Carniola, Market District
Cloud Runner

Storm the bastille? I kept bouncing Cosmo’s suggestion around the inside of my skull as the reality of his words became apparent. “You want to rush De Witt’s position?”

“Pretty sure that’s what he said.” Specter added. “Although I think Cloud has a point-”

“All I did was ask a question.”

“It’s what you didn’t say.” He added, sounding rather snide while he was at it. “Do we even know where De Witt is hiding?”

Now that was a good question. And it brings up a point; we don’t know with much certainty where De Witt is. He was supposed to be hiding out in his fortress, yet he wasn’t there.

“Specter is right.” Sky said. “There’s no guarantee that De Witt is hiding out in the city hall. And for the sake of adding to that, what if De Witt has another trap laid out for us at the front door?”

“It’s a chance we’ll need to take.” Cosmo insisted.

“With the risks we’re staring at? No way.”

Cosmo must’ve heard those last two words because his fiery glare immediately came to bear with its full force. “Are you fucking with me?”

“No, I’m not.” I growled.

Before Cosmo or I could do anything that we might regret Sky stepped between the two of us. “You’re both right!” She yelled.

“How are we both right?” I questioned.

“Look, we’re going to need to storm the city hall eventually. But it's too risky without knowing who’s in there.” She explained. “So what can we do to cut back on the risk?”

The four of us didn’t say a word; Sky was right on both counts and I certainly couldn't argue with her logic.

“We’ll have to scout it.” Specter finally said.

“Then we need to get moving.” Sky pointed out. “Once the sun comes up it’s going to be a lot harder to get close. If I remember correctly there’s a row of townhouses across the plaza from the main entrance.”

“What makes you think that they’re empty?” Cosmo asked.

“I never suggested that they’re empty.” Sky retorted.

“I could clear one.” I offered.

Cosmo glanced at me and nodded. “Get moving. We’ll wait five minutes then follow.”

I nodded and started walking down the sidewalk before I felt a pair of arms wrap around my neck. “Be careful.” I heard Sky whisper followed by the obvious tap of her muzzle against the side of my helmet.

Maybe it’s because I’m turning a bit cynical after these last few days but it almost sounds like she doesn’t want me to go. It’s just too bad… Someone’s got to do it.

***

Making my way around Emona was rather easy. Bar the guards we ran into on arrival the city was entirely empty. A city of thousands abandoned to the tides of war… There’s something poetic about it, that’s certain. But that small fact is lost to me as I kept walking down the dark sidewalk. As the courtyard and the city hall came into view I noticed I was walking past an unshattered storefront. I glanced to the side and saw my silhouette reflecting in the glass, barely visible in the dim moonlight.

I studied the silhouette for a moment before I clicked on my helmet’s night vision filter. Only two weeks ago I was learning to become a teacher. Now I’m standing on foreign soil fighting a war that’s aimed at disposing a dictatorial madstallion… What a time to be alive, eh?

But the more I think about my present situation the more I think back to the restaurant in Canterlot… Just to think I’d get embroiled in a war because I decided that some dinner with my parents wouldn’t hurt.

And yet I’m strangely at peace, at least for the moment. With enough deep thought behind me I started walking down the street again. After a few minutes I came across a corner storefront that had a decent line of sight to City Hall. The door opened under a hard shove, breaking two screws that had been put through the door and into the doorframe. Whoever owned this shop must’ve wanted to keep the riffraff out… But the empty shelves lining the store begged to question the effectiveness of the effort.

As I took in the store I realized a simple fact; there was no door on the back of the store. There was a simple counter with open storage behind it. No back door, no stairs to the upper floors. Nothing.

I heard a set of footsteps come in the door behind me, and for a brief second I froze.

“This’ll do.” Cosmo muttered. “Good find Cloud.”

Two other sets of footsteps followed him in before the door clicked shut. As the realization that I was among friends hit me I felt that weight holding me in place instantly disappear. I turned watched as Specter set up a tube of some sort on the top of one of the shelves in the empty store. “What are you doing?”

“Setting up a periscope.” He said as he spun the last wingnut down and tightened it with a deft movement of his fingers. “I figure this is a safer bet than sticking my head out where some guard can see it.”

“Well let's stop and think about it.” I said. “We only ran into one group of guards when we got here. We haven’t seen a single resident of this supposedly populated area, and this shop is entirely empty. When I got here the door was held shut with screws, but with no other way in there’s no easy way to loot this joint.”

“And all the shelves are empty…” Sky replied. “Cloud’s got a point. Where is everyone? Hell, where is everything?”

Cosmo and Specter both took pause with Sky’s question. Then Cosmo did something unexpected; he stamped on the floor. “Specter, you hear that?”

“It’s not a solid floor…” He muttered. He got up and ran behind the counter, looking for something as he scurried between the empty shelves.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Sky demanded.

“If this was a solid floor it wouldn’t have that hollow quality.” Cosmo said as he went to join Specter. “It would sound like I’m stomping my foot on the sidewalk.”

“Found it!” Specter yelled.

“Found what?” I asked as Cosmo ran back to join Specter. With no answer I followed Cosmo to the back of the store in the hopes of finding what he was referencing.

As Sky and I stood and watched Cosmo and Specter pour over a section of the floor our answer came quickly when they swung the section of floor up and onto another section of the ground, leaving a gaping hole down into a dark basement. “If you don’t want your stuff to get stolen, you put it out of sight.” Cosmo said. “Anyone got a light?”

“Already on it.” Specter muttered as he fished a small flashlight out of his jacket. A flick of the switch on the side of it’s grey body illuminated the dark depths of the store. “I’m going in.” Without as much as a word to stop him Specter slid down the hole and hit the floor with a thud.

It seemed as if time was ticking by ever slower, with not even a word from down below. “Specter?” Cosmo called.

Then we heard something; a piece of metal clattering against the stone foundation. “Agh! Fuck!” Specter yelled.

“Specter, you OK?” Cosmo yelled. The colt didn’t respond. Instead we saw a beam of light roll across the ground below us. “Oh no…” Cosmo pulled out his pistol and jumped down to the floor, his horn providing the illumination. He muttered something unintelligible before we heard the distinctive click of the pistol’s hammer. “Show me your hands, now!”

I didn’t wait for Cosmo to start shooting before I jumped down into the pit. With a quick flick of my wrist the lights on the side of my helmet came on and shone across a group of at least a dozen Griffons. At the front of the group was four children, cowering under Cosmo’s glare and pointed gun. On the floor between us was an adult Griffon, kneeling over Specter with bloody rags.

I ran through the mental gymnastics before I stepped between Cosmo and the group. “Cosmo, they’re harmless.”

“That one there stabbed Specter!” He yelled.

I glanced over at the Griffon and realized what he was doing; he was trying to put pressure on a bloody stab-wound in his chest. But the look on his face wasn’t one of rage or anger; it was fear. “You’re all hiding down here because of the invasion, aren’t you?” I asked.

“That’s part of it.” The Griffon trying to stop Specter’s bleeding said. “The Governor’s forces are the other half.”

“Governor… You mean De Witt?”

“Exactly.” He replied. “Shelia, I need some more clean rags.” He said to a female sitting behind him.

The female handed him a bundle of towels and looked up at me. “The Equestrians aren’t the problem. The Governor’s soldiers are. They've taken everything from my family. Our livelihood, our home, everything.”

I looked over at Cosmo and saw he still had his gun up. “Put the gun away Cosmo.” I said as I grabbed a can of biofoam off of his belt.

“But Specter-”

“But nothing.” I said. I tossed Sky the can so I could pull my helmet off. Once it cleared my mane I handed it to Cosmo and took the biofoam back from Sky. “We’re dealing with griffons who are hiding from a war. You can’t tell me that you wouldn’t be scared shitless in their place, and maybe even do something stupid.”

Cosmo mulled over my words before he hit the safety on the revolver and put it back in it’s holster. “Damnit…” He muttered. The two of us both took a knee over Specter, and I began to understand the gravity of the situation. All around the rags Specter’s clothing was dyed a shade of red deep enough where it began to take a purple hue. “You guys don’t have a doctor, do you?”

“I was a medic in the Imperial Army.” The Griffon said. “Look, it isn’t good. I’m concerned that the stab wound might have clipped your friend’s aorta, just because of where I hit him. If that’s bleeding or even just bruised we’ve got a massive problem.”

“Well I could’ve told you that.” Specter grunted. “Probably wouldn’t sound all that educated, but it would be about the same.”

I flipped out the needle to the biofoam and wedged it in under the rags, stopping as I felt it wiggle around a bit too much to believe it was being restricted. “You know what this is?” I asked.

“Not a clue.”

“Biofoam, a human invention.” I said as I pulled the pin that locked the trigger in place. “Works wonders, stings like a bitch.”

“What do you mean-”

hiss…

“ARGH!!!”

Specter started writhing around and screaming as the medical foam filled the cavity in his chest. “Shit, hold him down!” The griffon yelled. Cosmo grabbed the colt’s legs and pinned them to the ground while Sky slid around us and braced herself against Specter’s shoulders. The ten seconds that it took to finish emptying the can of foam seemed to tick by rather slowly. When the hissing sound of the propellant finally died out a silence fell across the room. I looked to Sky then down to Specter and realized he was lying still. The Griffon put a pair of fingers to the side of his throat and let out a sigh of relief that he must’ve been holding since the biofoam started filling Specter’s wound. “He’s still got a pulse. It’s weak, but it’s still there.”

“That’s probably the best news I’ve heard since we walked in.” Cosmo muttered. “We’ve got to call Dusk.”

“And what’s that gonna do?” I asked.

“Specter is one of Dusk’s ponies.” Cosmo retorted. “He has the right to know what’s happening.”

***

Seven Hours Later…

I keep thinking back to Dusk’s words over the radio. ‘Stay put, I’m coming’ is all he said. But it’s how he said it that had me worried. He sounded like he was running to see a grandparent who was on their deathbed. But is that how he see’s the ponies under him, like cherished family?

Yet we’ve heard nothing from Dusk for hours, and for the better part of the last forty five minutes we’ve heard the faint pops of gunfire outside. Up through the trapdoor to the store above us we could see streams of daylight flicker through as dawn finally broke over Emona. We haven’t even been upstairs at all, Cosmo’s big concern being the potential for other guards milling around the city that we haven’t run into. If the pops of rifles are any indication then I’d suggest that Emona wasn’t as empty as it first seemed.

“Did we win yet?” Specter groaned as he tossed around in his makeshift bed.

“Not yet.” Cosmo replied. He was clearly nervous if the constant fingering of his pistol’s safety was anything to go by.

“Figures…” He groaned. “So how long is that foam supposed to last?”

“No clue.” I answered, thinking back to my own experience with the substance. “Maybe we should check?”

“Right.” The Griffon medic, a fellow by the name of Henric, said as he started undoing the masking tape that held the rags to his bare chest. Once the bandages were out of the way the first thing we noticed was a slight burning smell. It took us a few seconds to find the source; the biofoam had turned from its normal pale green to a sickly brown. “Is this stuff supposed to do that?”

I just shrugged. “I don’t think so.” Come to think of it I didn’t see what the degraded biofoam looked like when it was cleaned out of my chest wound…

CRSSH!

The shattering glass up stairs and a hard thud on the floor above us got us to collectively stop dead. You could’ve heard a pin drop in that moment.

Click

...Or you could hear Cosmo cocking his revolver.

“Cosmo!” Came Dusk’s familiar voice from upstairs. “You here?”

The breath that we had all collectively been holding evaporated once the reality of who was speaking hit. “We’re down here!” Cosmo yelled. He was already moving towards the trap door, getting there just shy of getting toppled by the other unicorn.

Dusk didn’t waste his time and was on his knees over Specter in the blink of an eye. “Why’s the biofoam brown?” He asked.

“I don’t know.” I replied. “I didn’t think it did that.”

“You’re right…” He said as he started poking at it.

tick tick tick tick tick

“What’s that noise?” Henric asked.

Dusk furrowed his brow as the ticking continued. Finally he moved his hand away from the biofoam and the ticking stopped. That’s when I noticed the… Well, thing, he was wearing on his arm. “That was my Pipbuck.” Dusk moved his arm over the biofoam and the ticking started as his ‘Pipbuck’ passed over the biofoam. “Radiation…”

“How the hell did that stuff get irradiated?” Cosmo asked.

Dusk stopped and his eyes went wide. “The bomb.”

“What bomb?” I questioned.

“From when we took on West Wind…” Specter groaned. “I disarmed a bomb that his soldiers left in the cave entrance. It must’ve been radioactive.”

“Cutting your hand inside the casing must’ve picked some of the material up.” Said Dusk. “Damn it…”

“And I doubt there’s an easy way to get him out of the city.” Sky observed. “What’s even going on up there anyway Dusk?”

“Oh, the usual…” He droned. “Urban warfare, fighting house to house for the sake of freedom, and a psycho running it all. You know, kid stuff.”

“Psycho… De Witt’s out there?” Cosmo asked.

“Saw him barking orders outside city hall with my own eyes.”

And there it was. The very reason we walked that tunnel that brought us into Emona. The source of so much agony, both that of the locals and my own. And he’s within striking distance.

And now… Now it’s high time to end this little war.

Author's Note

After a long wait, the next chapter in The Long Road is finally here! With it back on track and the ideas flowing on how to end it I'll be bouncing back and forth between Sacrifice Part III and the next chapter in Broken Mirror. We'll finally see a face-to-face confrontation with De Witt that isn't on his terms.

In the meantime, anyone got questions? Like what you're seeing so far? Hell, maybe have some gripes? There's a comment section and the Mirrorverse Codex. Read and comment away, because I want to hear from you fellow denizens of this corner of the internet. Until next time gang!
-Striker