The Northern Wasteland, Border Region

The Vertibuck shuddered as it touched down, shortly followed by the slowly dying drone of the engines. Jericho made his way to the left side of the cabin and peered out the porthole. “Alright, the outpost is still standing.” He said.

I hit the release for the door and pulled it back along its run. The air immediately changed from slightly chilly to downright cold. Across my face I felt my fur begin to tingle as wind began whipping snow and ice around the Vertibuck’s cabin. “Is it always this cold up here?”

“It’s usually colder if my memory is correct.” Jericho noted.

“Good to know…” I muttered as I made my way across the clearing to the building. Judging by the ruins of houses surrounding it I could only assume that we were in the heart of what was once a bustling town before the Balefire ripped across the land.

The one standing building, likely a government building in it’s past life, had clearly seen better days. Paint had long since peeled away and fluttered off as chips in the harsh northern winds. “What was this place?” I heard Gramps ask.

“We never figured that out.” Jericho replied, followed by the slam of the sliding door on the Vertibuck against the hull as he closed it. “The building was stripped bare by the time we first found it. It could’ve been a guard post, someone’s house…”

I ignored the rest of the conversation and looked around the ‘clearing’. As my glare settled on a dead bush, I thought I saw something rustle. I blinked and for a brief second it looked like there was a set of sickly red bloodshot eyes looking back at me. “I think we’re being watched.” I shouted. If anyone was in the brush, I wanted them to know I saw them.

“I’m not picking up anything on EFS…” Jericho mumbled. “You sure?”

“Are the Snow Furies know for red eyes?”

“... Fuck. We’ve got to get inside.”

As Jericho marched off towards the barred entrance to the building I shouldered my shotgun and started slowly backpedaling towards him. At least twice I thought I saw two more pairs of red eyes staring at us from the underbrush. “Can you get that door open any quicker?” I asked.

“I’m working on it.” Jericho insisted.

After a few tense moments the door swung open and our small group piled in before slamming the door shut. Gramps blasted the door with a bolt of electricity and managed to make a rudimentary weld securing the door to it’s frame. “Hopefully that holds…” He muttered.

The two of us walked deeper into the empty building, finally finding Jericho, Specter and Porter hovering over a large computer console. “Is that the communications system?” I asked.

"No, it’s the espresso machine.” Jericho droned as he typed away.

“Oh… In that case I’ll take a decaf mocha swirl.” I retorted.

“Very funny Dusk…” Jericho muttered. “Now how secure is that outer door?

“I welded it shut.” Gramps answered. “I don’t think we’ll have anyone coming in through there anytime soon.”

"I sure hope so. Those furies are tougher than they look.” After a few minutes of fiddling with the controls the console lit up with a map of the region on it’s screen. “Alright, tracking program is loaded. Porter, you have the signal?”

Porter fished out a holotape and loaded it into one of the console’s drives. “Got a copy right here.”

“Excellent!” As a text box appeared on the screen I could only watch as Jericho typed away at the keyboard. On the map a thin bar began slowly rotating about. “Alright, so how’s this work?”

“This bar here represents the direction that the signal is being aimed in. If a return ping is received then the direction of the signal will reverse until it gets another ping, and on and on until the system gives us an approximate location of the airship.”

“How long is this going to take?” I asked.

Porter offered a shrug. “Probably an hour or so, and that’s assuming a whole hell of a lot.”

“We’re running on an awful lot of assumptions right now…” Specter muttered.

“Specter’s right. We are assuming that quite a bit is working in our favor, and we’re potentially surrounded by hostile locals.” Gramps pointed out. “Simply sitting around isn’t going to work for us right now.”

“So we do a better job of securing our position.” Jericho retorted. “You could always sweep the building General, I’m not stopping you.”

“It’s probably not a bad idea…” I said. “Is there anything in specific that we should check?”

“Not that I can think-”

HA HA HA HA!

“What the hell was that?” Specter asked.

I clicked on the light on the side of my shotgun and moved the beam across the far side of the room. “I don’t know.”

TINK TINK TINK TINK TINK

I swung my gun up towards a ventilation duct just in time to see it stop shaking as something passed through it. “I think we’ve got company.”

I heard the hammers of two revolvers click in agreement, followed by two more lights that illuminated the room. “Has that scanner picked up on anything yet?” Gramps asked.

“I don’t… Wait, I’ve got one!” Jericho shouted.

I felt a bit at ease at hearing those three simple words. “So the ship is out there. Good. Lets hope-”

UMPH!!!

I felt someone slam into my side, and in the split second it took me to realize that fact I had dropped my shotgun and had slammed into a wall about ten feet away. In the time it took for me to clear my head and back to reality the ponies around me had completely changed. Out of everyone in the room, only Gramps didn't look like he was panicking. The steely gaze that he wore when I was young had made a return in the face of whatever had just hit me.

But what had hit me? After realizing that the entire group was looking at someone I turned my attention in that direction. Standing in the far side of the room was a snow-white pony. It was clear that there were patches of fur missing across it’s face, but where the skin underneath that fur was the same shade of white it made it difficult to tell where fur ended and skin began. But even with the ragged dull colored clothing, what really stood out were its eyes. They were yellow and heavily bloodshot, with the tissue around its eyes clearly bloodstained And why do I continue to call this pony ‘it’? Well… I can’t tell if this thing is a mare or a stallion. This thing, this husk of ponykind, was so far gone that I couldn't even tell what side of the fence it fell on.

There was no yelling, no screeching, no noise at all. That monstrosity simply set it’s demented gaze on the oldest member of the group and charged. If I didn’t know any better I would’ve thought that Gramps would’ve at least looked more concerned, but his gaze remained stone-cold as the fury finally got within arms reach. As it went for his throat Gramps snapped, grabbing the creature’s outstretched hands and using the momentum of the fury to swing it right around as he pivoted around on his heels and tossed the fury across the floor.

I scrambled to my feet and spotted my shotgun. With a tug of energy from my horn it came skittering across the floor before leaping into my hands. With no other clear options I aimed the weapon at the fury, now back on its feet and limping towards Gramps, and clicked the safety off. “Back off!” In the blink of an eye the fury had rushed forward and was nearly on top of me. Everything around me seemed to slow to a crawl, including the fury’s charge. I moved to get out of the way and to my shock I was moving at normal speed, and by the time I had gotten clear everything began moving normally again, and I could only watch as the fury smashed into the concrete wall face first.

“How the hell did you do that? Porter exclaimed.

I looked at the fury, busy rubbing it’s obviously broken nose, before turning my attention to Porter and offering a confused look. “I have no idea.”

“Did you drop into SATS?” He asked

I looked down at my pipbuck and saw that the standby timer for SATS was still full. “I don’t think I did.”

“Figure it out later.” Gramps barked. As the fury had gotten its bearings, he must’ve decided that letting the thing keep running around would be a bad idea. So in mere moments he had the creature by the collar of the rags it was wearing, and put it face first into the concrete floor with a sweep of his legs.

“Toys aren’t supposed to fight back.” The fury groaned from its place under Gramp’s boot.

“Get over it.” Gramps retorted as he stepped off the fury. “Now how many of your friends are outside?”

“Enough.”

“Enough doesn’t cut it with me. I want a number.” Gramps rolled his eyes as the grip he had on his revolver tightened. “

CRACK!

Behind me a wood covered window splintered and two bloodied white hands started tearing at the broken boards from the outside. “Oh shit!” Specter yelled. He went for his rifle but Jericho held it down. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Bullet holes don’t do much to keep those barricades intact.” The frantic stallion retorted as he pulled out a knife. Once he reached the window he grabbed the first hand that came into arms length, pulled it in and stabbed the knife three times down into the exposed length of arm that it was attached to before shoving the hand back out through the hole in the barricade. He didn’t get a chance to grab the second, as the hand’s owner retreated from the danger that couldn’t see behind the barricade.

With one window empty, two more hand managed to get between the gaps in the barricade farther down the wall and started clawing at the barricade. One after another this started until all six of the barricaded windows had arms and hands trying to rip the barricades away to allow their demented owner's entry.

The fury got up and backed away from us towards the far wall and the shadows that offered the creature company. With a wry grin and a chuckle the fury disappeared into the shadows, leaving us with one single statement; “I told you there were enough of us.”

As the furies outside slowly made progress at the barred windows I realized that everyone in the room was rather quiet. Maybe fear was kept the room still, or maybe it was there simply out of shock. But that was broken when the terminal in the room made a loud ding. “Holy shit, we’ve got the airship’s location.” I whipped around and saw the dot blinking on the screen, easily a few inches from what was represented as our present location on the map, but with no scale I couldn’t wager a guess as to how far we’d have to walk. And that right there presents another issue. If we’re surrounded by these snow furies, how do we get to the airship ALIVE while we’re getting dogged by these things? To top that all off there’s likely other obstacles in our way between the airship and our enclave. But as the cord from my pipbuck retracted I realized that Jericho had deployed it while I was distracted by my thoughts. As I looked down at the screen I saw the map had opened up with a new destination marker highlighted on it easily a few hours of hiking away.

“So I guess we start walking?” I asked.

Jericho got up from the terminal and hit the power to it. “Not even close. We’ll take the Vertibuck and bypass the furies.”

“Did you notice what’s outside Jericho?” Specter asked. “Because just getting to that rust bucket will take a miracle.”

“Then start shooting once we get out that door.” Jericho spat. “That goes for everyone. If you something move and it isn’t one of us, then shoot it.”

“Wouldn’t it be a better idea to stand and fight? We’ve got a reasonably secure position that we can use to our advantage.” Gramps pointed out.

Jericho shook his head. “That won’t matter once the furies break the barricades. Just… Look, just trust me. These things aren’t something to easily fight off.”

“We only need to hold them long enough to get the vertibuck airborne.” Gramps countered. “Can we do that?”

“Probably.” Jericho admitted. “But it isn’t going to be easy.”

A quick check of the slot cut at the back of the tube magazine of my shotgun and saw that there were two shells visible. The tube held it six rounds ready to go with a seventh round already in the chamber. Would those shots be enough to help us get back to the vetibuck, or am I going to have to get primitive and fight like a pony who has yet to discover fire or pointed sticks? “As I see it we’ll be fighting those furies eventually. We might as do it now.”

Jericho nodded and shouldered his rifle“Well then… Who wants to get the door?”

“We don’t need a door.” Gramps replied. He quickly wound up and blasted the largest window with a bolt of white magic, obliterating the barricade and splattering parts of the window frame with the blood of the fury that was on the opposite side.

The fragments of wood had only just settled into their new homes in the drifts along the side if the building once I cleared the sill and landed in snow that went up to my knees. As I struggled to sprint out of the drift I felt something latch onto my leg and trip me up. As my face landed in the thinner layer of snow away from the building I felt someone’s hands trying to pull at my boot. I managed to get onto my back and sit up to see Porter hop out the window and plant his boot into the back of what was apparently a snow fury. He stomped onto it’s arm and hauled it out of the bank. Gramps was the last one out of the building with his revolver already in hand. “That’s a mistake!” He yelled as he cocked the hammer and aimed the barrel at the pile of snow that was likely the fury’s head.

BANG!

The snow changing color from white to red was met immediately by the fury’s grip on my boot releasing. “Come on!” Porter yelled as he hooked my shoulder guard and dragged me to my feet. “We need to keep moving!”

Jericho and Specter had already made it to the vertibuck, something that became abundantly clear as I half ran, half stumbled over to the aircraft. Both of them were sweeping the clearing with their rifles but weren’t firing. As I turned around I realized the decided lack of the snow furies that had been trying to force their way into the outpost. “Where the hell are the furies?” I asked.

“No clue.” Jericho replied as he struggled with the nearly frozen lock on the vertibuck’s external door. He kept trying to chip away at the ice that was locking up the mechanism with the key franticly. “Come on… This shouldn't have frozen already.”

THUNK!

Before our eyes the handle on the outside of the door turned upward and the door was thrown back along it’s rail. Inside was clearly a snow fury, but it was wearing an off-colored white fur mask.

Wait… That’s not fur. As the fury leap out and slammed a hook down into Jericho’s shoulder I saw the small patches of fur that had fallen off. Underneath was dried and cracked skin. There were clear bruises suspended in the petrified flesh, and dried blood around a hole in the top of the mask where a horn would’ve been. I wasn’t just staring the face of another fury. I was staring at the dismembered face of a pony I had abandoned.

That thing was wearing Spark’s face.

As the fury unhooked Jericho and tossed him to the side he saw me and kicked a bunch of snow into my face. I was quick to wipe the snow out of my eyes and backpedal away from the fury. It had instead grabbed Specter and tossed him on top of Jericho.

When the fury turned to Porter he slammed him into the side of the vertibuck, shaking the whole craft with the impact. That’s when I noticed he dropped something in the snow. It was small and round with a square protrusion sticking out from the top. While I couldn’t tell much more in the dim light of the wastes, it didn’t take much to realize that it was a grenade. And what was best is that the fury was too busy trying to pummel Porter. Remembering the trick I used inside to get my shotgun, I pulled the explosive towards me and checked the fury hard enough to knock it into the veribuck’s cabin. “Get back!” I yelled as I pulled the pin on the grenade. As I rolled it across the floor the fury had already gotten to its feet and was scrambling towards me. I slammed the door shut and managed to turn around before I heard a thud. After that all I could hear was ringing, followed by a wave of heat that washed over me before I felt my feet leave the ground.

I know I was tumbling head over heels, but how far I went was beyond me. As I tumbled through the underbrush and came to a stop on my back. I wanted to try and find Gramps and Porter, maybe make sure they were alright but the weight that crashed into me as I tried to sit up kept me on the ground. To put it simply I was exhausted. I opened my eyes and noticed something odd; a cloaked figure standing over me. In the pale light I could make out a grey beard but not much else. Maybe I was staring at the grim reaper? But as the figure walked away I saw a red flare shoot up into the sky directly over me. As the flare kept flickering I felt the exhaustion start weighing on my eyelids as they finally shut.

But off in the distance, over the dim whistling of the wind through the trees I heard someone yelling “Dusk!”. But for everything that had happened I just couldn’t bring myself to care or even speak up; all I could do was let my neck go limp and slowly drift away into unconsciousness.

Author's Note

And there, after much work (both on the story and otherwise), is our introduction to "The North". I think that I did a decent job with the snow furies after my tweaks on the first pass. Instead of the repertoire between the fury that snuck into the building and Meteor Shower, we've got an actual fight. But of course we've got questions... Like why was the fury that hid in the vertibuck wearing Spark's face? For those who don't remember Spark was the engineer who martyred himself in the last arc when he blew the boilers on the Chicacolt. While there's no clear explanation now there will be in the fourth arc. And finally we've been introduced to two more plotpoints to consider; Dusk's seemly rapid onset of exhaustion and the bearded figure that he saw before passing out from said exhaustion. Anyone who read the codex (or the first part of Broken Mirror, which is still up in all it's flawed glory) knows that Dusk spent a bit of time with ONI and received augmentations meant for human Spartan candidates. Dusk at this point in the Broken Mirror timeline has yet to fully understand what the augmentations have done to him, and those same augmentations are definitely feeding into his "energy" issue. That'll crop up in the upcoming Arc III where it'll get a "band-aid" solution. As for our bearded "friend", he'll be cropping up from here on our.

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