’t learned the woman’s name yet. According to Fluttershy, the woman was Deathclaw Joe’s wife.

“Lisa,” she said as she smiled wide enough to show pearly white teeth. Her eyes wandered places Twilight wasn’t interested in another mare looking at. “You show up so early just to see me?”

“I didn’t exactly get a formal invitation with a schedule,” Twilight said as she stepped back and shifted uneasily from hoof to hoof. She quickly checked the time—a little after twelve P.M. “Where's Deathclaw Joe? I don’t see him.”

The metro station was large, but not impossible to see from one end to the other. All there was were picnic tables, training dummies, and a stage towards the end of the station. About the only place that hinted that Metro Central was occupied by an entire gang were the small cluster of tents on the concrete bridge that passed high over the tracks.

“Follow me,” Lisa said, turning around and walking towards one of the escalators to the bridge. “He should be in our tent.”

“Thank you,” Twilight said. They passed a raider unrolling pelts like a bedroll in a discreet spot between two piles of rubble. With the amount of chems and alcohol about to be consumed through the Knock, Twilight didn’t want to know what the pelt would witness. “What time should’ve I arrived?”

“Two or three,” Lisa said, chuckling good naturedly. “But you aren’t the only one who arrived early so no big deal, and you can always just leave and come back. The real fun doesn't get started until a few hours in, anyway.”

It made sense that she hadn’t been the first to arrive early. Museum Station had been vacant when she had passed through earlier. She planned to stay and pitch in, maybe help organize things if she could. Just like organizing the Summer Sun Festival back home. If only Pinkie Pie was around to help. There was still time to go get her… but it would take another journey back through the metro. The twists and bends of the tunnel, as well as how deep Twilight was underground, made it too difficult to simply teleport to her friend.

And with Pinkie Pie helping Fluttershy with guard duty, the Knock was probably the only party Pinkie Pie would ever choose to miss. Twilight pushed the thought aside as wishful thinking.

They reached the concrete bridge over the tracks. Near the escalator were several New Horde raiders lounging on folding chairs. Twilight could tell New Horde raiders apart from other gangs by their preference for homemade hide and leather clothing or armor, as well as the emblem they wore. A stylized deathclaw skull engraved or stamped on metal disks the size of jar lids. Some were even actual jar lids.

The seated raiders fiddled with one or more instruments, and casually chatted among each other about what song they were going to play and when. Many of their instruments were homemade. A few drums made from cut-down metal barrels with leather stretched over the openings, bagpipes made from leather and brahmin horns with scenes of battle elegantly scrimshawed into their bone-like surface, and a few homemade stringed instruments that Twilight didn't know the name of. There were also pre-war instruments mixed in, like tambourines, maracas, and a cello.

The cello was decorated with a horseshoe decal and a name scratched into the wood, ruining the elegant finish of the instrument. ‘Deep Tones’s cutie mark giver’.

A shiver shot up Twilight’s spine, and she cautiously looked around for hostility. The raiders had stolen things from Equestria, possibly hurting ponies in the process, and she was a princess. Even with Deathclaw Joe’s reassurance, she wasn’t foolish enough to fully trust the dangerous people surrounding her.

The seated raiders waved at her and Lisa, and instead of turning towards the tents, Lisa stepped onto another nearby set of escalators heading upwards.

“So, um, how many people do you expect are going to attend?” Twilight asked as she glanced at a sign. They were heading towards the white line station. Metro Central was larger than Twilight had anticipated. It was two metro stations stacked atop one another.

“I dunno, two, maybe three hundred people?” Lisa said with a shrug. “I’m too busy trying to get some head than counting them.” She spun around and walked backwards up the escalator. “Speaking of, you free tonight by any chance? I can show you why fingers are better than hooves.”

Twilight could have brought a kettle to boil with the heat of her blush. She recovered from her stuttering fit with a rapid shake of her head. “I-I don’t mean to sound rude, but I’ll pass. I’m straight and married, and even if I was neither of those things, you're married to a man who’s good at snapping necks. I’d rather not help you cheat on him.”

“Hah!” Lisa snorted with laughter. “It only counts as cheating if I’m breaking the rules. Joey lets me sleep around.”

Oh… Twilight bit her tongue. While polygamy wasn’t a lifestyle she would consider for herself, she wasn’t going to judge Lisa if her husband was fine with an open marriage. Everyone was different, and having multiple partners was something Twilight hadn’t thought about as something other people would choose. In her opinion, it was more of a stallion’s fantasy.

“That one’s on me for assuming,” Twilight said. “Still, respectfully, I’m not interested.”

“Fair enough,” Lisa sighed.

They reached the second station without another word, and the awkward conversation was quickly forgotten as Twilight stepped into an entire settlement built underground, hidden from the world above.

The scent of freshly baking bread filled the arched room. The source of the smell was a large clay oven the size of a doghouse built atop a stack of cinder blocks in the middle of the station. Surrounding the oven like the facets of a partial octagon were six three-sided tents made of pelts and hides. Every tent contained a stove or a cooking fire, and in front of each tent was a long table covered in food. Punga fruit, potatoes, carrots, apples, mutfruit, mudcrab claws, salted meats of all kinds, and dozens of bottles of alcohol. The smell of all the food cooking blended with the scent of bread to form a near-divine aroma that reminded Twilight of the few royal banquets that she had attended back in Canterlot.

The Knock would be a feast worthy of someone calling himself a king.

Twilight took in the area. The man-made arched cavern wasn’t just where the food was cooked. It was also where the New Horde made their homes. Several enclosed two- and three-person tents created individual rooms within the metro station, while a nearby string of half-derailed metro cars had their interiors turned into communal bedrooms. From what Twilight could see, dozens of pelts and pillows covered the long bench seats running the length of each side of the subway cars.

It took Twilight several moments to spot the soda bottle lights—exactly like the ones in Rivet City—before their glow was drowned out by the hole in the roof. An additional benefit besides allowing natural light inside was that it acted as a way to air out the smoke from the cooking fires.

The hole in the ceiling had come from a blue four-door Corvega that had fallen through at some point. It sat at an angle atop a chunk of concrete, and built over it was a wooden platform dominated by a grand throne. A yao guai pelt cushioned the throne, a gilded deathclaw skull was mounted over the headrest, and flanking either side were white cloth banners embroidered with a single large deathclaw skull.

“Oh, Sweet Celestia,” Twilight said, taking in the sights and smells. “This is amazing!”

The ting of a hammer striking an anvil reached Twilight’s ears. The New Horde even had a tent for blacksmithing. A small fusion generator hooked up to an electric forge provided the heat, and the anvil was a small length of steel I-beam atop a stump.

Next to the blacksmithing tent was a table where a New Horde raider crafted jewelry. They hunched over a vice clamp as they used an absolutely miniscule hammer—the length and thickness of the handle was around the size of Twilight’s pinkie finger, and the head was the size of a postage stamp—to gently tap the end of an equally petite chisel to carve into a pendant.

The New Horde weren’t normal raiders. They were a kingdom.

“It’s taken the better part of fifteen years to get like this,” Lisa said, crossing her arms and puffing out her chest. “And every step of the way our king was here for it.” She pointed to another escalator leading up to a concrete platform. Unlike the other metro stations Twilight had gone through, the raised concrete platform was off to the side of the White Line station rather than spanning over the tracks. On top of the platform was a tent easily the size of a small, single story house. “Joey should be in there. If he’s not, come find me and we’ll keep looking. I have to get back downstairs and keep the idiots from slacking off.”

“Farewell,” Twilight said, waving her off.

Once Lisa was gone, Twilight breathed a sigh of relief and set off towards Deathclaw Joe’s tent.

<>~<>~<>

Twilight pushed aside the tent flap with her magic before she slipped inside.

Deathclaw Joe sat on a rug cross-legged with his back to her in the middle of the room. Deep scars ran like overlapping canyons down his back, from his shoulder-blades to his loincloth. So many slashes crossed between his wings that when he had transformed into a pony, the space there remained furless scarred skin.

Twilight couldn't begin to imagine—or even wanted to if she could—what Deathclaw Joe had to go through to get those scars.

With his back to her, Twilight took the chance to glance around his home.

The bed at one end of the tent was more like a large nest of pelts twice as big as her bed. A stack of comic books an entire foot high rested beside the bed. Twilight caught the colorful cover of the topmost comic.

The comic’s cover had a woman dressed in dark green armor with a spiked crown as the center focal piece. She brandished a metal sculpture of a torch like a weapon and thrust it forwards. Red, white, and blue light leapt out of the torch’s tip, trailing away and forming into clenched fists that all struck the faceplate of a robot with giant scissors for hands.

The Unstoppables — Liberty Beacon versus Dr. Brainwash and his army of De-Capitalists

Stupid, dumb fun. Spike would probably love it. Twilight smiled at the idea and continued to look about the room.

Boards laid over cinder blocks made a rough, if not sturdy, table. The manticore’s stinger lay atop it on display. She quickly looked away, feeling sorry for the animal, and instead focused on the bookshelves all around the single room of the tent. Most were near the bed, but close enough that Twilight could read a few titles on the spines.

Webster’s Dictionary 2075 Edition, Beowulf, The Poetic Edda, Iliad, Odyssey…

“Hello, Twilight,” Deathclaw Joe’s voice jerked Twilight’s attention back to his backside. He hadn’t turned around.

“How’d you know it was me?” Twilight asked.

“It’s hard to explain,” Deathclaw Joe said as he set a rough clay bowl onto the floor beside him. Twilight didn’t get a good look at what was inside it before he stood up and dusted off his loincloth before turning to her. “You don’t feel it?”

Now that Deathclaw Joe had mentioned it, she could feel a subtle pull towards him, like a magnet. It was much like when they had first met, only far more subdued since she knew what to expect and could suppress it.

“Yeah,” Twilight said. She looked up into Deathclaw Joe’s captivating electric blue eyes. The magnetic pull only grew. She clenched her teeth and forced herself to look away. “Hey, before we say or do anything else, I’m married, and it's not an open one.”

Twilight caught Deathclaw Joe’s subtle wince before he nodded.

“I take it Lisa gave you some trouble on the way here?” Deathclaw Joe asked. Twilight quickly nodded, and he chuckled. “I’ll apologize on her behalf. She’s as subtle as a brick, but I admire that about her. She isn’t afraid of anything.”

“And you are?” Twilight asked. Twilight couldn’t imagine there was anything in the world that could frighten a stallion as large as Deathclaw Joe. He could look a super mutant in the eye and laugh.

“I’m afraid of many things,” Deathclaw Joe said as he sat back onto the floor and levitated the bowl into his lap.

Since he faced Twilight, she could look down into the bowl. Her stomach churned at the moldy bread sitting among a clump of thumb-sized eggs that Twilight could only guess were radroach eggs.

“Are you eating that!?” Twilight asked in shock before she could stop herself.

“Fuck no,” Deathclaw Joe roared out with a laugh. He stopped and his gray fur almost seemed to go ghostly white while all the joy and mirth in his eyes faded.

“But when I was in the Pitt,” he said in almost a whisper, staring down into the bowl. He growled, “I promised myself never again.”

“So you like to remind yourself where you came from?” Twilight asked. Digging open old wounds didn’t sound too healthy.

“It's more to remind myself where I could end up if I go soft and let my guard down. Half of my vassals from the other stations want to open my veins to take my crown,” Deathclaw Joe said. He set the bowl aside and stood up again. “But, enough about my past, you’re my guest.” He clapped Twilight on the shoulder. “The feast tonight is going to be the biggest and best of them all. I hope the meals are worthy of your refined palette, Princess Sparkle.”

Twilight chuckled.

“The food outside smells absolutely amazing,” Twilight said. “I think I even saw spices and seasonings being added. This whole metro station is amazing. You have a blacksmith and everything.”

Deathclaw Joe tilted his head to one side. “We also have a few grow lamps and planter beds to grow some crops and a small library.”

Twilight’s eyes went wide.

“Can I see the library, please?” she pleaded to the giant, who chuckled mirthfully.

“Only if you teach me how to teleport,” Deathclaw Joe said. “None of the other unicorns know how to.”

“Deal,” Twilight said without hesitation.

She couldn’t wait to see the library. Rivet City didn’t even have one.

<>~<>~<>

Twilight wasn’t sure exactly what she had expected… but the tent acting as the New Horde’s library met whatever vague idea she had and exceeded it tenfold.

Dozens of books were arranged on a bank of shelves that were more fitting of a supermarket than a library. Towards the back of the tent were large troughs where pulped plant matter and paper from irreparably damaged books were recycled into new sheets of paper by a team of two New Horde raiders. One of them was a unicorn.

Near the team was an elderly woman hunched over a desk. She hand-copied from one book into another using a quill and a jar full of ink made from water and charcoal. The book being written into was more like a binder or portfolio than a full book. The covers were two sheets of stiff leather sandwiching a ream of paper, bound together by leather cords running through six holes punched into the leather and paper.

“Like what you see?” Deathclaw Joe asked from behind her.

Twilight spun around and nodded, a large grin on her face.

“Your kingdom seems to be making more progress than the large towns I’ve been to,” Twilight said. “Your people have put a lot of effort into this settlement. I’m genuinely impressed by the fact you’re saving books rather than using them for kindling.”

Deahtclaw Joe twitched.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “I hate it when people do that. People place such little value on knowledge in this new Dark Age. Ignorance may be bliss, but it’s just another shackle that can bind you down.” He swept his arm wide to motion towards the whole of the room. “A sharp mind can be deadlier than a sharp blade. Like knowing how to pick yourself out of a locked cage when breaking your way out is impossible. Or knowing how to farm when hunting is scarce.”

That was a sentiment Twilight could get behind, and relate to. She had picked her way out of the cell in the Dunwich Building.

“How many books do you have in here?” Twilight asked.

“Forty or more,” Deathclaw Joe said. “Most of the books are non-fiction, but I won’t ignore the value in imaginative stories.”

“A good read is always a nice way to relax,” Twilight said. Her chest swelled with pride at the number of volumes that the New Horde had saved.

Before Deahtclaw Joe could reply, the tent flap opened and a raider peeked into the room.

“My king, the food for the others is ready. Should I send a runner?” The raider asked.

“No, no,” Deathclaw Joe said, waving his hand slowly. “I’ll take it personally. Princess Sparkle is going to teach me how to teleport. Set the baskets out and I’ll collect them.”

The raider thumped his chest in a salute before leaving the tent. Twilight looked to Deathclaw Joe.

“So you’re going to provide food to those not here tonight?” Twilight asked. Though she already knew from the clues given. She just wanted a conversation topic to follow.

“Yes,” Deathclaw Joe said. He chuckled heartily. “Why should the ones guarding the children of the tribe be punished with empty bellies?”

Twilight smiled. Deathclaw Joe may have punched Fluttershy in the face, but from what she could see, he wasn’t a bad guy… and Fluttershy had literally asked for it by challenging him to a fight.

<>~<>~<>

Twilight fell onto her back, her mane smoking slightly and her royal guard armor painted black with soot.

“Owwww…” Twilight groaned from her spot on the ground.

Electric blue light wrapped around a nearby car door and it flew open, nearly ripping off its hinges as Deathclaw Joe climbed out. He was covered in as much soot as Twilight, and his horn smoked.

“How’d I do, Princess?” he asked with a wide, sarcastic smile as he flopped onto the ground beside her.

Twilight gave him a thumbs-up, and he laughed, pulling himself up with the car door to stand.

Deathclaw Joe needed practice, but at least he had been able to teleport them to where they wanted to go. Twilight saw Fluttershy flying down from a rooftop with a smile on her face.

“Hey, Twilight,” she said softly as she landed. “What’s that you’re carrying?”

Twilight levitated up the basket she’d been holding.

“Picnic food for you and the others inside,” Twilight said, pulling herself up with Fluttershy’s help. Deathclaw Joe removed a bushel of baskets from the car he had ended up inside and took the lead walking towards the building. “How have you been?”

“The potion that Dr. Li brewed for me eased most of the swelling, so I’m doing a lot better,” Fluttershy said. Her nose wasn’t as puffy as it had been the day before. “What about you, Twilight, how’s the Knock?”

“Hasn’t started yet,” Twilight replied as they stepped into the building. Past the door was a sandbag wall, manned by Pinkie Pie and a heavily muscled New Horde raider with a home-made monstrosity of a weapon. It was a belt-fed machine gun loaded with shotgun shells.

“Hiya, Twi!” Pinkie Pie said gleefully. She tapped the top of her newly repaired grenade machine gun, which was braced on the sand-bag wall and pointing towards the door. “What did you and Deathclaw Joe bring us? Smells yummy enough to put in my tummy.”

She rubbed her belly and licked her lips as Deathclaw Joe opened the basket and levitated her a brahmin steak sandwich, an apple, and a bottle of water. He passed similar foodstuff to the shotgun guard, and then Fluttershy.

“Thank you,” Fluttershy said graciously. She glanced to Twilight. “If you need me, I’ll be on the roof keeping watch for anyone approaching the building.”

She smoothed down Twilight’s mane with her hand before leaving, allowing Twilight to catch up with Deathclaw Joe. He walked towards a door past a reception desk which had been fortified with more sandbags, two more guards—one of whom was Spike—and a turret.

“This place is fortified,” Twilight said, checking to see if she had missed another reinforcement in the room. “Are you expecting an attack?”

“No,” Deathclaw Joe said softly. “But it's better to be prepared than regret your inaction after the worst comes to pass. How far would you go to protect the people you love?”

Twilight clenched her jaw. It was a good question. The only time she had killed was in self defense. The two raiders, the feral ghouls, and the radroaches. She hadn’t gone out of her way to kill if there wasn’t another, better option… excluding executing Glenn, but Twilight never felt sorry for the gunk that she wiped off her hooves, and Glenn was beneath that in her mind.

Twilight didn’t know what she would do or how far she would go. But she could see what Deahtclaw Joe had chosen. Rather than eliminating the risk to his people by blindly killing the threat, he fostered a safe, well defended hiding spot for his people to retreat to.

“As far as I would need to,” Twilight replied, not happy with the slight quiver in her voice. “I wish the rest of the wasteland was as refined and nice as the New Horde. Your people don’t count as raiders in my opinion.”

“Oh, we’re raiders,” Deathclaw Joe said as he took the time to wave to the guards and pass them food. “I just picture us as more traditional raiders. Long ago, in Earth’s ancient past, raiders would sail up and down the coasts and rivers, pillaging and raiding. But fighting and raiding wasn’t all they did. They explored new lands, farmed, and traded.”

He pushed through the door behind the reception desk, revealing a room packed with people. Most of the adults were women, three of them Twilight saw right offhand were swollen with late-stage pregnancies. Another mother sat on a rocking chair, nursing her infant in full view of everyone else in the room.

The children, who made up most of the room’s population, danced, giggled, pulled each-other’s hair, or generally played around, ignoring the giant who had entered the room. A cluster of older children sat in a block near a far corner of the room. They were arranged three wide and three deep, patiently watching a woman write the alphabet onto a wall with chalk. One of the children was a pegasus, and another a unicorn.

Twilight’s throat went dry as she realized the portals didn’t discriminate against age when they snatched someone away… and someone had sent them back.

“Poppa!” a little girl shrilled, nearly throwing herself head over heels as she changed direction and charged Deathclaw Joe. She flung herself around his leg, entangling it in a death-grip.

“Gah!” Deathclaw Joe muttered as he stumbled from the weight of an overeager child clamping to him. “Hello, Silver.”

“You have a daughter?” Twilight asked, glad for the distraction.

He nodded as a woman walked up to Deathclaw Joe. He stooped down so she could kiss him on the cheek.

“Hello, honey,” the woman said. She turned to Princess Twilight and bowed only as far as her swollen belly would let her, “Hello, Princess Twilight. My name is Samantha, I’m Joe’s second wife.”

“Hello Samantha,” Twilight said, taking a step closer to the woman and smiling. “It's nice to meet you. When are you due?”

“Around a month,” Deathclaw Joe replied with a warm, fatherly smile as he pried Silver off his leg. He hauled the giggling girl up before setting her down so her legs straddled his thick neck. “Sorry to speak for you, Sammy, but where are Odin and Hades? I don’t see them.”

“Training with one of the Equestrians upstairs,” Samantha replied.

“Oh?” Deathclaw Joe asked with a chuckle. He bent over and planted a kiss on the top of Samantha’s head before he telekinetically pulled Silver off of himself. He set the giggling girl down beside her mother, but Silver didn’t stay long before rejoining the game of tag with the other children in the room. “I’m going to find them before they do too much damage to the poor pony.”

“I don’t know who would damage who,” Samantha said. “She was in armor like Princess Sparkle’s, but gold.”

So, a royal guard had been ripped away to Earth. Twilight wondered how she was doing.

<>~<>~<>

Twilight heard the swords clashing together before they walked into the room.

A pegasus mare in royal guard armor laughed as she fended off two attackers at once.

“Is that all you got!?” she yelled. The mare held the first child at arm's length with one hand firmly clamped over his face. The boy seemed to be only a year or so older than Silver, and his short arms could only manage to reach the guard with the tip of the sword, clanging uselessly against her armor.

Meanwhile, the second child, visibly youthful despite being as tall as the guard, clattered his sword into the guard’s.

They stopped as Deathclaw Joe coughed into his fist.

As the royal guard laid her eyes on Twilight, she snapped to attention and saluted, dropping her sword. It was a double-edged straight sword with a roaring creature as the decorative crossguard. Twilight couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be a lion, a dragon, or a blend of the two.

“P-princess Twilight, I, um… I wasn’t deserting Equestria, I was merely doing reconnaissance,” she lied rather unconvincingly. Twilight rolled her eyes.

Deathclaw Joe laughed and levitated sandwiches, fruit, and water out of the basket Twilight carried.

“How are you, Air Drop?” He asked, handing her and his children the last of the food. Everyone else downstairs had already been fed. “No broken bones, contusions, or lacerations, I hope?”

“I’m doing well, my king,” Air Drop said, bowing slightly. She glanced at Twilight, bolted upright and winced. “I mean, um… Deathclaw Joe.”

Twilight facepalmed.

“Oooooh, you’re in trouble,” the smaller of the two children cooed.

“Odin,” Deathclaw Joe muttered, and his son shrunk under his glare.

“S-sorry, Papa,” Odin said.

“Heh, who's in trouble now,” the taller of the two squeaked with a voice that was a few octaves short of shattering glass. Now that Hades was still, Twilight could see his facial hair was coming in. And from the way his voice cracked, the boy was going through puberty. He was nearly six feet tall and probably only twelve or thirteen years old. He had his father’s height.

Hades flushed bright red and grabbed his throat.

“Damnit,” he muttered, still squeaking.

“Hades, it’s impolite to swear in front of guests,” Deatclaw Joe chided with a firm tone. “If you think you’re so grown up, go downstairs and help guard the door. Odin, go practice your writing with the other young ones downstairs.”

“Yes, papa,” Odin said, dropping his sword beside the others. He raced his brother out the door.

“What about me, sir?” Air Drop asked.

“I don’t know,” Deathclaw Joe said. He smiled wickedly. “Princess Twilight, what’s the punishment for traitors in Equestria? She clearly has conflicting loyalties.”

Twilight picked up on his jovial tone, but from how Air Drop shifted and twitched, she hadn’t. Twilight smiled. It was time to have a little fun of her own.

“It depends,” Twilight said, resting back on her good leg. “I think for pegasi, we pluck their feathers, one-by-one.”

Air Drop blanched white as a sheet.

“Oh, and then?” Deathclaw Joe asked with mock curiosity, leaning towards the guard, who leaned back while trying to stay at attention.

“We tar them and put the feathers back on.”

Air Drop’s knees buckled, and she collapsed.

“Oh, fuck—” Twilight cursed, rushing over to the collapsed guard. “I think we overdid it.”

“Maybe a bit,” Deathclaw Joe said, rubbing his temples. “But now that she’s down for the count, is her loyalty to me going to cause problems between us? I have a few more royal guards back at Metro Central.”

Twilight shook her head.

“If they want to join you, that's fine with me,” Twilight said. “Just as long as none of them try and take my head off with a fireaxe.”

She cringed at the fresh memory. Her heart rate spiked at just the reminder of the fear she had felt. It wasn’t a pleasant memory. Or one she’d soon forget.

Deathclaw Joe’s large hand squeezed her shoulder.

“So, you taught me how to teleport,” Deathclaw Joe said. “Want to—”

Deathclaw Joe was cut off as Fluttershy rushed into the room, tears streaming down her face as Electrum and Spike followed behind her.

Twilight’s heart stopped when she saw the look of anguish in Spike’s eyes. Electrum was more composed, but scowled like she had eaten something sour.

If Electrum was back…

“Y-you stopped General Beckett, right?” Twilight stuttered. She teetered on her hooves as her head rushed. There was only one reason Electrum would be back in such a sour mood. Twilight couldn't accept it. “Those are tears of joy, right?”

Electrum shook her head.

“I wish they were,” Electrum said. “Applejack wanted to wait until everyone was together to give you the news herself, but you all deserve to know. I couldn’t wait.” She shook her head. “Beckett tricked ponies into carrying tactical nukes into Canterlot and Cloudsdale. Manehattan survived because the bomb was sabotaged.”

Twilight’s legs threatened to give out like the guard’s. A pit opened in her stomach and her body trembled. It felt like she was floating and falling at the same time. Tears welled up in her eyes.

Deathclaw Joe’s growl snapped her out of the cold grasp of terror and heartbreak. He turned towards her, and his white mane flowed as if caught in an ethereal wind, just like Celestia or Luna’s mane.

“Want to learn how to disembowel someone with magic?” Deathclaw Joe asked her, his suddenly calm tone belying ice-cold rage.

<>~<>~<>

Twilight carefully observed Deathclaw Joe’s movements. The news of losing two cities was fresh on her mind. But she wouldn’t allow herself to collapse with dread. She was going to learn how to fight.

She had tried to fight against the world like an Equestrian. It was time to learn how to fight like a human with her magic. No pulling punches like when she used spells to knock out the changelings. She needed spells that could kill rather than disable.

She watched Deathclaw Joe inhale a deep breath before he placed his hooves shoulder-width apart. His horn crackled with electric blue magic, and a sword made of the same-colored light formed in the air in front of him.

“Picture your weapon in your mind,” he said. “Concentrate on the idea of it and not the exact dimensions. Go with the flow, don’t force it, and let your magic fill in the details that you don’t worry about.”

Twilight mirrored his stance. Inhaling, she clearly pictured a weapon in her mind. Pouring magic into her horn, she formed the weapon in front of her. A giant bow, like the ones the new horde used with enough skill and power to pin super mutants to walls.

The spell was simple to form, almost requiring no effort for her.

“Impressive,” Deathclaw Joe called out. “We’ll make a Liberty Beacon out of you.”

Twilight’s spell fizzed out as she spluttered, “W-wait, did you get a spell idea from a comic book!?”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Deathclaw Joe asked, forming a shield over one of his arms.

Twilight grimaced. He was right, but that didn’t make it any less crazy.

Deathclaw Joe raised the shield. “Now let's test your power.”

“Are you crazy!?” Twilight balked. “What if I punch through?”

“You won’t,” Deahtclaw Joe bragged. His horn flared as he poured more magic into the shield, charging the spell as if it were a capacitor. Rather than an all encompassing bubble, all the effort was being directed into blocking a single direction.

It was genius. Humans, who had never had magic of their own, could pour all of their raw creativity into new ways of thinking about magic. Twilight smiled. New avenues of study and ideas could be explored that Equestrians would have never considered after years of learning how to do magic traditionally.

Twilight formed the bow in front of herself again, the spike on the bottom planting firmly into the rooftop as she drew back the spectral string. A shaft of lavender light tipped with a diamond of starlight-white formed in the bow.

Twilight carefully aimed at the electric blue shield of light. She could barely see through it to Deathclaw Joe on the other side.

She let the arrow loose.

CLANG

“Ow!” Deathclaw Joe yelped as the shaft of light pierced his shield.

“Oh my gosh!” Twilight yelled, spreading her wings and flying over to Joe. The arrow flickered out of existence with her bow at the same time Deathclaw Joe dispelled his shield. “Please tell me you’re okay!”

He laughed, prodding the wound.

“Bah, the radscorpion-lion had a worse sting. My shield took most of the blow, and it barely went a half-inch in. Just a flesh wound,” Deathclaw Joe reassured her as he wiped his bloody finger on his loincloth. “But, I learned my lesson, no more being your target practice, Princess of Magic. Good shot by the way.”

Twilight beamed at the compliment.

“Thanks,” she said, then scratched her chin. “You said you were stung by a manticore, the radscorpion-lion as you put it. How’d you survive the venom?”

Deathclaw Joe shrugged.

“It killed one of my people outright with a sting, maybe it’s because I’m an alicorn?” Deathclaw Joe asked.

Twilight hummed in thought. Perhaps that was the case. Alicorns were tough. Luna had survived being impaled with two swords at once and shot in the face with a laser. With Celestia, Luna, and Cadance's magic in her, Twilight had survived Tirek throwing her through multiple mountains. She herself had survived a close encounter with a landmine.

“I think you’re right,” Twilight said. “When did you become an alicorn, by the way? Before you left Equestria, or after?”

“Almost immediately after,” Deathclaw Joe said. “I had an epiphany on my return, like everything made sense all at once, and before I knew it I had my cutie mark and wings.”

Twilight looked down towards his thigh. There was enough skin exposed to spot his cutie mark. A crown being slashed apart by claws made of lightning.

“What do you think your mark means?” Twilight asked.

Deathclaw Joe looked down at it.

“To me, it means hope,” Deahtclaw Joe said. “That’s what kept me going in the steel yards and blast furnaces of the Pitt. Hope that I could escape and make something better for myself. Maybe come back and get my revenge when I was as strong as the man in the comic books I would read when the slave masters weren’t looking.” Deathclaw Joe sighed and whispered in a language Twilight didn’t know. “Sic semper tyrannis.”

One look at his kingdom, and Twilight had to admit that he had done well for himself.

“So, um, Deathclaw Joe,” Twilight said. She wanted to distract him from what was clearly a sore subject. “I noticed someone in your kingdom put bottle caps over the eyes of the dead woman. Is there some sort of religious meaning behind that?”

Deathclaw Joe brightened right up with a laugh.

“Nah, people just started copying me when I did it, and I never stopped them. I feel strange when a corpse stares at me, so putting the caps over their eyes was a way to make dead bodies less scary,” Deathclaw Joe said with a small shrug and chuckle. “I told you I was afraid of many things.”

So, even Deathclaw Joe had to giggle at the ghosties.

<>~<>~<>

The incident with the arrow didn’t slow down Twilight’s training with Deathclaw Joe on the rooftop. Hours flew by, and before Twilight knew it, it was past time to return for the Knock.

Thankfully, Deathclaw Joe had picked up teleportation just as fast as she had learned how to conjure weapons made of magic.

They arrived onto the bridge above the picnic tables. The New Horde band busied themselves pounding out beats on their drums, backed up by the cry of horns, the clink of tambourines, and the rattle of maracas.

Singing rang from below them. Twilight leaned over the bridge, and on the stage towards the back of the station, men and women in costumes danced or acted out scenes of combat with creatures of the wasteland.

Every picnic table was jam-packed with raiders drinking and gorging themselves on plates heaped with food. And from how high up Twilight was, she could see couples were already making use of the bedrolls hidden mostly out of view.

Thankfully, the scent of food and alcohol rising up from below was enough to overpower the scent of the hundreds of unwashed bodies. The Knock was in full swing.

“Isn’t it a faux pas to be late to your own party?” Twilight asked Deathclaw Joe, who was beside her.

“What's a faux pas?” Deathclaw Joe asked. “If you mean rude, yes, I did lose track of time. But I’m the king, so my vassals operate off my schedule, not theirs.”

Twilight frowned. That was inconsiderate, but she was in no place to tell Deathclaw Joe that he was in the wrong as he stepped away from her and walked towards the longest and widest of the three tents on the bridge. Twilight followed.

Inside was a long, wide banquet table covered in cloth and lidded platters. Around a dozen raiders sat on each of the long sides. The head of the table was wide enough for three thrones, with the central having the gilded deathclaw skull mounted above it, and the leftmost throne had Lisa sitting on it, her sword leaning on the armrest.

“Ah,” Lisa said, clapping her hands together. “I was wondering when you’d arrive, my king. Our guests are rather famished after their long walk here.”

She raised a wine-glass near empty with the shallow dregs of a slightly pink drink. A yellow unicorn stallion in a tuxedo standing off to the side of the table levitated a pitcher over the glass and refilled it. He wasn’t the only pony in the room.

There were two more royal guards giving Twilight worried glances, as well as a few of the seated raiders having pony features. She assumed the raiders in the tent were the leaders of the hundreds of raiders down below.

Deathclaw Joe placed his hand between Twilight’s wings and gently guided her towards the head of the table. As they passed by seated raiders, she heard many of them mutter as they spotted the wings on their backs.

“Twilight and I were busy,” Deathclaw Joe said. “I see everyone’s arrived by four P.M. for a change.”

“Why would we be late?” a raider woman with more piercings and tattoos than hair asked. About the only hair on her head were the tufts of fur sticking off her bat pony ears. “All of us expected you to call us together to raid Equestria with the help of the golden unicorn.”

There was a chorus of agreement from the three other raiders in the room with Equestrian features. Twilight clenched her jaw. Electrum had been the one to send raiders to Equestria, and it wasn’t just the insane surface raiders, either.

All of the metal tracks made the perfect etching surface for artificial leylines. Additionally, the conductive properties of metal helped draw the wild magic portals into the subterranean depths.

The latter part was Twilight’s theory. She didn’t have another explanation that would contradict her hypothesis as to why a vast majority of the portals had opened up underground.

She pushed aside the thought as she sat on the throne next to Deathclaw Joe, opposite of Lisa. It was likely Samantha’s throne.

“Raid Equestria?” Deathclaw Joe laughed. “I see a few of you have been tempted by the rolling green hills and the idea of a soft people to lay waste to. Would you be all so bold as to repeat that idea if you knew the woman beside me was a leader of that realm? Or the guards in this tent being guards from that world?”

The tent went quiet. A few of the raiders glanced at the ex-royal guards who carried their spears as well as long daggers in sheaths as sidearms. The daggers weren’t standard issue gear, but the scabbards were too fine to be raider manufactured.

The raiders were unarmed as far as Twilight could tell.

“Thought so,” Deathclaw Joe said. “Now that I’m here, I have a few things to discuss before we drink ourselves stupid.” He glanced towards three separate raiders in quick succession. “Lupa, Dominic, and Casandra, go join your gangs downstairs. You are not welcome in my tent.”

“But my king, I try to live by your example!” a raider yelled as she leapt up. She wore sports padding reinforced with leather and metal. Twilight guessed it was Casandra since she was the only female he had named out of the group. “My gang takes no chems, barely drinks to excess, and treats those coming through our territory with respect.”

The other two seemed just as appalled, while the rest of the raiders were bemused at the others’ punishment, or confused.

“Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery,” Deathclaw Joe rumbled. “But it can also mean you want to imitate me enough to the point that you think you can replace me. You are not welcome at this banquet table tonight. You three gather your people and leave. We’ll discuss how to rectify your insolence later.”

“But—” another raider started.

“I AM KING!” Deathclaw Joe roared, his eyes flashing bright as he used the royal Canterlot voice, mane blowing in ethereal wind once more. “Leave in peace or leave in pieces!”

He raised his hand, and Lisa rose from her seat, hand clasped around the hilt of her sword.

The three raiders scrambled to leave, and the rest of the table roared with laughter as Lisa followed them out.

Twilight shrank down into her chair from the outburst.

“Now that the riff-raff is gone,” Deathclaw Joe said. “I propose we get this Knock started right.”

His horn flared, and a wooden keg floated into the air from behind his throne, wrapped in his electric blue magic. Following behind the keg were enough tankards for everyone around the table.

“My famous punga-fruit mead,” Deathclaw Joe said with pride in his voice and a wide smile on his face. All traces of anger had melted away from him like snow in but a moment. “Freshly brewed, with ingredients added from Equestria to make it as new and unique as possible for my honored guests tonight.”

One raider was visibly salivating at the sight of the keg. Twilight wanted to know where on Earth he had managed to find a wooden keg as a tankard was placed in front of her.

Thick, slightly golden mead gushed out of the keg’s spigot and into the tankard. It smelled of cinnamon and apples, with a hint of berries. Once it was full, she lifted the tankard to her lips, but Deahtclaw Joe stopped her.

“It’s a toast, we all drink together,” he said while passing out the tankards as he filled them.

When the final tankard was in a raider’s hand, he held up his hand to grab everyone’s attention.

“One last thing before we drink,” Deathclaw Joe said. “Some musical accompaniment.”

“Don’t we have the music outside?” Twilight asked.

“We do, but that’s New Horde music,” Deathclaw Joe said as the unicorn who had given Lisa her refill flared his horn. All sound from the outside became a muffled din as the unicorn levitated a cello over to himself from the corner of the tent. “Deep Tones, play us that piece of Equestrian classical music I loved so much. Share with the crowd here what Equestria can bring us.”

“With pleasure, my king,” Tones said with a bright, pearly white smile. He flitted the bow across the strings, and Deathclaw Joe lifted his tankard to his lips and drank deeply. The rest of the raiders followed suit.

The alcohol tasted like an apple pie, heavy on the apples and cinnamon, with a strong alcoholic burn to it like whiskey despite being more of a wine if it was truly mead.

Twilight’s ears flicked. She knew the song, but couldn’t quite remember where she’d heard it.

“Damn, this is your best batch yet,” a raider called out. “What’s in this?”

“The secret ingredient is love,” Deathclaw Joe laughed.

One of the raiders choked and grabbed at their throat, and Twilight remembered the song. Rain Over Broken Hearts. It was a funeral song.

“Love… and manticore venom,” Deathclaw Joe said coldly as more raiders spluttered and coughed. He nodded to the guards.

They tossed their spears aside and drew their daggers. The pair raced to get behind raiders and slit their choking, gasping throats as the musician continued to play, unwavering as jets of blood sprayed over the table and other dying guests.

Deathclaw Joe merely smiled and drained the rest of his tankard.

“Being an alicorn certainly has its perks,” Deathclaw Joe said. He set his empty tankard down and turned to face Twilight. “So, how much land in Equestria is worth the heads of every rapacious bastard the New Horde can kill?”

As the silence spell of Deep Tones wore off, all Twilight could hear was screaming downstairs drowned out by the clash of swords and gunshots.

Author's Note

My inspiration for the cello music.